Rose Goddess

Rose Goddess – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Rose Goddess is another painting that I began years ago and have just now completed.  I had always loved the composition but her face was not right.  I had found the image from a photograph of a goddess statue in the Versailles gardens.  Her face had always looked too masculine, so that’s what I changed to complete her.

I have heard that my mom’s mother loved roses and had a beautiful rose garden.  She died when I was too young to remember her.  My parents both admired her and always spoke of what a wonderful and loving woman she had been.  No one ever said an unkind word about her.  I think of her and her loving qualities and wished I had gotten to know her. She had  a pair of rose vases that I feel lucky to have inherited.   The fact that my loving grandmother loved roses has stuck with me and gotten me curious about the rose symbolism.

The rose has been associated with goddesses throughout history.  In one legend the first roses sprang from the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite’s tears.  In later times the rose symbolized the beauty of romantic love.   Under Christianity, the rose became the Virgin Mary’s sacred flower, representing the divine feminine love.  The accepting feminine  loving energy is so special and much needed now.

 

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.

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.

The Brothers

The Brothers – Acrylic Painting by Heni Sandoval

The Brothers is new painting of mine, a portrait of our two cats.  Truffle and Tuxie were rescue kitties from a feral mother that we adopted  six years ago.  We just love them and their very different personalities.

Tuxie, pictured on the bottom is full of energy and a terrific hunter.   I can’t  recall all the times he’s brought chipmunks into the house.  We usually catch them and put the little critters back outside much to Tuxie’s dismay.  Tuxie is always letting Truffle know who is boss until Truffle can’t take it any more and goes after him.  Truffle, pictured on top is a gentle soul, for although he’s afraid to  sit in our laps, he soaks up affection and would happily be pet for hours. He is  large and chubby;  I had to stop leaving dry food out for he ate his and Tuxie’s portion.

I’m pleased with the painting and feel that I captured them pretty well.  When Tuxie was  about a year old, he came home with a broken tail which was very traumatic for him and us.  We weren’t sure if he would have get the tail cut off but luckily it healed and now he has this quirky curl.  He loves to lay on his back and lift his paws to get affection.  He’s so adorable. Truffle lounges around curled up sleeping most the day.  He, unlike quirky Tuxie, has perfect tuxedo cat markings.  I used the cooler peaceful colors around Truffle since he is sensitive and mellow.

The painting also shows the lush colors of the southern summer.  We’ve had a rainy few weeks here as summer began, the garden is doing well.  There’s an overflow  of zucchini and the tomatoes are almost ripe.  I hope everyone is having a good start to the season!

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.

 

 

Tiger Tiger Burning Bright

Tiger Tiger Burning Bright – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Here is my new painting of a tiger in the night, it’s another child friendly painting for my shop.  I chose the tiger for a couple of reasons.  When our girl was ready to enter prekindergarten, two local public schools were just starting Montessori programs.  We were very fortunate to get our  girl into one of those programs, a wonderful elementary school where she received a solid Montessori foundation.  The school mascot was the tiger.   Large blue tiger paw prints were painted on the walk to the school entrance.  Tiger murals went up, the children wore tiger t shirts on special tiger spirit days.  They really tried to make the school a fun and happy place to learn.  We still live just a block from the school and I want to donate some of these tiger prints to the PTA for the yearly silent auction.

My husband and I also  have a special tiger memory from our travels in Southeast Asia.  We were in northern Sumatra staying in a small guest house on the edge of their National Rainforest Park.  It was late in the night when suddenly we heard an animal squeal and then dogs madly barking.  It was quite unsettling and took us a while to fall back to sleep.  In the morning at breakfast we were trying to ask our host who didn’t speak English what happened,  he motioned for us to come with him.  A short walk later he showed us a humongous paw print of a Sumatran tiger in a muddy spot next to a spring.   The tiger had killed one of their goats in the night.  That day we hiked up into the lush rainforest vegetation where we saw monkeys and large fruit bats.  The highlights of our day were watching a mom and baby orangutan as they foraged for fruits and taking a dip in some hot water springs.  But I must say we made sure to get back to our guest house by night fall.

Hiking in the Sumatra Rainforest.

Tiger print available here