‘Wild at Heart’

By Kathleen Culler

 

This piece has been one of the hardest to put into words for the longest time.

'Wild at Heart' was a title chosen with multiple meanings.

In it's simplest form, the painting features a variety of wildflowers, primarily Cosmos and Zinnias, found in a summer garden. 

At the time of this painting, July 2025, I was dog-sitting for the week. I frequently took as many pictures of the various wildflowers in the back garden from various angles, during the dog’s playtime outside, in hopes that I'd capture a few good reference photos for future paintings.

On the second day during this dog-sitting week, I got a call from my brother telling me that our Mom was not responding well to a new blood pressure medicine. In less than 24 hours, my brother had to send her to the emergency room due to her drastic changes mentally and physically after starting this medicine.

I felt absolutely helpless.

Here I was in South Carolina, while my brother was in Ohio taking care of our Mom, visiting her in the emergency room and then ICU daily. Traveling to Ohio wasn’t logistically possible at the time, especially while caring for several pup-pups.

So, all I could do was pray.

 I prayed for health and healing. I prayed that my Mom's heart would return to it's normal working condition, and that it would stop 'running wild' with dropping potassium levels. I prayed that they would be able to figure everything out quickly.

During this week, I had all intentions of working on further sketches and paintings for the children's book I've had in my head for ages. Yet, I couldn't focus. It had to be set aside for another time.

I had to paint something 'happy' and free.

That's when I decided I'd dive into my new paint (acrylic gouache) and try my hand at some of the Cosmos and Zinnias I'd been taking pictures of in the garden that week.

 

Each day, my Mom's heart and potassium levels slowly improved. I'd paint a new flower or two. The patience it took for learning a new medium and how to achieve the various parts of the flowers, brought- well, truly ‘forced’, me into a sense of calm. 

Meticulous layers and learning, were what I needed to distract me from my feeling helpless with the inability to ‘do’ anything to help my Mom’s situation.

Painting this was what I needed to prevent my mind and own heart from running wild at possibilities of all the ‘what-if’s’ that come with sickness and aging parents.

The short answer of the longer meaning behind ‘Wild at Heart’, is the art of painted wildflowers that were created to tame a daughter’s mind and soul when her Mom’s physical heart was literally going ‘wild at heart’.

Thankfully, my Mom left the hospital after a week when her potassium levels were better!

 

**Fun fact: this piece has a color story of 59 different colors!**

Artistically, this was my first adventure into other types of paint besides watercolor, which seemed to come naturally. Thus, gouache, an opaque and matte water based paint seemed like the most natural next step.

  'Wild at Heart' was painted on a small 6x8 in. piece of Strathmore 400 Series white mixed media paper, with several layers of Holbein acrylic gouache. I started with very thin watery layers, and used less water with each layer to allow brushstrokes to be shown to mimic the texture of the flower petals.

Biggest lesson learned: Acrylic gouache dries very quickly.

I unfortunately learned how quickly after putting dabs of every color onto a new paint palette that shortly developed a dry skin over each color after 15 minutes!

Whoops! ( At the time, I didn't know how quickly anything with acrylic dries!) I was able to revive some by spritzing water onto the colors, but later opted to only work one color at a time, mixing only what I needed for each part of the flower during each layer. Every painting is a learning lesson!

I eventually put this piece into print on 9x12 giclee prints, folded note cards, and a one page calendar (a test) which were tested at my very first pop-up shop in September 2025.

After positive response, and some sample orders, I then put ‘Wild at Heart’ onto 100% cotton tea towels, kitchen towels and tote bags, which sold through right before Christmas!

Shop the ‘Wild at Heart’ Collection below!