![Stargazing. © 2001 by Elizabeth A. Dion. Acrylic. 40 x 30 inches.](/spirit/articles/asset_upload_file104_6598.jpg)
Stargazing
A painting is transformed in the process.
Elizabeth Dion was painting a Stargazer lily “rather loosely with no other idea in mind,” she says, when she put the painting aside for awhile. “One day when I looked at the unfinished painting, I suddenly had the inspiration to paint the midnight blue sky at the top. I work with layers of translucent paint, so some of the flower shows through in the sky. Stars came into the sky, and one of the flower stamens became moon-like. This was painted in November and December of 2001. I think there was subconscious intent in bringing the starry blue sky into the red and white stripes of the flower.”