White Tailed Buck

White Tailed Buck – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

My new painting, White Tailed Buck is of a regal adult male deer. I’ve worked on it consistently for the past two weeks, it took time to blend the colors of the deer’s coat. The late spring forest foliage behind the buck was inspired from my daily walks. I love looking at how the light falls on the various tree leaves and branches. I’ve tried to do it justice in this painting. Here in Atlanta, we have many majestic deciduous trees growing in our environment that we tend to take for granted. Luckily, my neighborhood has many and I sure hope it stays that way as the ranch house expansion renovations continue.

Last year, at mid-morning, a large eight-point buck leapt into our wooded back yard, the tall fence was no issue. I watched him from my studio window as he strolled across stopping to snack on leaves. He then leapt into my neighbor’s yard. Occasionally, I’ll see deer at dusk over closer to a church yard that has a large, wooded area with a stream and protected flood plain. I had never seen one here and wondered what got him over our way.

The buck symbolizes the male aspect of the deer, speed, stamina, grace and regeneration since the antlers grow back each year. The antlers grow up above the head bringing it closer to the sky and making it sacred. In many cultures, the deer buck is a symbol of spiritual authority.

Raccoon by the Creek

Raccoon by the Creek ~ acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Raccoon by the Creek is a new painting for my wildlife series. I started with the idea to paint a raccoon and use yellow in the background color. In my recent wildlife paintings I’ve decided to be a bit more graphic and less whimsical. I included the trees in the background since they live in forests. It was fun to paint, playing with the blacks and grays and whites and to get his eyes to show through the mask. I like the way he turned out, he’s cute just like raccoons are.

Some fun facts about raccoons are that they are nocturnal and have excellent night vision, the black mask absorbs light, which helps them with glare. They are agile, their fronts paws are dexterous and actually look and work like slender human hands. They seem to wash their food prior to eating. They are intelligent and like to play. Raccoons symbolize wisdom, being resourceful and playfulness. In some cultures they are tricksters because they can be sneaky and steal food from others.

Infinity

Infinity – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Infinity is my new abstract painting. I chose to paint the infinity loop as I had been reading of how the infinity sign is a loop going back and forth continuously while the center point is still, which I thought was interesting.

In the painting I kept with the theme of swirls of jewel toned colors and spheres of various colors and sizes. I painted the infinity sign looping in the center with the still point centered which I played with a spiral coming out.

I’m shifting gears this week to paint a bear and then will paint another abstract with a different color palate. I think it will be helpful to change things up a bit.

Dear Old George

Portrait of George Washington acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

I think some of my best paintings have been the one’s when I paint with love in my heart.  I painted George Washington’s Portrait in memory of my Mom.   It was fun to paint while thinking about her.  Mom was very patriotic;  she loved American history and early American antiques.  I have many childhood memories of our family driving out to the small towns that dotted the countryside  and spending what seemed like eternity waiting around at antique shops while my mom shopped.    Our house was filled with antiques that she had picked up over the years.

My twin sister and I were born the day after George Washington’s birthday on February 23rd.  Every year not only did I have to share my birthday with my twin, but also with him. Our birthday party themes always centered around George Washington.  There was the cake with pink frosting and cherries.  Little papier mache hatchets;  tree stumps;  George Washington busts;  and miniature red, white, and blue drums adorned the dining room table.   In my twenties I was pretty angry about that.   Years later, now that I am a mom too, I realize how creative my Mom was and how it must of been fun and enriching for her to do.  So this painting is a thank you to my Mom for her creative example and her taking time to follow her own passions.  I like the way he looks just a little bit conflicted.  Happy President’s Day!

This is a repost from Presidents Day from 2013 when I had just begun to blog. It’s hard to believe I’ve been blogging since 2012.

Inner Space

Inner Space ~ by Heni Sandoval

I’ve just competed a new abstract painting titled, Inner Space. I liked the complexity of the last abstract painting, Outer Space, with the many colored spheres of various sizes and wanted to continue with that idea.

I follow the Design in Nature Facebook group and love looking at the various images posted on their page. Every so often an incredible image of a magnified leaf or flower will show up on my feed. Nature provides us with beautiful organic designs. Some of these images look a bit like space with the tiny particles and wave like lines.

