The Birth of Venus

The Birth of Venus

In August, Venus began its shift from being an evening “star” to appearing in the morning sky. The morning sky has always been a lovely thing to witness from Chicago. Watching the colors come out over the lake until the sun decides to make it’s appearance.

Through a few happenstance occurrences, towards the end of the painting, I chose to highlight this Venus resurrection and celebrate my own birthday on September 2, which happened to be the last full day Venus was in it’s apparent retrograde motion. 

For the flower, I originally painted this Miltoniopsis Orchid. I’ve been fascinated by orchids since starting my small collection a few years ago through a gift from my friend Xerx. I was feeling drawn to the patterns the petals have on this species and painted this one into a sky scene, unsure of where the composition would lead me.

During my visit to ArtPrize in Grand Rapids this weekend I encountered a Coleus shrub that caught my attention. I had planned on painting the Coleus in a new scene of it’s own, but after pulling out my collection of started paintings. It felt fitting to incorporate it into my orchid painting, merging the two in an unlikely union that results in the vision of a spirit in flight.

Captions:
Image 1: “The Birth of Venus” painting by me :)
Image 2: Explination of Venus and star placements in the painting
Images 3-5 diagrams of Venus

Resource to accurate Sky map click the link:
https://skyandtelescope.org/interactive-sky-chart/