The Bounties of the Season - Linda C. Miller

Photo Trumpet Creeper

While “calendar” fall begins next month, many of our blooming beauties are already bearing the fruits of their labor. With the help of their pollinators and even on their own, many of the spring and summer flowering flora are growing fruits of many shapes and many colors. Looking up, tree branches that flowered this spring are beaming with their “green” fruits such as the oaks, pomegranates, and persimmons. Why the beeches have already dropped their brown nuts. Today while on my walk, I spied the long green fruit of the Trumpet Creeper almost five inches long!

Over the last two years, I have painted a number of fruits and nuts but it was while I was taking a workshop last fall that I realized how “unnoticed” these subjects can be. It was when Lucy, a dear fellow student of 87 years said, “Now Linda, why are you going to paint those weeds?” looking upon the Horse Nettle fruits on my table. I don’t remember saying anything but when I brought back my work the next week, she then saw what I had seen in those two decaying stems.
Horse Nettle Fruit, Watercolor on HP Paper

I now realize that it’s the naturalist in me that shows up in my work. Whether I am painting from a garden specimen such as the rose hips and including the remains of a spider’s web or the decaying fruit of a mettlesome native wildflower, I so enjoy showing others the intricacies of this amazing world.

Rose Hips, Watercolor on HP Paper

Have a great day with nature!  Linda

Artist, Naturalist and Instructor

Williamsburg, Virginia