Vesica Piscis

Vesica Piscis – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Vesica Piscis is my most recent abstract painting. I decided to take a break from my planet series as it was getting monotonous painting mainly spheres. I was pondering what to paint when I went to visit my good friend and neighbor who is an amazing quilter to discuss the baby quilt she is sewing for my niece’s baby. Her basement is filled with all her quilting projects and more beautiful quilts hang throughout her home. Her work inspired me; I loved all her colors and the detail of the pieces sewn together along with her creative use of stitching patterns.

This led me to the idea of treating my new the painting somewhat like a quilt with lots of detail and texture and line. I chose to the water element to have a theme. I was going to use mostly blues but kept adding more colors and it stated to have an tropical underwater feel about it. To pull it all together, I decided to overlay with a large Vesica Piscis symbol.

Vesica Piscis is made from the intersection of two circles of the same size. It is one of the oldest symbols from ancient times. The two circles joined is the foundation for the flower of life symbol in sacred geometry. The Christian religion was most likely responsible for its spread, as a fish symbol. As Jesus was a fisher of man.

El Sol

El Sol – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

It’s a new year and I’m back to painting.  El Sol is new abstract. I started with the large sun in the center and went from there; it’s not my favorite but it’s good to be back in the saddle. There is a certain resistance that sets in as weeks go by without painting, so I’m happy to have started up again.  I got the idea to paint the sun after the last painting ,Orbs in Space, when a Facebook friend suggested I paint stars. I decide to start with painting our star that gives us life here on earth. This painting is actually my second attempt as the first one started to look overdone. I do like the second one better, it’s a happy painting with the bright warm colors.

This year is looking brighter. My daughter finally was able to fly to Vancouver for her graduate program at University of British Columbia. After a two-week quarantine, she’s settling in to her new home and is able to see a few of her fellow students that she’s gotten to know online though her classes. She’s texted me some photos of a trail where she jogs, a beautiful wooded trail just minutes from her dorm. We’re happy for her and glad that she’s been able to get back to some sense of normalcy.

With more time to paint now, I have a goal of doing art each day to keep the momentum going. My artist friend and I are going to help each other by texting each other an image of our progress each day. I hope each of you are having a good start to the year and I look forward to seeing your posts.

Galaxies

Galaxies – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Galaxies is my latest painting, a new abstract. I’m back to playing around with abstraction, this painting has a lot of overlaying of paint. I started with four equal circles and a loop and kept going with symmetry, but it just was not working, and I almost gave up. At that point I just began adding more colors and shapes moving away from the symmetrical look and it started to look better. I like the movement and the fact I didn’t give up.

The idea for the name of my painting came from a fascinating article I read this week on two researchers who have found that the complex web of neurons in our brain look strangely similar to the cosmic network of galaxies. One fact that stood out to me was that there are at least 100 billion galaxies that connect in a web within our universe. It’s hard to even imagine that. Here is the link to the article: NEURON WEB IN HUMAN BRAIN IS SIMILAR TO THE NETWORK OF GALAXIES IN THE UNIVERSE

It’s a beautiful weekend here, I hope everyone enjoys the upcoming Thanksgiving week even if most of us are not able to be with extended family.

Dolphin Pod

Dolphin Pod – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Here is my new painting, Dolphin Pod. During these last two weeks I kept seeing posts about the choice between two America’s on social media and that bothered me. I don’t agree and feel the powers at be like to keep us thinking that way. When the results of the election started coming in, it became clear that while yes, we are very much divided, our democracy seems to be holding up as the votes keep coming in. Intuitively, I know that we are all in this together and eventually we will muddle through this division to unite to form a more perfect union.

This thinking led me to the idea of painting a dolphin pod. I love dolphins and have painted them several times. My first dolphin painting done many years ago was a watercolor, one of those effortless paintings that just flowed onto the page. I loved it, it was a night scene with four dolphins that I saw as symbolizing my three sisters and me. Now it hangs in my twin sister’s living room. This week I decided to paint a group of dolphins in my abstract style. They happily live together in pods and I hope that we humans will get there eventually.

Little Red Hen

Little Red Hen – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Little Red Hen is my new painting. Years ago, when I made papier mache bowls, one of my most popular motifs was my chicken bowl. Since then, however, I had not felt like doing a chicken painting until now. A few of my Facebook friends have chickens in their yards, and I’ve enjoyed seeing their fun and sometimes humorous photos of their hens and chicks. So, with my new idea of painting images of folk tales, The Little Red Hen came to mind.

I remember the story from childhood and when my daughter was a preschooler, we had puppets illustrating the story. I loved the story of the little hen working diligently over time even though none of her friends are willing to help her and finally she has the yummy baked bread. I made the painting childlike using lots of bright colors, it was somewhat challenging I wanted it to be more abstract then it turned out.

