Collaboration with Rebecca Tripp – part 12

The other day while checking messages, I perked up at seeing that my dear friend Rebecca had sent me a note letting me know that she had a new video up. In her usual cheerful manner that I have come to expect from her, she let me know that this time she had used 3 of my paintings for The Waltzing Dahlia. 3? I didn't even remember doing more then maybe 1 piece that had the flower type. Curiosity peeked, I clicked the link she provided and watched her newest creation.

The Waltzing Dahlia has an almost fanciful quality to it, similar to her piece Foxglove Waltz which I featured in Collaboration with RebeccaTripp – part 11. There is however a difference between the two. Waltzing Dahlia has a bit more of a sultry quality to it, starting off the melody with a harp and slowly blending it with a piano finish. There seems to be almost a bit of influence there from Suite No. 1 op.5 arr. For Harp and Piano. 1 Barcarole ( Yes & No) by Russian composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) but with a lighter, more spring like feel to it. Uplifting and peaceful, I find myself picturing a young lady in a lush English garden gathering flowers with a basket overflowing with blossoms. Of course images may differ between listeners.

"His Grandmother's Flower" by Dawn Star Wood

As I watched the video for the images, I was able to easily pick out which ones were mine and ended up giggling over Rebecca's choices. Why, you may ask yourselves, would I be laughing over what art she chose? It's due to the fact that 2 out of the 3 weren't dahlia's. Noticing this small mistake, I sent her a message to let her know and she apologized but we both knew that it would be impossible to fix the video. We also agreed that though they were the wrong flowers, the pieces themselves seemed to work well with the music so decided to leave things as they were. The first painting she used, which ironically was also the first piece in the video, was His Grandmother's Flower which I had done back in 2010 based off of a photo I took of my boyfriend's grandmother's flower garden when we went to South Dakota to visit. Though personally not a huge fan of working with the color pink, to this day I'm very proud of how the 11x14 inch painting went.

"Pray" by Dawn Star Wood

The second piece turned out to be Pray which I had done way back in 2007 when I was still getting used to watercolors. The tiny painting was based off of a piece captured by photography friend Shelly Alexander of UrbanRural-Photo.deviantart.com (Seattle, Washington) what was titled Just Ran Across My Mind. Now that I look at his photograph, I have to say that I may have been wrong and that it was a dahlia but with me doing so many water lilies as of late, I wasn't too sure if Pray was or wasn't.

Last on the list is certainly not a dahlia, but is actually a clover flower. Waiting, painted in 2012, was based off of a photo by Vividlight.deviantart.com (United States) titled Pretty Baby. Originally done to celebrate spring, I was also taking the opportunity to experiment with having the background textured with salt on a wet wash. I'm still

"Waiting" by Dawn Star Wood

relatively happy with the results of the experiment and surprised that though the entire color pallet is very much in the pastel range, I really don't mind it for this particular piece. 

If you would like to see more from Rebecca and give her a message, here's where you can find her work:
deviantART:  http://rebeccatripp.deviantart.com/ 
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/RebeccaETripp

Interested in finding my work? Here's were you can find and follow me: 

deviantART: http://dawnstarw.deviantart.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dawn-Star-Wood-Art/140121929492512