Yesterday I rendered the underpainting for a new pet sketch — Honey. I’m using the image of a young Golden Retriever, enormous foreshortened nose, and a floppy-tongued smile. She reminds me, of course, of my beloved Poppy, both having deep honey colored coats. True to my school, the background should derive, at least in part, from studio surroundings. Thus the story of the basil:
Outside the StudioKitchen is a garden … flowers and herbs … Italian parsley, flowering sage, bushy rosemary, lemon thyme, marigolds, knockout roses, purple phlox, multi-colored zinnias, and others with forgotten names. Oh … and also the basil.
The garden did well this summer, thanks to diligent watering. The rosemary really took off, as did the roses. But the uncontested superstar was the basil. Now, I’ve always had good luck with basil, and everywhere I go my basil-power follows. But this year the plants went wild. From humble beginnings … a single seed pack and starter pots from the $1 isle at Dollar General … to a basil forest, crowded with basil trees, and flowering-seed-pod-tipped branches stretching up into the sky. It was, as they say, a sight to behold.
If you’ve had your own basil forest, then you already know this amazing factoid — bees love basil forests. Benevolent bees covered the studio garden all summer. And late in the season, feeling dwarfed by the basil trees for too long, the sage exploded with red flowers … attracting butterflies and hummingbirds … and the place began to feel like a petting zoo.
So Honey is going to have bees in her background … maybe even a bee halo since she looks so much like an angel.
