Three Trees

There's nothing like waiting til the last minute to do something.  Procrastinating is one of the things I do best so this makes sense.  This month's virtual paintout location is New Zealand and I did look around through Google Street Maps at the beginning of June but didn't take the time to pick any spots to paint even though I thought it was such a beautiful country.   So today, with one day to go before the deadline, I decided to paint something.

When I first looked around I found a lot of scenes with fog that were really cool but of course I couldn't find them today so I picked this pretty spot.  This was done with a palette knife.

I can't wait to see where we will be virtually traveling next month.

Three Trees
Image Size 6" x 6"
Oil
Sold

Succulent sketching

This has been a busy, very fun week with house guests but not much time for artwork.  I used the little time I had to do a colored pencil and ink sketch for the inside of the Tustin Garden Club yearbook.  I do the artwork each year for the cover and also 2 simplistic sketches for the inside.  So now I only have one more sketch to do and that one is almost finished.  The cover will be "Graptoveria" from a couple of weeks ago so I wanted to do different succulents for the inside.

It was fun working with colored pencil again with some ink but I really prefer doing more realistic pieces with colored pencil. Unfortunately I find that I really don't have the patience to spend the time that is required to do that.  I'm always in awe of artists that do such detailed colored pencil art.  If you want to see some incredible examples of realism in colored pencil, visit the Colored Pencil Society of America website.  So many beautiful art pieces make me both frustrated and inspired.

Copala - Watercolor

Copala is a small, quaint town in Mexico not too far from Mazatlan.  I loved this scene with the strange windows and mix of architectural details.    Of course, the colors are great too.  Each building in the town is a different color and most of them are bright.  The bougainvillea are growing everywhere which adds more shocks of color.   There are donkeys roaming through the town, each with a human attached waiting to charge tourists for a chance to take their picture with the donkey.  I resisted the temptation.

Copala

Image Size 12" x 16"

Watercolor

Graptoveria - Watercolor

I'm not really sure what this plant is named but  I do know that it is a succulent.  : )  In my succulents book, the graptoveria looked similar to this and was described as having the variety of colors in one plant that this one does.  That's what drew me to it.  The combination of colors almost make it look iridescent.
This is a large painting and I think I will enter it in the Watercolor West competition coming up.

Speaking of competitions, today I got the news that my painting Fish and Flotsam has been accepted into the San Diego Watercolor Society's International Exhibit.  I am so thrilled!  This is a prestigious exhibit and I feel honored to have one of my paintings included.  This is the time of year that many of the big shows deadlines come around.  There are two other international watercolor shows (Watercolor West and National Watercolor Society) and a couple of local shows, all with deadlines within the next month. Now I'm wishing I had worked more in watercolor the past few months.  Since my paintings have been all over the place (every medium imaginable), now I'm feeling the crunch.  Sometimes I am more focused when my time is limited so we'll see what happens.

Graptoveria
Image Size 22" x 30"
Watercolor
Framed

Bird of Paradise Murals

Here are two murals that I recently finished.  They are painted in niches on either side of a door in Mexico.  They are very similar because of their symmetrical architectural placement but I didn't want them to be identical.

This week is the anniversary of my posting a painting each week for the past 3 years.  I think my art has progressed throughout this process and it's really been a lot of fun.  I plan to keep it up and hopefully, I will post more than one each week in the coming year.  My self-imposed deadline every Monday has kept me on track and some weeks it's been a real challenge getting a painting done but compared to the many daily painters, I look like a slacker.  Of course, many of my paintings are much larger and more involved than most of the daily paintings but I should be able to do some smaller paintings each week along with my larger paintings, right?

Both murals are:

Image Size 26" x 48"
Acrylic