Pink and purple are one of my favorite colors, so you can imagine it is even more fun to create a beautiful painting where they are the stars. They are always fantastic and the feeling I get when I look at the painting is the equivalent of a warm glow. It puts a smile on my face each and every time.
When I first saw the lilies, at the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park on Grand Cayman, I just knew I would paint them. The colors are just delicious and - dare I say this - very me. There are lilies and lily pads above and below water. There are no two lily pads that are alike, each has its own unique color. Even so, the colors of pink and purple show up in almost every lily. This is just amazing!
The warmth of the sun comes through and I can feel it in the subtle reflection of the clouds in the sky. Monet loved to paint his lily pond because of the reflections of clouds, and the subtle shifts of color they make made his paintings oh so dreamy.
But, we are in the tropics, 19 degrees north of the equator, 4 degrees south of the Tropic of Cancer. The idea of Koi swimming in the lily pond is something that you, sadly, will not see here. Instead, there might be local fresh water turtle, known as the hickatee, sunning itself along the banks of the pond along with some Greenhouse frogs. The endangered Cayman Parrot will be flying, and squawking, overhead and colorful flowers line the way to and from the pond.
Should you every get a chance to visit the Cayman Islands, Grand Cayman in particular, make a point of going to the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park and visit the lily pond by the gazebo. You will not be disappointed!