I decided to imagine that I was painting a microscopic organic structure so small that I could see particles and waves. I enjoyed making the waves look like tree branches dividing and as they moved through space getting smaller. Perhaps because on my winter walks it’s hard not to notice all the many tress here with the intricate branch patterns. I used a lot of paint and played with the various sized particles to give it a spacious feeling. It was fun to do.

We’re enjoying a mild winter here, after surviving the record breaking frigid winter holiday season. The daffodils are out and the cherry blossoms are just starting. Spring will be here soon.

Truffle on the Green Chair

Truffle on the Green Chair

Truffle on the Green Chair is my new painting. The image is from a photo that I texted to my daughter for her kitty fix. I liked the composition and the space around Truffle so I decided to paint it. I am inspired by the British painter, David Hockney. I love his interiors with their vivid colors and how the colors help define the space, so I decided to have some fun painting in a similar style. In this painting were a number of smaller parts within the space that required time and detail. It was a good practice for me.

Truffle is such a cutie-pie, many times he has an uncertain look in his eyes when I take pics. He likes to sit on top of the chair when I’m cooking in the kitchen. We just love him! At Christmas he started limping, his front paw had a spot on it that I thought would heal but then the wound cracked it it bled profusely. The vet checked him out and told us he has an autoimmune disease where his paws get soft; she gave him a steroid shot. I had recently changed his kitty litter to a lightweight corn based brand which I think aggravated his condition. I changed the littler to unscented clay brand and began feeding food containing probiotics. His little paw healed, luckily the condition is not fatal, it’s something he just has to live with. I wonder if that’s why he has been fairly stationary much of his life compared to his rambunctious brother, Tuxie.

Cosmic Egg

Cosmic Egg by Heni Sandoval

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with an artist friend of mine who told me she works on several paintings at a time. I liked that idea; my studio is not ideal for that because it’s a small room off the main bedroom. I did, however start working on two paintings at a time; one larger abstract with more overlaid colors and the smaller looser tiger painting from last week. This week I completed the abstract which I’ve titled, Cosmic Egg.

I chose the cosmic egg because it helps me to have concrete theme as I paint abstracts. On Instagram I had had recently seen a post on geometric patterns using the vesica piscis symbol of the interlocking circles that I had used for the water element painting. The inside shape has also been said to be a cosmic egg, a common motif in mythologies. With this idea in mind, I started the painting with two interlocking large curves and kept layering colors and eventually forming the egg shape in the center.

The Cosmic Egg is a major creation symbol used in myths throughout the world. It is a metaphor of potentiality and held within chaos, prior to becoming the creative cosmos.

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.

Jupiter

Jupiter – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Jupiter is a new painting for my planet series. I started this painting a few months ago and have only now completed it. We were busy during the holidays and prior to that were updating our kitchen, opening up a wall to the dining room and then I painted the upstairs hallway and my daughter’s room, which had been a bright purple color from all the way back to her middle school days.

It felt good to get the house updates accomplished but I’m happy to get back to painting. Last weekend while waiting on the snow storm I started reworking this painting. It’s done now and I’m ready to start a fresh painting.

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun and is the largest planet of the solar system. It is a gas giant with lower density than earth and covered with rapidly moving bands of white and brownish storm clouds. Jupiter has four large moons and more than seventy smaller moons. The famous red spot is a big storm that is the size of Earth.

Jupiter as the largest planet was named after the Roman king of the gods who ruled the sky and thunder and was in charge of laws and social order. In astrology Jupiter represents the principles of growth and expansion.

Blue Spiral

Blue Spiral – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

I took some time off from painting to work on my artist website that I had made back in 2017. I had not done much with it since being in a two art shows in 2018. With my sister’s devotional, Awaken to Rest being published any day now, my website may get some more traffic. With this in mind, I uploaded several paintings from the last few years to the collection pages and made a new artist statement and projects page. I’m still tweaking it, but it’s in fairly good shape.

So, now I am back to painting. Blue Spiral is another abstract, I had the idea to paint spirals on all sides of the page. I began with the blue spiral centered horizontally on the page and then painted another spiral perpendicular and then two more coming across from the corners, each one a different color. From there, I began playing with more loops and circles and blending colors until it felt right. All the remained to be seen was the Blue Spiral.

It’s hard to believe that September is just a few days away, hope everyone is enjoy the last days of summer.