Quan Yin Riding the Dragon

Quan Yin Riding the Dragon -acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Here is my new painting, Quan Yin Riding the Dragon; it has taken me a couple of weeks to complete as it was quite complex, integrating all of the elements was a challenge.

Quan Yin is an Eastern Goddess of compassion.  Quan Yin carries the Goddess and Divine Mother aspect of Buddhism and is worshiped throughout Asia as an ascended master who is a protector to women and children.

I’ve done many paintings of Buddha but I felt drawn to paint Quan Yin this time around, perhaps because my daughter is away in Japan all summer.

I chose to paint her on a dragon.   She is compassionate but also courageous and thus can tame the fierceness of Dragon.  In the dragon’s wild and cruel nature, Quan Yin is the only one who understands the dragon and his nature. She is the one that can heal him. 

It’s hard to believe we are entering the last leg of summer here, the kids in our area are already back in school.  Enjoy this month!

 

Crow in the Moonlight

Crow in the Moonlight -acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Crow in the Moonlight is my new painting which I began early in the week and finished up on Friday.    I had felt like doing a moodier dark painting after the recent light and airy sunlit mermaids I’d done.  The last few days have been very sad and disturbing here in the States and I’ve been glad to have the distraction of painting.  It seems to me that the powers that be like to keep us divided.  We’re on in this together, my heart goes out to all who are  suffering.

I’ve  painted many a crow and thought it would be fun to do a moonlit scene to add to my collection.  I enjoyed every moment of painting this, it’s great to be back painting again.

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