Coconut Palms now completed

In this heat wave, I am tired of working on the Coconut Palms. They keep reminding me of the heat:-) So, I will call them done for the moment. What do you think?

SOLD

I may enter it at the next Foyer Gallery show called "Mid-Summer Visions". It starts on July 8th.
I am wishing all Canadians a great Canada Day Weekend!

Coconut Palms WIP Part 2 and Good News

I have been splashing more color on my coconut palms:-) Since I am not very familiar with palm trees, I am not sure that any of my color combinations are logical, but I am just having fun!
If I don't crop this watercolor painting, it will be framed at 20" X 24". It is on Fabriano Artistico 140 lb SP, my new favorite watercolor paper.

I found out this week that one of my mascaroni, The Gate Keeper. had been chosen to be be part of the juried show Selections 2012 to be held in late September at the Shenkman Arts Centre, a super venue in the East end of Ottawa. There were 233 submissions and 60 were chosen.

This is my first time submitting one of my works for this great show; I feel very honored that "The Gate Keeper" will be part of it in the Fall.

I wish all of you a great weekend.

New WIP: Coconut Palms

Already Sunday evening! The weeks go by so quickly.
This week I started a new watercolor painting in the spirit of the summer and the heat wave that we are having in Ottawa, Canada: coconut palms from the Bahamas.
I am having fun with the colors of this painting - I certainly don't want everything to be yellow or green, so I am dropping a riot of colors here and there. This is not a commission, so I feel very carefree about it:-)
The large coconut at the front is still in its initial stages.  I am showing only part of the painting at this point - I may decide to crop it from my original sketch of 15"X 19".  I thank Li Newton for the beautiful reference picture.

I could not resist from making more earrings this week. I love working on them. Here is the fruit of this week's labor:

The first pair below is called " Carribean" and is probably inspired by my working on the coconut palm painting:-)

Next, another large pair, with more subdued colors, but with nice textures, called "Desert Glow":

The next earrings are small and delicate and are called " Summer Sky":

The last pair for this week ( yes, I worked on these earrings for hours and hours) called "South Seas" has a very unique texture! I added layers of medium between layers of paint, found a way to make some of the paint bubble a bit. I wish I could do the same on a large canvas...Food for thought:-) \The first image is closer to the aqua color of the earrings

 But this second picture of "South Seas" may provide a better idea of the texture under the glossy surface.

 I will be showing my jewelry also on Fine Art America...Do check the jewelry there...there is something for every taste and every purse:-)

As always, I really look forward to hearing from you and I wish you all a great week!

It's been too long....

It's been too long since I have posted! Time really goes by so quickly: I could not believe that my last post was about 4 weeks ago. So, what have I been doing.....?

I have had two shows since the last
post. I finished my Pierre, the Green Man, and my client is very, very happy with it. After this commission, I wanted to play a bit before tackling something serious again. I showed you my  mixed media Inukshuk in the previous post. I have now added a new whale and a new polar bear ( previous 2 sold quickly). Here is the bear, King of the Ice, even if it's difficult to photograph because of the metallics. It is 6"x6"x1.5" on a wooden panel with the sides painted black.

However, the most fun I've had is creating watercolor/acrylic earrings!!! They are made of layers of watercolor paper, hand shaped, sanded, painted, decorated with acrylic gels and metallics, then sealed with layers of gloss. Most have sterling silver ear wires or 14k gold plated wires. A few have silver or platinum plated wires - clients so far don't seem to make any difference between the types of wire.

 I have made just over a dozen pairs in the past two weeks and have sold more than half to the few people who have seen them. Some people  first thought that they were in copper enameling and were very surprised to see how light they were. The gloss sealer/varnish makes these earring very shiny and resistant. I am sure that this surface protects them from water, but I would certainly not take a shower with them...just in case.

Here are a few pictures: these are all the small sizes ( approx. 1.5" long) except the black "Samurai" which are approx. 2"( without the wire of course). I am anxious to see what you think even though the pictures are not very good.

SAMURAI -

Monet's Garden -

Sunset -

Ice and Metal -

I would love your comments. I will be offering them online for a while. I have just started a page for them (see tab at top of this page). These earrings make wonderful gifts. Check out other gift jewelry on FineArtAmerica. There is always something for every taste and every wallet:-)

Next time I need to play, I may try making pendants:-)

Happy painting!