A Key to Good Fortune is officially my first painting of 2024! I can’t tell you how good it feels to be working in a traditional medium again. This little butterfly on flower painting features a cabbage moth, alfalfa, and a vintage key set in a rustic frame. The painting is mixed media, using a combination of watercolour and coloured pencil to achieve.
In the following few paragraphs I’ll tell you more about each piece of the painting and what it means.
Features of this Rustic Style Painting
White Cabbage Moth
You might be surprised to know that Pieris rapae or by its more common name “White Cabbage Moth” isn’t actually a moth. It’s a butterfly in whites-and-yellows family pieridea. They get their name from its caterpillar stage, feasting on cabbage, or other mustard family plants.
They’re invasive to Canada, and North America and believed to have made the journey from Europe back around the 1860’s. They can be found across North America from early spring to the first frost in autumn.
All butterflies represent a spiritual transformation, and a connection to divine intervention, a messenger of what you can’t control. White butterflies symbolize a few different things, including good luck, purity, and prosperity.
In the context of this painting, the butterfly represents your connection to luck.
Alfalfa
Alfalfa is also known as Lucerne. Is believed to symbolize good fortune in matters of money, business, and gambling. It’s commonly accepted as a symbol of good luck. This may have something to do with how drought resistant it is, or that in its infancy alfalfa resembles clover, or that for the past century alfalfa has been cultivated as an important forage crop. No one can agree on the reasoning.
As it matures the leaves become elongated, and small clusters of small purple flowers develop. Have you ever travelled through the prairies during mid-august? If you have than you know how beautiful this crop can be. The rolling green fields sprinkled with purple. It’s breathtaking.
In this painting the alfalfa is illustrated in its maturity just after its flowers have bloomed, but before fruit has begun to develop. This is usually the stage where alfalfa is harvested.
For all my fellow botany nerds out there! You can learn more about alfalfa here.
In the context of this painting the alfalfa represents good luck.
Vintage Key
This one is might come across as self explanatory. A key literally represents its use and symbolically it represents the ability to open new opportunities. In the context of this painting the vintage key is the conduit to your own good fortune.
What Does This Butterfly on Flower Painting Mean
Combining these three different subjects the painting is a direct representation of your connection to luck. If you are aware of it or not. It is a reminder that luck is all about your perspective and the role your mindset has towards feeling good fortune.
I don’t know about you, but it is surprisinly easy to get stuck in the negativity of our lives at times. Escpeccially with current affairs. Sometimes we just need a nudge to remind us how fortunate we have been.
Framed Rustic Art Decor
The way I decided to frame this piece in a more rustic way really pushed me out of my comfort zone, and into a new territory altogether.
Using the same conservation methods as I usually do I decided to set the painting into this rustic wooden frame. Inspired by the cottage core, and rustic decor movements.
The painting is matted beneath an off-pink oval mat to really play on the vintage feel. Which is so drastically different from my normal aesthetic, it giving honey! Additionally I have added an easel back to the frame. allowing you the versitility of displaying the painting freestanding, or hung on a wall.
This little original butterfly on flower painting is for sale! Want to give it a forever home?
As always I’d like to thank you for reading this far. Your support no matter how small helps. If you’d like more current news, or to see what i’m working on next, give me a follow over on instagram.
Stay Creative out there.
Justin Erickson
