STORY BEHIND THE ART OF INGRID FINNAN

Wildly Exquisite: Florida’s Native Plants

Oakleaf Hydrangea Panicle

Hydrangea quercifolia

By my count I have painted panicles of oakleaf hydrangeas about seven or eight times. The plant is abundant in my neighborhood and it is always a pleasure to see the showy white panicles open up against the vivid greens. But with this repetitive painting history, I needed to find a new approach. I had photographed a panicle in partial shade which obscured areas of the subject, so I thought to try to create the same effect in this new painting.

We are used to seeing photographs of flowers on a dark ground, which gives the flowers a heightened color look, but this is much more difficult to do with paint. A color surrounded by black just looks different from a color surrounded by white, so I had to continually make adjustments in cast and weight.

This plant also brought to mind the ASBA exhibition, Following in the Bartrams’ Footsteps: Contemporary Botanical Artists Explore the Bartrams’ Legacy, in 2014. However, the ubiquitous Hydrangea that was discovered and named by Thomas Bartram, and published in 1791 in his Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, somehow escaped being included in that show. So, it is fitting that the oakleaf hydrangea is here recognized as a native plant of Florida.