Staying motivated to paint has been difficult throughout this COVID-19 isolation period. I've spent a lot of time looking through my many photographs searching for inspiration. This lovely still life stood out one day and drew me to my studio to paint it. It brought back amazing memories of an art trip I was fortunate enough to take with several talented and amazing women artists. We call ourselves The Sisterhood of Traveling Artists. This trip was extra special as it was during my birthday month and because we went to several local St. Kitt artists' studios. This particular image came from artist Kate Spencer's kitchen. Everything in her wonderful abode was lovingly arranged as though the entire place were a still life just waiting to be painted. I have several more of these lovely vignettes from this fabulous trip to St. Kitts and hope to paint them sometime this year. Really looking forward to a time when the Sisterhood can hit the road again on another awesome art adventure. 

 

 

 

 

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This 16" x 20" watercolor was an entry into the Florida Watercolor Society Annual Convention and Show. It is a very difficult show to get into because they generally have 1,000 or so entries and have room for only 100. I've been accepted twice and only need one more time to become a Signature Member. Painting this piece was really a challenge. I originally wanted the background to be a solid but the particular paint brand and color (Sennelier Cinereous Blue) kept picking up my brush strokes so I ended up using a stencil and lifting out portions to create the leaf pattern. This painting was inspired by a art group's summer project. The Art Guild of Orange Park provided multiple photos to work from. I chose a bowl of cherries paired with lemons. The original photo looked like this:   I painted it once just changing the bowl and adding the hummingbird, but I got dark too quickly and decided to start over. 

 I then decided that I wanted the bowl to be glass to challenge myself more. So I found a crystal candy dish and because I did not have any cherries on hand, I used old bead jewelry the same color and size as cherries and took it outside in the bright sun to photograph. It hit me that I needed some sort of tablecloth so I took off my peach colored tropical print cotton shirt and draped it under the bowl for effect. I then turned the color photo into black and white and worked from that. It was a lot of work but well worth the effort. I am happy with how the final piece turned out. Even though the final piece did not get accepted into the Florida Watercolor Society Annual Show, I feel as though I grew as an artist. I think that is what I like the most about making art – enjoying the process and discovery along the way.