Got the Blues...

Great Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica)

color pencil drawing -  © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

My mother's favorite color was blue.  I remember all the things she decorated with; many things throughout the house favored blue. I think of her during the year when the few blue flowers of the prairie bloom.  In the spring it's Blue-eyed Grass, in the late summer its some of the asters, (like Sky Blue Aster)...in the early fall, for me its Great Lobelia!

I came across a large group of Great Lobelia this past September on a hillside seepage.  I took several photographs of the plants but none seemed to do them justice, like I feel they need...so I decided to make it a fall project to do a small color pencil of them instead.  I should probably title this piece something like "Great Lobelia Blues".

I've not had success getting this wildflower to grow in our pasture because we're fairly gravely here, and this flower really favors a wet location.  Now I have a small bouquet of them "growing" in a frame in my studio...a nice way to remember my mother, and a late September morning on the prairie.