The Nootka Lupine

The Nootka Lupine grows wild along the southern coast of Alaska, from Ketchikan in Southeast to Attu at the western edge of the Aleutians. It extends into South central Alaska and into British Columbia. A member of the pea family, the Nootka Lupine has a violet-blue and white hued flowers. They’re tall, typically two to three feet, but can reach a full six feet in ideal conditions. They have several rows of flowers growing from the central stem. They are considered a pioneer species of plant, able to grow in nutrient-poor soil due to its symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria in its root nodules.

The Nootka Lupine is tough. They grow in disturbed areas, gravel bars, roadsides, eroded soils. And they enrich the surrounding soil with nitrogen, a vital nutrient that is often scarce in newly formed or disturbed environments. Once Lupines have inhabited an area, that ground is able to support nitrogen-loving species. That’s what makes them a pioneer species – they’re the first to move in and make it ready for the others. They like sunlight, so you’ll see them at the entrance to a forest, but not inside. You’ll find patches of lupines clinging to the craggy, coastal mountains, or sprawling through meadows, washing the area in a soft indigo.

Art is about Choices

I’m realizing I need to get a little more intentional about some of my choices. Case in point: my Lupine Fairy. She is beautiful and I love her, she just isn’t the fairy I’d planned on creating. That’s because of unintentional choices I made throughout the creation process. If I had been intentional, she wouldn’t be the Lupine Fairy. She was supposed to be a woodlands fairy.

I was entering a challenge for the Whimsical Woodlands: one Hero Print, two or three coordinates and two or three blender. The fairy was to be the hero print. The first part of the fairy that I was drawing was her legs. So I started going through my Procreate color palettes, looking for a reasonable skin tone color… darker, lighter, whatever, just believable. And I don’t really draw people, so I don’t really have flesh tones on hand, just the occasional random color that might work, which is exactly what I found: one ‘hey-cool-this-could-be-flesh’ tone in a random palette. Next I drew her dress. A fairy can wear any color, so I grabbed the purple from the same palette for her dress. And – poof – just like that I had chosen the color palette for the entire project. An unintentional choice. But a pivotal choice none the less.

I suppose that if I were going to design a palette for a woodland fairy, it would have a lot of green and brown in it. But this palette was full of purples and pinks and oranges and blues. So it is no surprise that she ended up being a flower fairy. When it came time to draw her surroundings, I had the perfect soft indigo for lupines. Did I stop to think , “hey, wait, are there lupines in the woods?” Oh no. I was in the creative zone. And I was in the creative zone when I grabbed the template for the background shape, which happened to be black, and suddenly it was night, and wouldn’t a closed crescent moon and a swath of stars be perfect? Another unintentional choice. You might see the moon, but you’re not going to see a swath of starry skies from the woods.

My unintentional choices had led me in a direction I’d never meant to go. I still entered her for the challenge. I decided that she was the Lupine Fairy at the edge of the woods who stands vigil and keeps the forest safe from evil at night.

It Could Mean Brown

I think the Lupine Fairy is beautiful and she perfectly fits my personal aesthetic, which is not the direction I want to be working in right now. I love bright, vivid colors on a dark background, which doesn’t have the marketability that a less-dramatic aesthetic has. If I want to go in that marketable direction I need to make more intentional choices. And sometimes that is going to mean working in brown, like I would have had I stuck with the Woodland Fairy theme.

May the Pioneering Spirit of the Lupine Fairy bless my Portfolio!

I’ve rounded out my collection with some supporting prints. I’m happy with the individual prints and with the collection as a whole. My aim recently has been to focus on producing artwork for wrapping paper and gift packaging. I’m not sure that this art is destined for gift wrap. If I’m having a difficult time envisioning gifts wrapped in such dark colors, I have to imagine that the people who spend money producing wrapping paper would have their reservations as well. Maybe someone out there has the perfect application for my designs. So into my portfolio she goes. Maybe she will pioneer the way for my dramatic aesthetic with her gorgeous Lupine energy.