Floral Still-life

Floral Still’life – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

This week, I decided to paint an interior space with a lovely flower arrangement my good friend brought for me to a lunch gathering we had out on my back porch. It was beautiful and brought me joy for over two weeks while I was down in the kitchen.

I worked on Floral Still-life for almost two weeks, playing with all the details. The view is from our kitchen into the dining room with the back doors opening to our sceened porch. One of the best things we did after buying our house as a fixer upper was to put in the double doors along with adding a screened porch. It’s especially wonderful during the warm weather; our cats hang out there daily.

I enjoy painting interior spaces, it makes for dramatic compositions and here I also used high contrast between the lights and darks. In the painting above the dining table, you can see a small framed painting of our kitty lounging on the porch. The flowers were a challange, getting the whites to work took time. I’m fairly pleased.

Woman with Red Winged Blackbird

Woman with Red Winged Blackbird

Woman with Red Winged Blackbird is my new painting of the week. It’s actually a redo of a painting I did in 2015. While painting my mom in the canoe a few weeks ago, I realized that over time, I’ve gotten a little better at faces; so, I pulled out this older painting and ended up redoing most of it. I feel like her face works a bit better. I then decided to change the crow and make him a red winged blackbird. I took a bit of artistic license as you don’t usually see them at birdbaths. Their habitat is in fields close to water. I used to see them all the time when I was a park ranger leading tours on trails through the marshes.

I’ve admired the works of the Pre-Raphaelite painters of Victorian England who rebelled from the style at the time by painting women with long flowing hair using rich, vivid colors in natural settings. I remember seeing some of their paintings at the Tate Gallery in London back in my early 20’s and being moved by the large size and richness of colors. This painting is a nod to that style.

Twin Fairies

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.

Pear and Lemon

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!

 

Sunflower Still Life with Black Cat

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.

Daises in a Blue Vase

Daises in a Blue Vase – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

This week I felt like creating a more painterly painting.  I chose to do a floral still life and then layered lots of paint on the paper and played with texture and color.   Daises in a Blue Vase is the result.   I’m fairly pleased with the result.

We are looking forward to our daughter coming home for spring break on Monday.  She is spending the weekend in Chicago with friends, it’s very chilly there and snow is expected on Sunday.  So far it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a big storm so hopefully she won’t get snowed in.

Enjoy the weekend and good luck with springing forward an hour tomorrow!

 

Tulips in Mom’s Pitcher

Tulips in Mom’s Pitcher

I’m back to painting again, here is a new still life I did in honor of my Mom. Her birthday was last Friday.  I discovered this small megellica pitcher of hers hiding in the back on top of my  kitchen cabinet last month.  I just love it, the sunflower with the bee and the handle made to look like a branch.

Tulips in Mom’s Pitcher is a companion to the other majolica stoneware pitcher painting I did last year. I chose bright colorful tulips and pears to lift my spirits as the news has been very discouarging lately, it felt good to get absorbed in painting.

It’s been a busy season, we’ve had a guy redoing our hallway bathroom for the past four months.  We have a 60’s split level and the bathroom shower was leaking and the floor cracked so we bit the bullet deciding to update it.  He said he’d have it done before our girl got home from school in late December, she went back to school in late January with the bathroom still unusable.  Now finally it is almost done.   Though it’s taken him a long time,  he’s quite an artist himself and has done a good job.  It’s looking great and we’re thrilled.

I’m going to start a new painting this weekend, it’s a good distraction.  Here in Atlanta everyone is very excited about the Super Bowl as our home team, the Falcons are hopefully going to “rise up,”as they say.  Enjoy the weekend!

Pink Lotus Flower

Pink Lotus Flower -acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

I felt drawn to paint a lotus this week because of it’s meaning.  The lotus flower symbolizes rising from a dark space into a place of beauty and rebirth.  Lotus flowers grow out of muddy and murky water and produce beautiful blossoms. They are a symbol of strength among adversity.   It’s been a couple of tough weeks for me emotionally but I’m starting to feel better.  The lotus reminds me that sometimes when we go through a dark period something beautiful can come about in time.

Pink Lotus Flower is my fourth  lotus painting and with this one I wanted to emphasis the flower coming up from the dark with  the the light shining  from above.      I am pleased with it, I like the contrast of the lights and darks.  I tried to capture the way the lotus seems to glow in the sunlight.  My hope is that all will feel more uplifted as we enter the December holiday season.

 

 

Woman with Dove and Lilies

Woman with Dove and Lilies – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Woman with Dove and Lilies is my most recent painting.   I’ve worked on it off and on throughout this rainy week.  It’s pouring now as I write.  Next week they say the sun will be coming back, I think everyone here in Atlanta is more than ready for that.  I’ll put this print up in my Circles Round the Sun Etsy Shop under my portrait section.  I’m off now to start a new painting, hope all are enjoying the weekend!

Purchase print here:  Woman with Dove and Lilies