Scepters

This 12x16 oil records a beautiful plant I found blossoming profusely under the harsh desert sun.
These bursts of color were small in scale, but reached up from the glossy leaves throughout the plant.
The reflection of the brilliant desert sky and the beautifully articulated shadows on the curving leaves
caught and held my attention. I hope you enjoy it as well.

This is the underpainting, where I worked out the composition and the overall pattern
of light and dark before I dove into finding all those greens.

My pallet consists of 2 yellows, 2 reds, 2 greens, 2 blues, 4 browns, black and white.
This series has tested my ability to mix the necessary 1000 shades of green.
Someday I'll move to another subject and perhaps I won't feel
green around the gills after a day in the studio!

Dawn Palm

It seems that the soundtrack of my most memorable vacations and adventures has always involved the rustle of palm fronds. This was an early morning sight, recorded while sipping coffee with toes in the sand. As I watched, the sun caught the center of the tree, chasing the early morning shadows away and firing up another brilliant tropical day.

I started with an accurate value study done in Burnt Sienna. This establishes not only the placement of the elements, here is where I design the pattern of lights and darks.

After letting my underpainting dry for a couple of days I began by laying in the clear blue sky that so beautifully set off the brilliant lights and deep darks of the palm.

Then I moved to the tree itself, beginning by placing my lightest lights and the darks of the deepest shadows. 

Then days were spent in finding all the middle tone greens that make up the bulk of the image and then color balancing and fine tuning. I stopped when I could actually hear the rustle of the fronds.

Seeds and Spines

I found this scene in the other worldly cactus garden at Lotusland in Montecito, California. The amazing gardens Madame Ganna Walska spent her later years designing are now open to the public. No matter how far you have to travel to get there, I promise the trip is well worth the effort!

I love seeing the stages the fruit goes through, from small nub to breaking open and offering it's seeds. The sculptural quality of cactus is so satisfying - catching light and casting shadow, creating stripes of bright, warm colors and deep cool shadows. Oh, and the mixed message of the lush, shapely fruit and the bristling defense of all those spines delights me.

Fierce Offering

This exploding ball of seeds crowns a stalk ringed by layers of wickedly spiked leaves. I love the composition, the dramatic contrast, and nature's endless drive to offer up it's fruit.

Mexican Hibiscus

We have just returned from 2 weeks in Bali, a trip that filled my head with enough images and thoughts to occupy me in the studio for months. Despite the vastly different culture and climate, I was surprised to find a great similarity in the plant life there to that we enjoy in tropical Mexico.

This 8x10 on panel was done about a year ago after a trip to Mexico. The richness of color in the late afternoon sun, and the way these flowers reached above the bush to contrast with the colors of the building behind were too good - I had to paint them!

Ripening Berries

 I saw these while eating lunch and resting from a morning walking through a breathtaking botanical garden. I sipped my iced tea and happily flipped though the photos I had gathered over the course of the morning. Savoring the quiet and happily reflecting on all the paintings I wanted to get to I gazed around me at the plants that were offering their shade to my table. A ray of sun perfectly caught these berries casting their shadows on the shiny leaves below them. I jumped up to capture their image and didn't think of sitting down again until dusk.

 After establishing my tonal sketch in Burnt Sienna I began by laying in the background.

 I moved to observing the leaves and establishing their patterns of warm and cool, light and shadow.

 Finally I focused on the stars of the show, the berries. I loved the variety of color, the sweet little buttons at their base, their luster and the way they hung in differing ways from the branch.

The last step was to bring up the highlights, focus on the smaller details and make sure I had captured their powerful promise of the next generation of plants.

Push

I encountered this towering succulent on a hike in the high California desert. Looking up into it's muscular arms, with the brilliant desert sky behind I experienced a sensation of smallness than modern, plugged-in types, and women who reached nearly 6 feet in their early teens rarely feel. It was delightful.

I painted this big, like it felt - 20x24.