I feel that this year I’ve been a bit like the little red hen, working diligently doing a painting each week and then writing about it here on the blog. I’m also stepping up on the marketing with sharing it on my Twitter feed and my Facebook pages and finally sharing on a new Instagram account. This work is paying off, I’ve been able to push myself in new ways with my painting and am hoping that will eventually bring some extra income in.

Swimming Turtle

The last painting of the crow and dove reminded me of the time, as a park ranger, I led a program where I told stories of animal myths from different cultures. While researching for that program I had seen many wonderful animal illustrations in children’s books and decided it would be fun to do an animal series in my abstract style. Swimming Turtle is my first attempt, it’s actually my fourth turtle painting.

Last weekend when a certain politician in the news was compared to a turtle on my twitter feed, my reaction was that was a grave injustice to turtles everywhere. I love turtles and feel fortunate when I spot one in nature. In Native American lore the earth was called “turtle island,” from a tale that the turtle carried the earth on it’s back. In this painting I have the turtle swimming through space.

Chaotic Node

Chaotic Node – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Chaotic Node is an abstract painting that I completed this week. After the symmetry of the star and the eight in the last two paintings, I felt like loosening up a bit. In this painting I started with three large circles and then went from there playing with the various elements and color. The painting is all over the place, full of energy.

My husband said the painting brought to his mind the COVID pandemic, so I named it Chaotic Node in honor of the crazy times we are in. Hopefully all of this chaos will eventually bring us to our senses and a renaissance period will ensue.

Infinity 8

infinity 8 – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Infinity 8 is my most recent abstract painting that I completed last weekend. Last Saturday the date was 8-8 and I had been reading about the 8-8 Lions gate which was an important date during Egyptian times and started thinking about the number 8 which when turned on it’s side becomes a mathematical symbol representing the concept of infinity. This led me to the idea of painting a large infinity symbol that was shaped like an 8.

I first painted the large purple eight shape on the page. As I looked at the eight, I started thinking about doubles, two circles next to each other. This led me to play with the idea of twins, double trouble, as they say. Since I am an identical twin, I’ve heard that saying many times. I painted smaller bright green circle in each circle and then continued painting matching colors and more strokes between the two circles. I then painted a large fish shape between them. I’m pleased with this painting; it was fun to do and again I’ve used my favorite colors.

Expanding Spiral

Expanding Spiral – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

After the last painting where I researched the Golden Mean Spiral, I thought about doing a new painting based on a sea shell that follows that same pattern.  Expanding Spiral is the result. Although I wanted it to be somewhat moody by using darker colors, I always end up with the rainbow colors, regardless. This one is quite vivid. I began with painting a large seashell shape diagonally across the page but quickly it started looking more like a DNA strand. I kept working on it adding layers of spirals. I like the three-dimensional quality of the shape. I then added overlaid more elements to complete the painting.

My husband and I are into a getting into a nice rhythm now with our adult daughter living here at home. In September, she starts graduate school at the University of British Columbia. We’re very proud of her; she applied for their linguistics program and was one of only eight students accepted, the program is free for her. Unfortunately, Canada is not processing student visas at this time so she’ll be starting classes online. Hopeful the COVID situation with improve in 2021 so that she will be able to move to Vancouver then.

Well, let’s enjoy August as much as we can considering all the craziness going on!

Golden Mean Spiral

Golden Mean Spiral – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

In many of  my recent abstract paintings, I’ve painted spirals.  After the last painting while looking at the two spirals, I began thinking of the Fibonacci spiral which is an expanding spiral seen in nature, such as a nautilus seashell. This idea led me to my new painting, Golden Mean Spiral.  I decided to be somewhat subtle by starting with small yellow circles that grew in size as they moved out in the spiral though out the page and then I used overlays of other shapes and colors.

Years ago, when I was a park ranger in Brooklyn I developed and led a tour on Art  in Nature.  I remember investigating the golden mean as seen throughout nature. On the tour we looked at examples in the park and sketched them.  Below are a  few sentences written by Donna Marie that I found while googling the Fibonacci Spiral that explain the concept better than I can.

The Fibonacci Spiral is the series of numbers 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34… each number is comprised by adding together the previous 2 numbers. This is important because the spiral that this mathematical equation makes can be found in all living things including human beings, plants, animals and even our galaxy, The Milky Way.

Spirals are one of the most common forms of natural geometry, being a product of the sacred mean. Spirals and vortices are natures’ way of gathering energy.

Here is the link:  Fibonacci, Leonardo, Spirals, and Structured Water.