Paradise Lost II - Watercolor

Here is the second painting in my Paradise Lost series. Can you tell what is in the background (the brown part of the painting)? Only about half of the people I ask get what I was trying to portray. Of course, it seems really obvious to me but that's because I painted it. I would love to hear your feedback on this one.

Paradise Lost II

Image Size 22" x 30"

Watercolor

Framed

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

Under Pressure

Luckily I had this painting almost finished and was able to finish it up for this week's painting because my studio is still a mess. There are still no flat surfaces available so I painted this on an easel. In fact, the room looks worse now than it did last week. The new tables are built and I painted the last one today so I will be able to start organizing tomorrow and have a clean studio with a place for everything in a couple of days.

Under Pressure
Image Size 20" x 20"
Acrylics
Unframed-gallery wrapped canvas, no frame needed
Sold

Silk Mandalas

I'm organizing my studio and of course it looks worse right now than before I started. Every flat surface is covered and I barely found room to work on these 6" silk mandalas. I found 6 of these pre-stretched silk circles amongst my stuff and thought making mandalas would be a good way to use them. I've always loved patterns and repetitions of color. Probably my 20 years of making stained glass windows has something to do with being attracted to them. I'm intrigued by how different the colors look on both of these. They are exactly the same colors and intensity and the resist lines are the only difference. The one on right looks like it was painted with much lighter colors, doesn't it? I love optical illusions.

I would love to hear whether you prefer the black or white resist lines.

Silk Mandalas
Image Size 6"
Silk dyes on silk

Silk Fuchsia - Silk Painting

This is the silk painting that was supposed to be last week's post. I added more color and am happy with it now. This is on a beautiful piece of silk satin which has a really nice sheen to it but I think I will go back to my silk habotai for future work. The resist doesn't penetrate this fabric as easily.

Silk Fuchsia
Image Size 21" x 21"
Silk dyes on Silk
Unframed

Echinacea Trio

This is a quick pastel sketch that I did today because the silk painting that I thought was finished needs to be worked on some more to intensify some of the colors. I'm not thrilled about that because I have to put the resist back on and repaint because I already steamed and washed it. It will be almost like doing it all over again. Arrggghhh!!! Anyway, it was fun to do another pastel. I always enjoy the feeling of spontaneity that I get using pastels. I don't know why I don't use them more often.

Echinacea Trio
Image Size 4" x 6"
Pastel
Unframed

Honorable Mention

I received an Honorable Mention for my painting "Silk Birds" at the Orange Open. This is one of my favorite silk paintings. Sorry about the reflections in the picture. If you want to see it without reflections, hit the 'home' button at the top of the blog page and click on 'Silk Paintings'.

Lake Powell Abstraction

I tried something new this week. This is a mixed media on paper. The background paper has various rice papers attached to it and then acrylic painted in an abstract manner. Then I added pieces of paper on top and painted a more representational image of Lake Powell in watercolor. Finally, I attached the pieces with gold thread in the corners of the pieces and where they intersect. It's very different but I am really happy with the outcome.

Lake Powell Abstraction
Image Size 15" x 22"
Mixed Media
Unframed

Orange Open Competition

Three of my paintings were just juried into a local show called the Orange Open which is organized by the Orange Art Association. This show is one of my favorite local shows and always has a good variety of quality art. If you live in Orange County, California and you like viewing art, you may want to stop by. The reception is this Saturday from 7:00 to 8:30 and the show will run through August 16th. It is held at Chapman University in their Guggenheim Gallery.

For more information, you can go to the website at www.orangeartassociation.org

Burano, Italy - Silk Painting

We went to Venice, Italy a few years ago and Burano is an island off of the coast there. I was amazed that it was so different from Venice. The buildings are all painted bright colors there and not a gondola in sight. I thought that silk dyes on silk would be a good medium to try for this picture. I may also do it in oil later.

Burano, Italy
Image size 20" x 16"
Silk dyes on silk
Framed
$400.00