Child of Eden, original oil painting by Steve Henderson, 24 x 20

From Start Your Week with Steve, the free weekly e-mail newsletter of Steve Henderson Fine Art.

Viewers and purchasers of Steve’s works frequently want to know the story behind the painting, and for the next several months, Start Your Week with Steve will showcase a painting and tell the story behind it.

This week’s painting is Child of Eden, just off the easel, a memory of summer in the midst of winter’s cold.

An avid gardnener, Steve awaits the first radishes of spring as the harbinger of more fresh food to come. Inevitably, he plants far more radishes than any family could possibly eat, but since the garden is just outside the painting studio and Steve grazes throughout the day, he manages to keep the many varieties of radishes he plants under control.

The garden is the perfect place for an afternoon stroll. Promenade, original oil painting by Steve Henderson, sold; licensed open edition print at Great Big Canvas.

When Steve’s grandchild, whom Carolyn in her writing refers to as Small Person, visits, Steve and Small Person spend hours together in the garden. Steve is delighted to find a companion who enjoys grazing through the garden as much as he does. (See Carolyn’s article, Cheap, Odd, and Sort of Practical Gift Giving)

One day, Steve followed Small Person through the garden as she was collecting radishes for the family’s lunch. He was struck by the innocence of a small child in a setting that we frequently associate with innocence as well — the Garden of Eden.

“Gardens have always been places of wonder and growth,” Steve says. “They are a haven of peace where we feel that we have a level of control. We can’t make plants grow, but we can provide a place where they want to grow.

“There is this unique collaboration of God’s hand with man’s hard work, resulting in color, foliage, and food. The child in the garden is further evidence of something, someone actually, who starts impossibly small and grows into a beautiful harvest.”

Steve incorporated an abstract background with the realism of the central figure, transitioning from highly abstract in the very back to

Peace, tranquility, serenity. Peace, original oil painting by Steve Henderson.

more realistic foliage in the foreground. In the upper back right, an area of light draws the viewer’s eye further into the garden, with the promise of more growth and life as one goes “further up and further in.” The child holds the radishes as if they were a bouquet of flowers, and just as beautiful.

Peace. Quiet. Innocence. And the miracle of life.

Child of Eden celebrates the garden and the people who love being in it.

Read the rest, and subscribe, at Start Your Week with Steve.

Find Steve’s original oil and watercolor paintings at Steve Henderson Fine Art.

Find Steve’s licensed open edition prints at Great Big Canvas, Light in the Box, Sears.com, Amazon.com, Sagebrush.com, Rakuten.com, AllPosters.com, Wall Art Box, Luban Decor, Art.com

Businesses and manufacturers: contact Steve’s agents at Art Licensing.

Find Carolyn’s books, Live Happily on Less and Grammar Despair, and Steve’s DVD, Step by Step Watercolor Success, at Amazon.com.

Watch how Steve creates his paintings at the Steve Henderson Fine Art YouTube Channel.