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Its hard not to appreciate the spring blooms we have here in Tucson. This is a torch cactus, or Trichocereus spp. Each flower only last for one day. The hardest part of this was changing back to oils after months of using watercolour!

Enjoying the warm weather and cactus blooms. This little spider cactus has been a real work horse, blooming all month in the green house!

Another sketch for a friend

This weekend we got to enjoy the Tucson Orchid Society show here is town. Just beautiful! This is a type of orchid called a Paphiopedilum spp.   According to Elvin McDonald’s “100 Orchids for the American Gardener” has no way to store water and needs constant moisture. Possible why the two I have at home aren’t blooming.

I got to see this beauty at the Tucson Botanical Gardens butterfly house. It is a small greenhouse, but definitely worth the visit. You really have the chance to get up close to the insects.

I have been trying to look into print options to reproduce some of my paintings. My goal is try to make two box sets of cards: one from the butterfly sketches and one from a set of oil paintings.  Hopefully this will get done by Christmas ^_^. These are some initial sample prints.

Sandhill cranes migrate down to southern A.Z. every winter.  My parents are avid birder and I tagged along. They hang out in farm fields eating all day, but at night there are several playas of shallow water huge flocks congregate at for the night.

For this little painting I attempted to just use watercolor with no preliminary sketch. Here is an early stage of the painting:

Where do my paintings come from? Some artist are gifted with incredible imagination but honestly I have always been more comfortable working from reality. One of the most influential people in my life was my AP studio art teacher. She not only taught us techniques; but also, the creative process. Her rule was that if you were going to work directly from a photo, it had to be YOUR photo. Else you needed direct permission from the photographer to use their work.

I have never been able to move away from the philosophy because it makes sense. If a photo is art, directly copying the photo is plagiarism. No better than copying and pasting from wiki for an essay. As a result I take a ton of photos, and my paintings are based off of my life. When taking photos I often think “beautiful photos are for printing, mediocre photos make for great paintings” ^_^.

Of course there are grey zones with this philosophy as with any. If you modify the content, as with a collage you make a photo your own. I would love to hear other thoughts on the subject!

 

The last morning Jon and I were in Kyoto we saw these Grey Herons fighting over a stretch of territory. It was beautiful, but ferocious with the upper bird pushing the lower underwater. It lasted over 7 minutes before one admitted defeat.