These brushes sprouted the flowers we now so wonderfully love! With these, he painted his masterpiece and left the spent brushes in fields across the landscape. The Great Spirit gave him paintbrushes laden with the colors he so desired. Frustrated that he could not match the brilliance of nature, he asked for guidance from the Great Spirit. parviflora’s bracts can even be white.Īnd I uncovered a delightful tale for the flower’s name acquisition:Ī Native American legend holds that a young brave tried to paint the sunset with his war paints. parviflora is characterized by its upper leaves, which are divided into 3-5 lobes the whole plant stands no more than a foot tall. Another showy variation is the Small-flowered Paintbrush (Castilleja parviflora), found at alpine and sub-alpine meadows. Seashore Paintbrush and Alpine Paintbrush). Closely related to the Red Paintbrush are a variety of niche paintbrushes that are similar to the common paintbrush (e.g. The most common paintbrush in the Northwest is the Common Red Paintbrush, aka Giant Red Paintbrush (Castilleja miniata). Here’s one artist’s concept of such a composition from the state’s website.įurther research revealed more about the flower’s range: (That explains why the cover image on a Christmas gift calendar by artist Sue Coleman shows hummingbirds surrounding a clutch of the Giant or Common Indian Paintbrush, Castilleja miniata.) Wyoming’s state bird is a western meadowlark, so I conclude that would be another logical ‘guest’ to add to a composition of paintbrush flowers. The flower provides no natural perch so it requires hovering insects or birds for pollination. The online encyclopedia says the flower consists of ‘spikey bracts, with hairy covering and sweet nectar at the base of green tube-like parts’. Mountain meadows are indeed its natural habitat and we are not alone in having nibbled on floral parts. And I discover it is the state flower for Wyoming. The range of colors as well as petals extending further down stems all occur in variants, I quickly learn online. Those of my youth had roundish blossom ends that looked more red than orange, pink or cream. While I had some knowledge of how the flower got its name-the floral head does look like a mop-head or ‘brush’ that’s been dipped in paint and it’s easy to project that early North American naturalists learned common names from the indigenous people, then called Indians-I had no idea there were so many natural variants of the species. With John’s workshop inspirations and my childhood memory of blotches of red flowers in mountain meadows, I returned to my art room. Light green spikes project slightly above the bright red colored petals. And there was a bonus-you could pull the several greenish, tube-like projections that hid among the petals and suck sweet nectar from the ends. Their bright orange-red heads were easy to spy among the clover, daisies and buttercups. ![]() ![]() Watching him, I was reminded of those long ago ‘paintbrushes’ we picked and jammed into pickle jars for our many afternoon tea parties. Here are some close-ups of his brushwork: His creations emerge full-spirited and gracefully sprawling across the paper. He seems to have truly absorbed some aspects to the traditional philosophies behind CBP. Don’t worry about realistic creations, he says, paint them as YOU see them. He uses vibrant colors double-loaded on a large soft orchid brush and ‘drop-places’ petal after petal, leaf after leaf into artful arrangements. Last month I watched fellow CBP artist John Hart demonstrate his approach to floral painting. ![]() The Paintbrush flashes brightly among other meadow flowers the color must compensate for its lack of scent.
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