The Daily Dig

A long time friend of mine, horticulturalist and floral/event designer Brad Austin has never failed to amazed me with his giant talent. His brilliant sensitivity to horticulture and the natural world allows him to understand shape, texture, light, color and the placement of its beauty in ways that many designers simply can not compare.

Over the years through the inspiration of the Dutch Masters, Brad has explored the presentation of flowers and other plant materials as horticultural objects of art. His photographs of them, further allows him to refine the stage and focus in with light and lens, to further draw out the beauty that is contained with-in the flowers and plants under his mastery.  Below are examples of his modern Still lifes.

In an entry on his blog he says that " One of the interesting things about Dutch still life paintings, besides their lush beauty, is that many times they were painted over the course of a year. It was only possible to paint a flower when they were naturally blooming, i.e. tulips in the spring and crabapples, in the fall.

These status symbol paintings were frequently commissioned to document a clients horticultural rarities. The 1600′s were a time of ‘Tulip-mania’ where speculation caused single tulip bulbs to sell for thousands of dollars.
With the advent of air freight and greenhouse growing, the natural seasons of flowers has be widely expanded to our great advantage. Now, it is possible to create living botanical paintings throughout the year".

This latest round of *still lifes* were inspired after a recent Sunday trip into his local LA farmers market, after which he spent the rest of the day capturing these images.

Peonies and roses in May, rose hips, oak leaves and osage oranges

Tulips in April, rose hips and oak leaves

You can keep up with Brad and his work by either visiting his website and blog, or you can stay in touch on facebook.