Cymbidium --- in process

Hmmm, I think it's time to get an easel. This 11"x14" painting is propped up against my computer, where I'm painting Cymbidium flowers that were growing in my garden. My favorite are these green orchids and my friends know it because that's what I get for Birthdays and Christmases! Someday, my garden will be filled with these!

After painting mostly 5"x7", this canvas is HUGE! This is the largest canvas I have ever painted on and is my attempt to prepare myself for the 18"x24" commission I am going to work on soon. As you can tell from my #3 sable brush that I'm holding here, I haven't grown to larger brushes yet. It's amazing what you can do with such a tiny brush! I will no doubt start using my larger brushes for future paintings. It is a process after all.

I was able to pull out my favorite colors ... Alizarin crimson, Quinacridone red, Cadmium yellow pale, Sap green, Phthalo green (a new color to hit my palette ... which I now love), French ultramarine, Cobalt blue, Burnt Sienna, Burnt umber, Payne's Gray (and yes, a little of that Mars black), and Titanium white. I can't believe the spectrum of colors I can make with this palette and while this painting is mostly green, I look forward to placing vibrant newly created colors throughout the painting. Wish me luck!

Cool Kīlauea morning

oil on canvas, 8"x10" (SOLD)

This one is hot of the easel! It's still drying and I hope to have it available at this weekend's Volcano Village Artist Hui Studio Tour and Art Sale, starting Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, from 10 am - 4 pm and running until Sunday. Stop by Emily Herb's studio on Kenoelehua and visit with Emily, Charlotte Forbes Perry, and me! Emily will have her beautiful native plant and animal-inspired ceramics and guest artist Charlotte will have her ceramic native species trivets, ceramic ornaments, stained glass, and surprise ceramic pieces. I'll have original artwork (as seen on this blog), giclee prints, and notecards! We are all inspired by the plants and animals that surround us in the Village and hope to share with you our love of them through our artwork. 

This is one of my favorite views of the Thurston Lava Tube area, where one can look down into a caved in portion of a lava tube, now filled with myriad native trees and ferns and noisy with the calls of native birds flying about. 

Please excuse the glare ... the paint is still drying on this one!

`A`ali`i (Dodonaea viscosa)

`A`ali`i, oil on canvas, 7"x5" (SOLD)

"Daud-vis" ... or Dodvis, is the field code for Dodonaea viscosa (`a`ali`i), the first three letters of the genus and first three letters for the species. Botanists tend to speak in code because who has time to pronounce each syllable of a scientific name anyway?! For example, "Met-paul" for Metpol or Metrosideros polymorpha (`ōhi`a) ... "Sib-glah" for Cibgla or Cibotium glaucum (hapu`u), etc. So, if we ever meet and I happen to speak plant gibberish to you, remind yourself that you're talking to a botanist who spends too much time with plants. :)

This `a`ali`i is a small shrub that grows in the area I live. The fruit, painted here, are winged papery fruit with tiny black seeds inside.  They are pretty iconic and you can see them readily when you visit Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park.

This closeup of a branch was fun to paint because sunlight could be seen back-lighting the fruit so I was able to use a variety of saturated colors .... alizarin red, cadmium red deep, cadmium orange, cadmium yellow pale to capture the light. The shadows was achieved mixing the colors with its complement, for example, I mixed the reds with sap green or ultramarine blue to achieve a more rich shadow. The highlights were achieved using titanium white with a variety colors. While it looks like I might have used pure white, it was never the case in this painting.

`Ōhelo in the rain

`Ōhelo, oil on canvas, 10"x8" (SOLD)

`Ōhelo or Vaccinium reticulatum is probably my favorite Hawaiian plant. The fruit are usually tart, sometimes sweet and comes in a variety of colors from yellow, orange, red, to purple. This species is a cousin of blueberries and like blueberries are collected for pies and jam. But, in Hawai`i, we first ask for permission to pick and in reverence, offer the fruit to Pele, the Goddess of Fire, before picking some for ourselves. And, we always leave lots of fruit on the bushes for nene (Hawaiian geese) and other native birds.

I've been choosing to paint on larger canvases and this one is 10"x8", which means changing my painting style to larger brushes, larger brushstrokes, and getting used to a larger drying time. It has also meant making more conscious decisions on areas to keep sharp and distinct and areas to push back into the distance. It is easier to fudge that with smaller pieces. Painting larger also has meant needing to step back from the painting from time to time to to take in the whole painting where I just held it at arm's length when painting much smaller pieces. It's a learning process, isn't it? Maybe my next step will be to purchase an easel so I can paint even larger!

My favorite part of this piece, besides painting the luscious fruit, was adding the red and green leaves. I used a myriad of colors for this piece, sometimes leaning toward the cool cerulean blue and sometimes toward the warmer cadmium red. I love painting with complementary colors!

Hawaiian forest-living

Hāpuʻu-ʻŌhi`a forest, 6"x12", oil on canvas (SOLD)

Some paintings take a year ... Yup, I started this one in November of last year and set it aside after the initial blocking in. It's a view of my backyard, from the view of my "studio" so I knew I would be able to get back to it because I see this view every day. The ʻapapane (red native honeycreeper birds) outside were calling from the same trees so I took at as a calling back to the painting. 

I havenʻt decided whether to paint in the birds or leave it as is. What do you think? Does this need a spot of red?

Please excuse the highlights. The painting is still wet. 

Nene goose (Branta sandvicensis)

Nene, 8"x10", oil on canvas ($120 USD)

Going bigger to 8"x10"! I'm still working on this painting but was just feeling happy about how it was going that I figured I'd post it now before I do the final touches. I just think these geese are so pretty. I think they're a favorite bird to paint in Hawaii because they tend to stand still and allow you to take pictures or paint them. So, not wanting to be typical, I opted to try something new and put this goose in front of a simple background, just to show off its adorable face.