Floating Heliconia #6

Floating Heliconia 18" x 24" 

Floating Heliconia continues my tradition of painting bizarre plants inspired from my yard and neighborhood. Part of my thing is I am not a realist--in any sense of the word! In this case, meaning I can only paint things that look like their counterpart in the physical realm with a lot of grunt and effort. Painting then becomes un-fun very quickly. So, I paint my weird interpretations of what I see 'out there' filtered through the lens of my inner eye.
I had a lot of fun painting the marks on this canvas. I was attached and didn't want to cover them up. I had outlined many large heliconia leaves so I had a good excuse to show-off all my cool marks. The overall feel was crowded and out of balance. I slowly, with sighs and resignation covered them up. I did give myself all the little circle shapes as a consolation prize and was able to make some of them part of the heliconia flower and others, floating seedpods. You may have noticed in my paintings (or you will in the future) circles and spirals are some of my favorite shapes to doodle.
Although there is a lot of pale turquoise in the background, I attempted to break it up with texture and some pink paint. I like this painting, I think it is interesting to look at and think about. When I finished it a few years ago I was not so sure how I felt about it. When my neighbor, Judith saw it and said she liked it, I gave it to her. Now it hangs in her house and when I visit I always enjoy saying hello.

On a different note, it has always bugged me that when I did my blog on my second painting Palmz that I didn't have the photo of the early morning sunrise through the palm trees that inspired me. This morning on my way home from checking the surf, (which was wild and pretty junk so I didn't go out) I saw this in my rearview mirror and stopped and took this photo. Feels good to finally have the picture posted.

Cosmic Tree: Painting #5

Cosmic Tree 18" x 24"

The inspiration for Cosmic Tree came from a leaf my cat brought me. "Whaaat, your cat brought you a what?" I know, sounds crazy, but the deal is I have a cat named Mr. Chubbs whose main job in life is to bring us (my husband and me) leaves. From the time Chubs was a year old he would find a leaf in the yard and bring it back to the house yowling the whole way to announce his latest acquisition. He collects a variety of leaves from all over the acre we live on. Today I was finally able to get a picture of him with the leaf in his mouth. Sorry, it's a little blurry but I've been trying to get a picture forever. He usually drops the leaf as soon as he sees me but today I had my phone ready and snuck out, aimed and snapped. It's not a great shot but it'll do. Today's leaf was from an avocado tree. The leaf that inspired my painting was a kukui nut tree leaf.

On the painting, I outlined the leaf shapes on the right and then filled in the background area with the terra-cotta-orangish color, some chartreuse and white. I used my finger to lay on the paint and blend and smear the colors. The long thin shape next to that felt like a tree trunk to me but seemed a little plain. I was inspired to put in little doodle shapes--triangles, lines, dots and suns. I have been a avid doodler since I was a little kid so this spoke to me loud and clear.

The more the painting progressed, the more doodley things happened. I love how free I feel when I am doing these small details. They are not in all my paintings but I feel they are definitely a part of my developing painting style. Not sure how it all fits together but I like these details, the way I am inspired to paint them, and how they look.

I was basically done with the outside areas but the middle was a black hole. Then I saw the face and realized it was a cosmic tree spirit. She is holding a basket of stars and a galaxy, maybe the Milky Way. (BTW, she is a doorway to the Universe. Trees are access points to enter her domain.) Most of her face was already on the canvas, and I just added the eye and the mouth. Once I had her face, her body and her cloak of the universe fell into place. The whole vibe feels very southwest Native American. I am not sure where that came from as I don't really have any connections there. However I received it, I appreciate whoever sent it. It is my favorite painting so far! 

Diving into the Rest of My Life & Kelly Rae Roberts

Diving into the Rest of My Life  11"x14" wooden board

I've been subscribing to Kelly Rae Unscripted for the past few months. Kelly Rae Roberts is a wonderful mixed media artist, and a lovely person. Her art is a soul-full collage/painting mix of angels or little ladies with great, deep quotes that makes you smile and feel good when you see it. In the Unscripted weekly video she creates a piece of art, all the while chatting about life and things. She is joined most times by her sidekick and office manager, Nicole and her dog Lulu. It is not a painting lesson but more of a "let's hang and create together and be art buddies" kind of experience. During the video I am working right along side her. I made the above piece while my art buddy, Kelly Rae, worked on hers. You can find Kelly Rae at http://www.kellyraeroberts.com.

Queen of My Heart  5"x7" flat canvas

Another little piece I did is called "Queen of my Heart". It is a birthday present for my granddaughter, who just turned 26 years old. This is her in the first grade celebrating her birthday at school. She was queen for a day. It is one of my favorite pictures of her. When I go to the mainland next week I will see her and the family. Can't wait to give it to her. I love sharing art!







The inspiration for Diving into the Rest of My Life came when I was driving to the beach one morning and thinking about retiring. This piece of a quote rolled through my mind, "diving into the rest of my life" and I knew I wanted to use it in my art. Also being inspired by Kelly Rae, I knew I would make a collage and use it on that. So below is the collage part. I put in pictures and words for all the things I want to be doing once I retire.

Diving into the Rest of My Life Collage

Lots of art making, writing, (I'm finishing up 2 books at the present moment: Swims: Adventures with Hawaiian Spinners and Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins. My goal is to finish and publish both by end of 2017, when I retire. I am really close.) photography, sailing, (Norman, my husband, dreams of sailing to all the surf spots in the Pacific Ocean.) surfing, traveling, and living and loving life! I had a lot of fun doing the collage.

Using a black sharpie, I drew the girl diving and waves, bubbles and sun. Then I gessoed over most of it. I got this technique (collage, black sharpie drawing and gesso) from a wonderful and free tutorial for kids on the Internet. I have searched for it but can't find it yet, and don't remember the artist's name. When I find it I will credit her. I put a little too much gesso and covered up more than I really wanted but by the time I figured that out it was already dry. So, I sanded it with fine grit sandpaper and was able to subtly uncover stuff. I added some color, sanded some more and stamped my phrase and words in the bubbles.

Even though you can't really see the collage anymore, I know what's underneath and love looking at my vision of my future each morning when I roll out of bed.