Red and Green Pear

Red and Green Pear – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

A few  of my creative friends and neighbors had a holiday artist open house at my home  last Saturday.  Our house looked lovely with all the creative items displayed throughout the rooms, most of us made some extra cash for the holidays and best of all I got a good bit of my Christmas shopping done.  I sold the Red and Green Pear original painting to my neighbors who want to hang it with another apple still life painting  of mine that they bought a few years ago.   I joke with them that they are my patrons.  I have always loved this particular pear painting so it was a bit hard to part with.   It’s my only red and green pear and I like the way it’s centered in the blue bowl with the light behind it.   It’s is one of my earlier paintings and has a naive charm about it that I worry that I’m loosing the more proficient I get at painting.   It seems to be a balancing act that I’m still learning.  I am happy the painting is going to be with good friends who appreciate art!

Three Apples in a Bowl – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

Orange Octopus

Orange Octopus – acrylic painting by Heni Sandoval

This is a new painting I made because my niece Julia requested an Octopus.  I had done three paintings of dolphins, one of which I thought Julia would  like for Christmas since she had enjoyed swimming with them on our Hawaiian trip.   When I showed them to her she said that she would rather have an octopus instead.  I didn’t feel like painting an octopus as I think of them is being a bit creepy.  I went shopping on Etsy and found a cute octopus necklace for her instead.

Once Julia had put the thought in my head I decided to go ahead and paint an octopus as I am wanting to add more kid friendly prints to my new shop .  I also thought it would make for an  interesting composition by creating different spaces with the unusual shape of an octopus and all of it’s legs. It was fun to paint and I’m fairly pleased with the result and now I am ahead for next Christmas!

Purchase print here: Orange Octopus.

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.

Happy New Year!

White Dove in Flight

Hooray! Hooray! It’s New Year’s Day
– By Kenn Nesbitt

Hooray! Hooray! It’s New Year’s Day!
The day we start anew.
So this year I’ve decided
To become a kangaroo!

Or maybe i will learn to fly,
Or how to walk through walls,
Or how to turn invisible,
Or surf on waterfalls.

I’ll make myself elastic
And I’ll teach myself to shrink.
I’ll turn into a liquid
And I’ll pour me down the sink.

I’ll visit other planets
And meet aliens galore.
I’ll travel to the distant past
And ride a dinosaur.

I’ve got so many wondrous plans.
I’m starting right away.
Yes, this will be the best year yet.
Hooray! It’s New Year’s Day!

Ken Nesbitt’s website for kids: Poetry4kids.com

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.

Free Falling

Free Falling

Sometimes in life when we have big decisions to make, it can be scary.  Like the time in my twenties after a bad break up, I decided to move to NYC with only 500 dollars in my pocket.

These thoughts have come to mind as I have recently celebrated being married to my husband for 20 years now and am feeling happy about that.  That 20th year anniversary marker got me thinking about the choices we make in life and how those choices carry us forward.    It was scary for me to make that marriage commitment all those years ago. When I found out I was pregnant, even though we had decided to have a child it was frightening, I didn’t know how to be a mom.

Once those decisions were made I just had to let go and trust that my intuition would carry me forward.  I loved living in New York, that experience led to meeting my husband.  Marrying him led us to creating a life together and then to our daughter who we love dearly and who has added so much to our lives.

I wanted to do a painting that describes that feeling.  I’ve titled it Free Falling.  It’s a painting of a barn swallow diving through the air.  If you have ever watched  swallows swoop through the air catching mosquitoes, it is mesmerizing.  They swoop down and then curve back through the sky with no effort at all.   I have found that once a commitment is made if we let go and trust, we can follow the currents and they will lead us forward.

Print Available here.