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.

Brothers by the Window

Brothers by the Window -acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Brothers by the Window is my new painting. A few months ago, I rearranged the furniture in our living room placing a side table in front of the big window and it soon became a favorite hang out for our kitties. I placed a pillow there which Truffle enjoys. Tuxie will sometimes join him by sitting on the edge but he tends to look a bit irritated at Truffle having more space. It also makes Truffle a bit nervous but he holds his ground. I tried to show this dynamic in the painting.

I took a picture with the boys together and sent it to my daughter who loves to get daily updates on the cats. We both noticed how striking it was with the light outside and the dark interior and I thought to myself, here’s the subject for a new painting. Mom’s birthday was last week; I generally do a still life painting around this time of year in her honor, and so I began the new still life with the cats.

It was a fun and challenging painting to do. I wanted the interior to be dark but also light enough to show off the beautiful antique table. I included the houseplants on either side of the cats to show the warm tropical greenery in contrast to the cold winter day outside. I’m getting better at depicting Tuxie who has interesting asymmetric markings on his face making it challenging to get his looks down. I’m glad to be back to painting and have started a new one that I’m working on this weekend.

Tuxie with Sunflowers

Tuxie with Sunflowers

Tuxie with Sunflowers is my most recent painting. I had the pitcher of sunflowers on the chest next to the window in my studio that I used to do my last painting, Sunflowers in Mom’s Silver Pitcher. Over the days it took me to do that painting, Tuxie would jump up and lay next to the pitcher. I took several photos with my phone and sent them my daughter. She loves getting texts with photos of her beloved kitties. I took a blend of two of those photos to create this painting.

Tuxie’s face is challenging to paint because of his asymmetric patterns on his symmetric face. I worked at getting his face to work for quite a while. Tuxie and his brother, Truffle keep me company as I paint. Their birthday is coming up in August. They will be 12 years old. We just love them both!

I have note cards and framed prints in a display at the Westside Market in Toco Hills. The cat with still life note cards are big sellers. I think this one will be a nice addition.

Sunflowers in Mom’s Silver Pitcher

Sunflowers in Mom’s Silver Pitcher – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

I felt like taking a break from my abstracts to do a still life painting. For several years now, around my Mom’s birthday, I have painted one of her pitchers in her honor. I skipped this year as her birthday was in January, but recently I’ve been clearing out many of her antique items from the estate which we’d kept all these years. I’ve sold some of the silver and have taken boxes of tinware and depression glass over to the Treasure Mart, a local consignment shop. This has gotten me feeling quite sentimental.

I’ve kept her small silver-plated pitcher which does not have much value, but I love the shape. It was down in our dining room and I thought to myself I’m going to do one more pitcher painting in honor of Mom. I also liked the challenge of trying to depict silver. Since we are in the heat of summer, I chose sunflowers. I’ve been thinking and appreciating my three sisters lately and thus I chose four flowers symbolizing the four daughters that Mom had.

It was a fun painting to do and now I’m starting a new painting with the same pitcher next to my cat Tuxie to add to my cat still-life series.

Two Pears in the Sunlight

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!

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!

 

Beloved Sam

Beloved Sam-acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Beloved Sam is a new painting that I just completed for a birthday gift for Lauri Shock.  Her husband, Billy Howard contacted me after receiving a note card of mine with the image of Adele’s Cats from a mutual friend.   Billy asked if he could buy the original since one of the cats reminded them of their Sam who had recently passed away to give to Laurie on her birthday.   Since I didn’t have the original I offered to do a new similar painting for him.  He liked that idea and sent me his Medium Post, Sam the Cat, which has some lovely photos of Sam.

It was my first commissioned painting and I was a bit nervous, but Billy said that they liked my style of using bright colors so I went with it.  I chose my mom’s stangl pitcher that looked a bit like one in the photos.    With Sam, I accented his green eyes and white patch that they loved about him.  I put a painting behind the flowers of birds flying as a symbol of Sam’s spirit being freed.

Sam showed up one day and became theirs when he was about a year old and for 15 years his quirky personality brought them joy daily.  It was a pleasure painting Sam.  I was touched by Billy’s thoughtfulness of wanting to do this for Lauri’s birthday gift.  What a wonderful idea in helping them to honor Sam’s memory.

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!

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.