Bougainvillea – Bold and Subtle in Watercolor

Last summer I shared a couple of captures I took of our Bougainvillea blooms from our backyard. It took me until November to take those shots and create watercolor art prints of them. I also took them into two different directions, dark & bold and light & subtle. The original shots were taken to highlight the back lighting of the “colored bracts” surrounding the actual flower. That’s the technical and actual description, but most of us see the bracts as petals creating the bloom. The actual flower is a very small insignificant light colored center piece in the center of the bracts. Ok, so much for our botanical class lesson and let’s move on to what I did with them.

I wanted to present the look in a watercolor format as that lends itself to a soft warm presentation. What also caught me eye was the subtle difference in lighting and color saturation between the two. I decided to accent those differences which resulted in the attached art prints! I think the name I gave each says it all in what I saw as differences between the two.

Bougainvillea Dark And Bold

Bougainvillea Light And Subtle

Thoughts?

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Merry Christmas 2020

Merry Christmas 2020

Thoughts?

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Pastel Palm Grove – Featured Art Print

Pastel Palm Grove

I created this art print using a colored pencil and chalk technique. This technique uses strong drawing lines with softer chalk strokes filling in. The colors are in pastels, giving it a soft modern look.

The setting is a grove of palm trees in a local park near our home here in Arizona. It reminds me of a similar palm grove I came across on the big Island of Hawaii along the shoreline. I love the look of a group of palm trees creating a small “forest”. The fronds create a shaded canopy from the hot day sun and invite you into the palms to relax and enjoy the afternoon.

I have only used this particular technique on a few of my art prints and welcome any feedback. Thoughts?

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Pink Sherbert – Featured Art Print

Pink Sherbet

This week I wanted to feature one of my abstract prints. This particular print reminds me of frozen sherbert, especially the colors. Growing up in the midwest (Iowa), ice cream was the dessert of choice and for whatever reason I just didn’t care for it. On a visit to my grandparents house one year, I was introduced to frozen sherbert (the days before Sorbet was readily available). I love the rainbow variety and the different fruit flavors. Something about the consistency and vibrant colors appealed to me and I was converted. To this day, I’m still not an ice cream person, but love a good sorbet. That is how the title came to fruition and the next question should be…”I get that abstract art can be very esoteric, but what in the world are these shapes and colors based on?” Great question and the answer will probably surprise you.

This print was created from a photograph taken of the sun setting over a very foggy ocean. My wife and I were traveling up the Northern California coastline and had stopped for the night. A very thick layer of fog was rolling in just as the sun was going down. The scene went from where you could hardly see the water or the waves breaking to a bright spot of light and massive color display in the fog reflected off of the water to hardly seeing the ocean again. From the picture, I worked with this particular technique (Impasto…bold brush strokes) and chose this color palette until I had what I was envisioning for an abstract print. Thoughts?

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Visual Depth – Featured Art Prints

One of the aspects of a good art print or photograph is the ability of the visual display (art print or photograph) to pull your eye into the scene. A quick left to right scan is not pulling your visual interest into the presentation. There needs to be an aspect of the picture that pulls your eye further into the scene. Sometimes, this is an interesting aspect of the subject matter presented and sometimes it’s the simple visual stimuli of depth. Depth in a picture creates an interest for the eye to look further into the composition of the print. One of the easiest ways to do this is to literally create depth in the picture. In real life, we find depth interesting…”oh, look down there” or “I wonder where that goes”… to the most common….”hum…wonder what’s around the bend?”. I have attached four art prints from my Street Scenes/People Gallery that typifies my point. The depth elements in these four cases are the scene itself.

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The first art print is one of my more popular ones, depicting a portion of Beacon Hill. Typical street scene and see how your eye follows the road, looking down the street to see what is there.

Beacon Hill

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The second print is of Bunker Hill and uses the same element, but plays with the “what’s around the corner” curiosity. Your eye can’t help but follow the road as it winds down the hill.

Bunker Hill

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The third and fourth prints from a resort in Warner Springs, California are similar to the first one, in that your eye follows the sidewalk under the arched trees into that remote point way off in the distance.

Tree Arched Walkway

Fall Walkway

Thoughts?

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Fauvism in Flower Blooms – Featured Art Prints

I wanted to share a couple of prints that I just added to my Foral/Still Life Gallery. Both are flower blooms and both are done using a Fauvism style of presentation. Fauvism was introduced to the art world around 1900 and the formal movement lasted only a few years, but the style that was introduced has been copied and integrated into other styles, keeping the concept alive. The elements involved are surreal colors and abstract shapes and presentation styles. I like this particular type of art as it creates a type of abstract art that is colorful, edgy and whimsical. That type of combination is usually not correlated with each other, but my thought is that the more abstract shapes of the subject create an edgy look, yet the surreal colors create a fun whimsical visual experience. I have spent a fair amount of time trying to mimic the look in many of my prints and here are two examples.

Orange Hibiscus

The first print is an orange hibiscus bloom. Simple enough, yet I integrated a bold level of yellow to accent the orange in the bloom. Also notice the vivid blue (almost purple) in the background.

