exquisite

totally mindblowing my friend!!

So lovely!

This is so beautiful,wonderful art work.

Very beautiful image,wonderful work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So gorgeous, and the butterfly's are so beautiful. A magical image in lovely soft colors. I hope you have a very happy Christmas with your family.

Outstanding,

What a spectacularly beautiful image; your work is so perfect!

Gorgeous!!!

Absolutely gorgeous!

Very beautiful, pastel colours. xx

wow, it's nice to see Denise (MrsRatbag) join your fans. This is a classic Carol piece, with your petals filled with morphing hues, and that signature energy that flows inside them, with your strokes flowing outwards and inwards like pulsing energy-made-liquid. Your petals so often are liquid, solid and energy all at once. And the energies flow unbroken from petal into petal, and the space around them often picks up the flow. Your bottom petals here are petals, but they are also like space itself, a space that resonates with the power it sees in this single flower. The iris leaves its mark on the space around it, it imprints it with its energies. We see butterflies too, but you've made them so flower-like---ala this painting---that they seem to blend in with the iris, they take on its energies and flows and make them their own. The sky around it is smooth, but filled with ghost images, ghost lines of more petals and leaves, like remnants of their power whispering against the sky. And there's a consuming light atop, just as there's deeper shadow on the bottom--another thing you do beautifully: A ground of innerness, and a top of radiating light. The "crop" is perfect for the shape of the flower, too: It radiates and flows outwards, and its center is quiet and intimate. And, like your poem, this evokes serenity in the midst of all this activity. Beautifully done, Carol, and I wish you a wonderful warm and loving Christmas, and hope your time with family continues to be wonderful. Thank you for all this radiating effulgent pulsing and profound vision all year round. It's a wonderful gift to us all.

Thanks for your very lovely comment, Mark. As always, your vision and impressions of my work are always so appreciated, and inspiring. I've always found the iris fascinating. All flowers speak to me with their colors and momentary beauty, but something about the iris draws me in deeper. They call it the 'poor man's orchid', but to me it is more beautiful with its many overlapping folds, textures, and mind-blowing colors. The way people stare at art for hours, I can stare at an iris for as long. There is a universe in that flower that I have only just begun to explore. I've tried to plant them in the mountains with not much success. A friend who lives a few miles away has this garden of hundreds of iris that have been blossoming every year for many years. A few years ago she gave me 50 bulbs from her garden, and I planted them with great care. And they never came up. I later discovered every single bulb was eaten by a vole, which is a gopher like creature who travels underground and devours everything, especially tasty bulbs. I did buy some iris at a plant sale we had at our art gallery, and I planted them in a pot on my deck. And to my delight they actually bloomed. It was when my daughter was visiting in early July. I was so delighted with my very own iris blooms, and then we had this sudden and fierce hail storm, (in the middle of summer) with hard balls the size of quarters. I was yelling at my daughter 'save the iris', and she ran outside with an umbrella, covering those delicate petals as she was being bombarded with hail balls. We were laughing and saying ouch at the same time, and it was nuts. When the storm passed a few minutes later, white balls laying everywhere, we sat on the deck staring at that one yellow iris that survived. It was a moment we laugh and talk about often. The next morning we went out on the deck and some critter had visited during the night and ate that one surviving iris blossom. At least my daughter and I have the shared memory. And so I paint the iris, and capture and preserve a brief moment of its beauty that can now live forever. Fortunately we have a gorgeous botanic garden in Denver that has spectacular iris gardens, and an iris farm, also down the mountain, that has thousands of iris in every imaginable color. I go into sensory overload when I visit that farm and for me, sitting among all those iris, is heaven on earth. Last year, a man who has a very famous iris garden in France, contacted me, and now some of my iris art lives on his website, with photos of his incredible garden. In Greek mythology, there is a goddess named Iris, who personified the rainbow, which is the Greek word for iris, who acted as a link between heaven and earth. So there are many reasons I'm smitten with the iris and I don't think our love affair is going to end anytime soon. Wishing you a serene holiday, Mark, and a New Year blossoming with beauty.

Outstanding work. God bless.

I could look at this for hours..... Tranquility indeed. Any words I could muster would fall far short of describing the beauty here, so I'll just admire it in (relative) silence.

The petals look so soft and translucent... this style also reminds me a little of Van Gough's paintings of nature... (hope it's ok to say that? I happen to like the Impressionist nature paintings). :)

What a marvelous creation/composition... Marvelous art my friend !!!

pastels are so soft and yet you brought a depth to them in this one, gorgeous

Great creation, lovely colors!!