Truffle Out on the Porch

Truffle Out on the Porch – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Truffle Out on the Porch features our other much loved tuxedo kitty. This painting is a companion piece to last week’s painting of Tuxie. I’m enjoying the challenge of working on the larger paper. This painting had quite a few elements that took a while to bring together and work out.

We built a screened porch just off our dining room after a few years of living here and are glad we did. It’s quite spacious outdoor space with a peaked roof and is much needed with the mosquitoes that thrive here. It’s great for entertaining and just hanging out on mild days. Truffle tends to spend more time there then his brother. Tuxie tends to roam while Truffle is our home boy spending many afternoons out on the porch.

I’m now thinking that I might put both paintings up in the dining room. This one is brighter and there is space for both. When I get them up I will post a photo.

Two Pears

Two Pears -acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

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

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!

 

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!

Harvest Maiden

Harvest Maiden is a new painting of mine celebrating the beauty and bounty of fall.  Here in Atlanta, the days have been unseasonably warm and sunny unlike last year when the wind and rain quickly took the leaves away; this year we are witnessing  the beauty of fall as the colors slowly  unfold.   In the late afternoon when I look out my studio window to the backyard wooded hillside, the vivid leaf colors against the blue sky with the sunlight streaming through are breathtaking.  The view inspired me to do this painting.

It feels good to be back to painting.  I had been spending  time matting and framing prints for the  Flying Biscuit Cafe at their new location in John’s Creek.  I  also took a marketing class for artists which was helpful.  I’ve never been business oriented but at this point it is an important skill I need to develop .  The class was interesting, informative and fun;  I realized that marketing takes creative thinking which is helping me to see it in a more positive light.

I also have a new friend that I met at an art fair I was in who has tons of experience in corporate creative marketing.  She is helping me get more directed and focused.  Focus is something that has not come easy for me, I tend to get scattered in a lot of directions.  My husband and daughter are both  focused and directed.  I can see it serves them well and they both inspire me so.  I plan to both paint and keep up with marketing, it will take time but I’m trusting the process and feel it will pay off.

I hope all are enjoying these fall days.

A Pear of Goldfishes

A Pear of Goldfishes – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

A Pear of Goldfishes is my new still life painting.  I decided to bring several elements together, starting with the pear in the small white bowl and the philodendron in the deep red pot.  It became unbalanced so I decided to add a gold fish bowl and then topped it off with a Caroline wren in the window.

It was a fun challenge to get everything to work together and I I learned more in the process.  I love the little Caroline wrens that hop about in our wooded backyard with their  tail feathers usually pointing up.  I’d been wanting to paint one for a while.  Another  challenge was coming up with a name for the painting.  The helpful woman who scanned the painting for me suggested the name which I chose because it was so creative and fun.

It’s a beautiful yet cool and windy spring Friday.  I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Lemons

Lemons – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

One of my goals for the new year was to begin a daily practice of making art.  I’ve started sketching more and I try to have a painting on my easel most of the time.  Here is a still life I recently completed,  Lemons.

When I first started painting years ago, I painted several pears in this blue bowl.   It’s helpful to start a painting from  a real scene, you can focus on what you see, how the light effects the colors of the objects.  I felt it would be a good exercise to do some still lifes where I could actually see what I am painting.

I chose lemons this time around as lemons are one of my favorite fruits.   I use them daily to make marinaded salads and add them to tea.   Their bight cheerful yellow color seems to match this time of year when everything is waking up.

It was a fun challenge and I am fairly pleased.   In keeping with my goal, I’ve stared sketching a scene  for a new painting, another still life.

My Pear Paintings

Three Pears in a Bowl – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Pear Duo – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Mexican Pears – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

I’ve been thinking about my pear paintings lately.  They take me back to a point in time when I realized that I wanted to paint.  Here is that memory.  I was meeting a friend for coffee at a cafe, she and I both had our three year old girls in preschool a few days a week.  It was a challenging time for me as my dad was in hospice care.  Up until that time, no one close to me had died.  I had never experienced the grief of losing a loved one before.  My friend had lost her first husband and she was very understanding and helpful.  I noticed there were framed pear still life watercolors on the walls around us.  I had been making papier mache bowls which were very laborious and not selling as well in Atlanta as they had in San Francisco.  I thought to myself, I could paint pears and it was at that moment in time that I decided to become a painter.  Eventually my daughter went over to middle school and free time opened up.  With no more Girl Scout leader or PTA obligations, I began painting every day.

Some of  my first paintings were of pears which are pictured above.  I love painting pears with their lovely feminine forms and beautiful warm colors.  I think beginning painters paint pears because of their easier simple forms and the universal theme of pear still lifes through art history with so many well known pear paintings.  Matisse’s pears come to mind.  With some of my pear paintings I feel I had beginners luck,  perhaps my happiness at more time to pursue my passion showed through.

Pears available here.