Fleur de Lis

The wild iris bloom along the river’s muddy edges. The lovely lavender blue blooms glow in the early morning. I  carefully stepped from the nearby road to the squelching wet grasses to collect some of the flowers to paint.   I had just reached a thick stand of  irises and collected a couple when one foot started to sink in the mud and before I could pull free, the other booted foot started going down too!

The soft squishy mud is almost like quicksand and I knew not to just try to pull free.  I lay down in the grass to spread my weight and  slowly worked each foot out of the mud, luckily keeping my boots. I was celebrating my success, laying half in the mud, when a car drove by on the nearby road. I had to wonder what they  thought of that woman laying on a muddy pile of grasses!

I returned to the studio with my hard won prizes and over the next few days painted the flowers. Their shapes are so similar to the iconic fleur de lis that I eventually created a design set based on it.