Woman with Red Winged Blackbird

Woman with Red Winged Blackbird

Woman with Red Winged Blackbird is my new painting of the week. It’s actually a redo of a painting I did in 2015. While painting my mom in the canoe a few weeks ago, I realized that over time, I’ve gotten a little better at faces; so, I pulled out this older painting and ended up redoing most of it. I feel like her face works a bit better. I then decided to change the crow and make him a red winged blackbird. I took a bit of artistic license as you don’t usually see them at birdbaths. Their habitat is in fields close to water. I used to see them all the time when I was a park ranger leading tours on trails through the marshes.

I’ve admired the works of the Pre-Raphaelite painters of Victorian England who rebelled from the style at the time by painting women with long flowing hair using rich, vivid colors in natural settings. I remember seeing some of their paintings at the Tate Gallery in London back in my early 20’s and being moved by the large size and richness of colors. This painting is a nod to that style.

The Dove and the Crow

The Dove and the Crow – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Spring is here!  The cherry tree blossoms are out along with the early flowering shrubs and  bulbs.  It’s lovely and the weather is forecast to be mild this weekend.  I plan to get some gardening in.  Here is my most recent painting, The Dove and the Crow.   I got the idea to paint these two very different birds together because I’ve been thinking about how our world needs more balance.   The white dove symbolizes peace while the black crow symbolizes wisdom and magic.   I’ve painted them looking back at one another as if they could make a connection.

There are many conflicts now between the West and East, rich and poor, progressives and conservatives, religious and secular…  After a while you wonder why there is so much extreme polarity and why people don’t work together in a balanced way.   The Spring equinox brings with it balance with the day and night being equal.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could work together through these differences to solve the challenging issues before us.  Happy Spring to All!

Pig and Roses

Pig and Roses

I had fun with this painting and I got a kick out of titling it Pig and Roses, a take off of the band, Guns and Roses.  It makes me laugh every time I see the title.  My husband and I have inside joke about pigs so over the years we’ve accumulated somewhat of a pig collection.  This angel pig is painted from a small concrete pig that I picked up at Pier One.  I love his happy expression and have painted him in many directions. 

The roses are decorative touch that I sometimes add to my paintings.  It is a wink to my earlier work as a papier mache artist where I made brightly colored papier mache bowls onto which I painted decorative elements.  The rose bowl design  pictured below was very popular.  I think people liked the old fashion quality of them.  I added roses to the painting as roses symbolize love that this happy angel pig feels.

Dreamtime Roses Bowl

Pig prints available here.