I am introducing my new online shop where you can purchase merchandise with my artwork. Over the years friends and customers have asked if there were mugs, tote bags, etc of my images such as the Flying Pig. I have worked diligently in the past few months getting high quality scans and learning Photoshop. My husband, a Photoshop pro has been a great help. It’s been fun and somewhat creative doing a bit of graphic design and coming up with quotes and captions for my designs.
The company my shop is with is offering free shipping through Nov. 26th. Click on the link below to take a look and get a jump on your holiday shopping! Thanks!
There Goes My Shadow 2 – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval
There Goes My Shadowis a painting I blogged about a year and a half ago that I recently reworked. Last month as I began the recent painting Moonlit Dove and Sunlit Crow, I took a look at this older painting because of the similar theme of dealing with the shadow. I realized then that the painting looked weak.
I have added more color and contrast to to help pop out the fall colors and I also reworked the girl’s face. My painting teacher used to have us do an exercise of painting in a darkened room since it would naturally force us to use more contrast with the lights and darks. It was a helpful lesson and it came to mind as I looked back that this painting. I think it works better now.
Quan Yin Riding the Dragon -acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval
Here is my new painting, Quan Yin Riding the Dragon; it has taken me a couple of weeks to complete as it was quite complex, integrating all of the elements was a challenge.
Quan Yin is an Eastern Goddess of compassion. Quan Yin carries the Goddess and Divine Mother aspect of Buddhism and is worshiped throughout Asia as an ascended master who is a protector to women and children.
I’ve done many paintings of Buddha but I felt drawn to paint Quan Yin this time around, perhaps because my daughter is away in Japan all summer.
I chose to paint her on a dragon. She is compassionate but also courageous and thus can tame the fierceness of Dragon. In the dragon’s wild and cruel nature, Quan Yin is the only one who understands the dragon and his nature. She is the one that can heal him.
It’s hard to believe we are entering the last leg of summer here, the kids in our area are already back in school. Enjoy this month!
Twin Fairies is my third attempt at painting twins and I think the most successful. As I have written on my about page, I have an identical twin sister and we are the youngest in our family. My parents had an eight and four year old when we came along. They were busy with the older daughters, so the two of us were left on our own and played together all the time. We actually developed our own language and I can remember being in our own imaginary world pretending to be animals, fairies, etc. If you were to see our baby photos, we actually looked like chubby cherubs with curly hair.
My Mom was born in the early 20’s and when she was a child, her mom gave her illustrated prints of little fairies and children that were popular during that time period. Mom kept them and they hung in our bedrooms growing up. We loved them, they were magical and fun to look at. I wanted this painting to have a bit of that dreamy, magical style.
Moonlit Dove with Sunlit Crow – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval
I’ve been thinking about the light and dark and how here in the United States each passing day brings more and more concerning news. We are living through an unique time period that has a surreal feeling to it. There are many polarizing issues with such a big gulf between them; from gun control, global warming, immigration, to race relations and gender issues. What seems clear to me, is not to others who have their own different beliefs. I’m sure they feel the same as I do. Arguing about the issues has not been productive.
There are no easy answers. I again started thinking about Carl Jung’s term the shadow and how what we don’t see in ourselves gets projected onto others. I think on a collective level we are all dealing with unhealed wounds from our past and collectively we need to blend the light and dark within ourselves.
Moonlit Dove with Sunlit Crow is a new painting of a white dove flying toward the moon and the black crow flying toward the sun is the result of my pondering. Getting back to painting is helping me refocus my energy away from absorbing too much negative news to being more centered and peaceful. This is helping me integrate my own anger issues that will hopefully reach out into the collective and help in some way.
Two Pears in the Sunlight – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval
Two Pears in the Sunlight is the last of my pear painting touch ups. I loved the bright yellows of the pears and the foreground texture. There is a simple looseness in this early painting that I wanted to keep so I just added the purple stripe and a bit more detail to the background wall.
It’s a bright painting for an early overcast Friday morning. Hope everyone enjoys the weekend ahead!
