Flower Sketch for The Enchanted Garden 1916

John William Waterhouse made this flower sketch with oil paints as preparation for his painting, The Enchanted Garden. I can almost see the guy in his garden, you know? The way the brushstrokes just *dance* to make up the plants. He’s really playing with light here, putting whites on top of browns, and I get the feeling he’s thinking about the way the light hits the flowers, or, rather, how he can get that down in paint. I keep thinking about his hand moving, and how the physicality of painting—that little dance that happens between your brain, your hand and the surface—changes how we see. What I find so amazing is how he captures the feeling of being in a garden, not just how it looks, it could be the starting point for something new.