‘Cardinal Flower’, by Alison C. Dibble, is an original oil painting, oil on panel, 8x6 inches. This is a one-of-a-kind fine art painting, a plein air (outdoor) impression made alla prima (all at once) on an afternoon on the Mattawamkeag River, Island Falls, Maine.

A rainy summer, and it made some unpaved roads all but completely impassable. We had driven up a road that had enormous puddles, some of them at least 60 feet long and 40 feet across. We could only guess at how deep, and we stuck to the edges and went slowly. How we did this in an ordinary passenger car is a tribute to the car more than the driver. Anyway, my artist friend and I soon found a beautiful spot on the rivershore and set about to sketch in oil paint. The cardinal flower was in full bloom; this native wildflower of Maine rivers is a great favorite among many people who go to visit it in their own special spots in late summer.

How red is red? I wanted to represent the river only in vague abstract shapes, and let the star of the painting be the red cardinal flowers. To make the red stand out, I needed other colors to be only secondary. I painted quickly; this was to be no botanical illustration but instead, an impression and an interpretation. And I was preoccupied…could we get ourselves back out to the paved road through all those potholes?