Two Pears is another painting that I started years ago. I had always loved the composition but thought it was a bit dull. I added the colorful wallpaper in the back and brightened up the pears which I think helped.
When I look at this painting I think of my instructor who said any time you have two of something they are in a relationship on the page. It’s kind of fun to think about what the relationship is between these two pears with one in the bowl and the other not.
I’m trying to give myself a media break since it’s so crazy out there. It takes discipline and will give me more time to starting to work on a new painting.
Pear and Lemon – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval
It’s been a while since I’ve posted. My daughter was home from college for a month and then left the second week of June for Japan. She has been traveling throughout Japan and is now settling in Tokyo to start teaching. It’s sounds like she is have an amazing experience. Perhaps because she only has one more year of college I’ve gotten the urge to start to pare down. I’ve combed through and sold of a lot of items that belonged to my parent’s estate and also cleaned out years of our stuff that cluttered up the garage and the rest of the home. There is still more to do but it is off to a good start.
I’ve also been going through all my original paintings and making high resolution scans that will enable me to sell on online art sites. I came across a couple of pear paintings started years ago that didn’t quite work. I decided that reworking them would be a good project for me to get back to painting.
Pear and Lemon is a new completed painting of the first one. I added the lemon to the lone pear and changed the tablecloth and feel it looks better than it did and makes a nice addition to my pear series. Once all my paintings are scanned, I plan to start selling the originals also. One thing I’ve learned the past few months is that it’s good to let go of things to keep the energy flowing. Hope everyone is enjoying their summer!
Siamese Cat in the Garden – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval
Siamese Cat in the Garden is new addition to my cat still life series. After viewing the last painting of the black cat next to the fish pitcher my sister told me a funny story about her siamese cat who was lapping water in a an asian ceramic bowl that suddenly noticed the large fish painted inside and jumped back in fright. That got me thinking about adding a new painting with a siamese cat.
I’ve done a number of lotus paintings; I find them beautiful, the colors and they way the blossoms float above large pads. I thought it made sense to add lotuses to a asian garden theme painting with the siamese cat. I also alluded once again to the cat looking at the large container decorated with catfish.
Many years ago when my twin sister and I were in second grade, a little siamese cat appeared in our yard and adopted our family to live with. We named her Thai Pung, she was very sweet and full of fun. She was probably just under a year old and soon we found out she was pregnant. At that time my twin sister and I shared a double bed and one morning we awoke to see Ti Pung with four little kittens that she had given birth to during the night right in between us. As an adult, I’ve wondered why she chose our bed. She didn’t stay with us much longer, my parents must have given her away along with the kittens.
Because of her I’ve always loved Siamese cats, they are smart and vocal. I enjoyed doing the painting, there were several elements that I had to pull together. I’m relatively pleased and I now have six cat and floral images for my note cards.
Sunflower Still Life with Black Cat – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval
Sunflower Still Life with Black Cat is a painting that I’ve just completed. I felt like doing a new still life and wanted to use the fish pitcher that my twin sister gave me on our birthday last year. It’s one of her many unique thrift store finds, she’s got a great eye and is always coming home with fun items. She thoughtfully passed it on to me as I like to paint both pitchers and fish. The pitcher usually stays out in the screened in back porch; I brought it in and filled with sunflowers to paint.
I decided to add a black cat to the painting to continue the still lifes with cats series. It’s the fourth one in the series and with the two other cat paintings I now have cat note card six pack for marketing purposes. I’m pleased with the cat, he’s standing for a change which I think works in this painting and it’s also bit humorous that he’s right next to the fish. I had been wanted to paint sunflowers for a while now, as they radiate warmth and happiness. The sunflower papier mache bowls I used to make were always quite popular.
It took a while to balance all the elements but I’m happy with the result. Our daughter is coming home for spring break next week, we’re looking forward to her visit. It’s gotten chilly again today, hopefully it will warm up by next week during her break.
Heni's Happy Paintings 