View Larger Image

Watercolour ~ Image 206

Yellow Lady's Slipper

A watercolor painting of wildflower,Yellow Lady's Slipper

On a field trip to the Bruce Peninsula one early June, many participants were intent on locating hard-to-find ferns and rare orchids. I had come for one thing: to see the Yellow Lady's Slipper, so that I could capture it in a watercolor painting.

Often growing in gossipy clumps, the "fairy" slippers were absolutely all one could hope for in form and colour!! Waxy pouches were framed by spiralling narrow leaves hanging down either side. Two wider vertical leaves ~one up, one down ~ reflected their brightness like metal disks behind yesteryear's kerosene lamps! Before leaving the Bruce, I dug out a small cluster of the Yellow Lady's Slipper plants which were blooming in hard-packed gravel...dangerously close to the edge of the highway! They would soon be run over, I reasoned. Upon reaching home, the wildflowers were gently planted next to some limestone rocks by the patio.

The following spring, the blooms of the Yellow Lady's Slipper exercised their golden powers. Whenever someone passed by the bit of garden where they were blooming, invariably they stopped, retraced their steps, and bent over. As they stood up again, their lips moved, repeating something the wildflowers whispered. Judging by their expression, it was about the Creator.

May the watercolor painting of a woodland slipper be as treasured as Cinderella's slipper of glass!