Paradise Lost I - Watercolor

I am one very excited artist right now. Last night was the reception for the 41st Watercolor West exhibition and I was awarded 3rd place for this painting! Watercolor West is one of the major international juried watercolor shows. This year they got almost 700 entries and from those, about 100 paintings were juried into the show. Getting a painting juried into this competition has been a goal of mine for a long time. I was so thrilled when I found out that my painting got into the show back in July. I didn't post that news then because this painting is the first in a series that I'm doing and I was going to wait and post all of them once the series was finished. But since I received 3rd place I can't wait any longer!

This series is my statement about how Orange County has changed in the 25 years that I've lived here. Even though this is a rather negative view, I really love Orange County. I just hate how every square inch is being covered with houses. When I went driving around to take reference pictures of orange trees, I drove all around OC where I knew orange groves were before but they have all been destroyed. I finally found a small grove in a person's yard so I went up to their door and asked permission to take pictures of their trees. They probably thought I was nuts!

I actually started this series back in 1995 while we were living in Anaheim Hills. I was very affected by seeing the smog as I would drive over the hill and into AH. I painted 2 paintings back then and I'm repainting them now as part of this series. As I post the new ones, I'll post the original ones also so you can see the difference. Those will be #4 and #5. I know 14 years is a long time to take to finish a series but I wasn't painting very much back then and so my motivation disappeared. Now that I'm doing a painting each week, my motivation seems constant and I get excited about new painting ideas almost daily.

Here is the information in case you are interested in seeing the exhibition. If you are in the So Cal area and love watercolor paintings, I highly recommend seeing the show. 

Watercolor West

EXHIBIT DATES: September 12th - October 24th

Riverside Art Museum

3425 Mission Inn Avenue

Riverside, CA 92501

Paradise Lost I

Image size 22" x 22"

Watercolor