Bluebonnets In A Jar: The painting that got things rolling

Bluebonnets in a Jar, Copyright 2019 Cheryl Casey

My watercolor painting Bluebonnets in a Jar was the art piece that finally got things going on my Etsy store. I had been doing pet portraits and quickly burning out on those.

Then one day my father-in-law Ralph asked if I would paint some Texas bluebonnets on a coffee mug for him. He had offered to fix a chip in his neighbor's bluebonnet mug, her favorite, but the old ceramic mug cracked and broke under the pressure. Ralph felt bad about the broken mug and was determined to find a replacement.

Bluebonnets in a Jar - art prints on Etsy

We searched for one online in all the usual places and were surprised to find none. So I sat down one day and painted a full page of detailed bluebonnets that I could place one-by-one in a design that would wrap around the mug. We tried out a few companies that do sublimation printing on mugs and found one we liked.

The mug turned out just as we had hoped and Ralph was very pleased to be able to replace his neighbor's favorite mug.

The next thought was painting them in an old fashioned canning jar. We're taught from an early age not to pick bluebonnets, the State Flower of Texas. My mom always said, "For every bluebonnet you pick, that's 100 that won't grow next year." But a painting of bluebonnets in a jar would bring those blue wildflowers inside all year round.

And that's how this Texas Bluebonnets painting was born.

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Cheryl Casey Art

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