White Dove Flying

White Dove Flying acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

I am back to painting; White Dove Flying is the first painting of 2024. I actually sketched the bird out months ago for the crow but then decided to use a larger size paper for that painting. I had been looking at the sketch in my studio and soon decided to turn the crow into a dove. It seems to me we need more peace in our world with the wars being fought now. I wanted to focus on creating a lovely white dove to symbolize peace. It was fun to layer all the colors around the dove to see what unfolded. I’m fairly pleased.

On twitter tthe other day I saw a quote by the Buddist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, He says, If we want peace we have to be peace, peace is a practice not a hope. That struck a cord in me, it makes sense, I had some challenging issues come up in these past few months and was in a somewhat negative frame of mine. This quote helped me get more perspective. I’ve made it one of my goals for the year to practice peace. If more of us practiced being peaceful, maybe we can add more peace to the world. 

Caribbean Dreaming

Ever since I was lucky enough to spend two weeks on a fishing boat in the Caribbean and learned to snorkel, tropical fish have amazed me.  It was  magical to witness these vivid colored and various shaped fish gliding along as if choreographed in a backdrop of coral in light dappled aqua water.

I painted Caribbean Dreaming a couple of winters ago during a cold spell to lift my spirits.  I find it freeing to paint fish  because pretty much any thing goes, you can play by layering colors as the fish starts to appear and the background can also be just as colorful and layered.

This year January has been unseasonably warm but cold weather is sure to come for a bit and I will definitely  take time to paint a new fish.

Available here.