Yellow Orchid Bloom In Fauvism

The second art print is of a yellow orchid bloom. Again, I saturated the yellow color and exaggerated the veining in the bloom, creating a bright cheerful art print.

Thoughts?

I invite you to visit my Floral/Still Life Gallery to enjoy these prints and many more.

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Palm Trees – Featured Art Print

Thick Palm Trees

With summer ending and fall just around the corner, I think it’s time to hit the tropics. The art print I wanted to feature today is from my Tropical Collection. It’s titled “Thick Palm Trees”. The style I used on this print is a gothic oil technique that emphasizes bold brush strokes and earth tone colors. The bold brush strokes create texture and dimension to the print. The earth tones create an old world look as well as a vintage feel. I think of this style more in terms of an old world traditional style, but when I use it with tropical themes it makes me think of a vintage Hawaiian look that I have seen. The palm trees are not Hawaiian, but Arizona based near where I live. This grove reminded me of a similar grove of palm trees on the Big Island of Hawaii where native Hawaiians had a village. The grove provides a great canopy for protection from the sun, but with very little undergrowth allowing ease of movement. Using the grove close to me, I tried to recreate the look and feel that I saw on the Big Island. I always try to create a sense of depth so your “minds eye” can picture yourself in the scene, walking into the grove and feeling the cool ocean breeze. The magic of art to create this type of illusion, but truly if I hadn’t told you the subject matter was in the desert, does it not take you to one of your favorite tropical locations? That place where time slows down and life seems more simplified? Thoughts?

I invite you to come into the gallery to view the collection in Tropical.

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The Spanish Fountain – Featured Art Print

The Spanish Fountain

“The Spanish Fountain” is the art print I wanted to feature today from my Gardens Collection.  The print is of a Spanish style fountain in the middle of a beautiful courtyard. The style I used on this print is an impasto oil technique that emphasizes bold brush strokes and bright colors. The bold brush strokes create texture and dimension to the print. The bright colors reinforce the color of the plant life, the tile and the stucco of the courtyard. The courtyard is located in Cave Creek, Arizona. It is a scene I captured on a photo shoot over Fathers Day that I shared in a prior blog. From that photo shoot, the only shots I had worked on were for my Sepia Collection, which were the old carriages and wagons lining the street of this old western town. Within that area, was this large courtyard used for private functions. It definitely had the feel of a courtyard belonging to a large adobe ranch house.

What prompted this particular process of creation was an email from a client looking for something specific. With what they described, I immediately thought of this shoot and this courtyard. That started a chain reaction as I looked at this setting and the results were a few new art prints for the Gardens Collection, a happy client and a happy artist.

I love courtyards as they typically transport you away from the outside world into an inner sanctum. They are usually very quiet and tranquil with the water from a fountain as the only soothing noise to be heard. I love the plant life in this particular courtyard with the bougainvillea adding bright patches of red and the trees creating shade from the desert sun. I hope you enjoy the print.

I invite you to come into the gallery to view the collection in Gardens.

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Urban Cluster – Featured Art Print

Urban Cluster

“Urban Cluster” is the art print I wanted to feature today from my Cityscapes Collection.  The print is a group of high-rise buildings in downtown San Diego. The style I used on this print is a sketching technique that emphasizes the linear aspect of the group of buildings.

This particular print had its birth in a project I was doing for a San Diego based company. I was doing a full day shoot around the core areas of San Diego. My shoot took me along the bay in downtown San Diego, then across the bay on Coronado Island. From Coronado, I used my telephoto lens to shoot the skyline of downtown. In the middle of all of those shots, I found this particular scene. Although I never used it for the project, I was pulled to it seeing some elements I liked. After cropping the shot tighter and squaring it, I found the look I was after. I then played with a technique giving it a sketched appearance with watercolors. I liked the result as it highlights the straight lines and sharp points of the architecture in each of the buildings. It’s a group of five buildings caught at such an angle that they look grouped together. In reality, they are not. The buildings in the forefront are about a block apart from each other and the pointed building in the background is at least a half a mile away along with the high-rise condo on the extreme left. The use of a telephoto lens creates an interesting element in the depth perception as it pulls the background in closer, especially in a tight shot like this. Thoughts?

I invite you to come into the gallery to view the collection in Cityscapes.

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Hot Air Balloons, Sunset and Poppies – Featured Art Prints

The only thing these three things have in common is that I have picked three art prints I have done and put them on “All Occasion Cards” in my Note Card Gallery.

The first feature is a watercolor I did of two poppy blooms. I reference my prior post of Painted Poppies; I used the same photo shoot for those prints as a basis of this piece. Using a watercolor approach creates a different picture, being a lot softer and more subtle.

Watercolor Poppy

The next feature is an art print from my Hot Air Balloons Gallery titled: “Between the Two”. This print is done using a gothic oil technique creating an old world feel.

Between the Two

The last feature is an abstract watercolor of a sunset from my Landscape Watercolor Gallery titled: “Arizona Sunset”.

Arizona Sunset

I thought all three would make great fronts on All Occasion Cards. The cards are printed on recycled white matte and are blank inside for writing your personal thoughts pertaining to a variety of occasions.

 

I invite you to come into the gallery to view the new additions to the collection in the Note Card Gallery.

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