Jungle Pair

Berries & Bird Flower:

Pencil & charcoal drawings with touches of color to make the sexy parts pop.

 Finally got a good pic of the bird flower one from back home where it resides.   Happy Holidays!

Voodoo Murder Shop for Halloween Decor

I converted a chipper little Snowy Village bakery to my very own Halloween creation- Voodoo Shop Murder House.  Complete with tiny red voodoo dolls in the window, autumn leave, a wreath of shrunken heads, and bloody footprints out the back door.  The 'meh' second-hand Snowy Village has become a gruesome Halloween decoration.  And it's up for SALE! 

Update- now sold! 
Mmmm, interesting looking wears inside the window, if you see past the splatter.  But who's that shadowed in the door windows?

 

Broke some holes, and painted over some holiday wreaths to transform a winter happy bakery to spooky cool Voodoo shop.  Plus fix the cheap paint work of the original.

Note all the fall leaves instead of snow, spookified.

Back side, fairly plain.

 

Bloody foot prints at the back door, a creepy box tucked behind the post, and pool of blood. Mwahahaahahahaaa.

  

 

Vines creeping up the back wall & a shadow at the door.  Spooooky.  :)  Very fun to paint.

The before shots:

 The sign was messed up anyway. Redo it ALL!

The growth of a beard (iris)

I think I'm done with my bearded beauty.  Just needs to dry, get stretched & a coat of varnish.  Since it's oil, that'll be a few months, but plenty to do in the mean time.  FALL is coming!

Here is the development of the piece since I pulled it from the closet after a few years of waiting for me to finish grad school.  Good patient iris! 
      

  Building the beard

 And the final touches deepening some shadows & adding a few highlights I missed.

Compare to the original inspiration picture:

Ghoulish Glassware

In preparation for my favorite spooky noir holiday, I've decided to make some more spooky glasses.  I played around with some black furniture paint I had left over to make a broken wine glass into a Halloween decoration.  I loved the way it turned out.  So now it's time to try some more, with better paint & a variety of glassware.  Fun FUN!

I made a big mess & the kitchen kind of looked like a mini murder scene (too early for Halloween, bummer... had to clean it up).  But now I've got a creepy bowl, candy jar, goblet & delicate champagne glass.  Blood & ghostly ectoplasm make for delightfully eery decor I think.

And a weeping angel in the cemetery scene of the candy jar was a fun inclusion.  "Don't Blink"

Now I want to make more...

Bearded Iris- my sexy bearded lady

She's almost done after last night's work on the cluster of carpels known as the beard, of the bearded iris, which I prefer over the more aquatic adapted species with their thinner flowers.

See the stamen in the back, hiding among the standard (upper) petals? 

Beardeds come in every single color you can think of, and some combos you'd never have imagined.  And they are super hardy, plus poisonous.  A triple threat type of lady...

So far, I'm liking how she's turning out. Should be all finished soon, a week or two hopefully.  Getting excited!  :)

science sketching

Starting to sketch our unique native plants, like the lovely Hackelia spp., to dip a toe into scientific illustration.  Plus these plants are so visually interesting, how can I not?  Those strigose leaves (aka- covered with short hairs) put them in the spot light.

 Hackelia venusta illustration, with details of their slightly longer hairs.

Sketch of a Sisyrinchium idahoense flower, with bracts and leaf below.  As I help wrap up a  morphology study, I can't help but draw these lovely "grass" flowers.

Folds of Pink

The moment a delightful British professor of mine described the sex organs (pistals and stamen) of plants as their "naughty bits" I knew I just HAD to make a painting series of these botanical naughty bits.  Some flowers have truly amazing organ structure or color.  There's a milk weed vine with silver (SILVER!!) stamen, shining inside the center of a mottled green flower.  The wonders never cease in the plant world.  Or any other natural world, for that matter.  SCIENCE! :)

This is the first of my sexy botanical series, a Washington magnolia flower with upright pistal stalk & squared stamen cluster below.

"Folds of Pink", oil on canvas

Note the details, dusting of pollen that have fallen on the petals, and how the petals sort of glow in the light.  Love that shine they get, tried to capture it.  What flower is next in line for the skirt-lifting?

The First Tree Painting

"Through the Trees", oil on canvas painted a few years ago.  

It depicts the wandering branch growth pattern that I love in the live oaks (Quercus virginiana) of Texas.  These oak branches were on the Brackenridge Field Laboratory in Austin, TX, where I did a field ecology class.  I just love the look of light coming through tree branches and leaves. And the different patterns different species make in the sky.  Not sure if it's the botanist in me, or the artist.  Using both cerebrum hemispheres equally I think, took a test once on that in middle school.  

This is the first painting my mother wanted to steal.  But I held it tight.  It's something special to me.  I plan to do many more with different trees.  Seattle, WA has some very lovely trees!  Or if you're a true-cast plant person, SEXY trees.  Those vine maples are FLIR-ty...

Jumping back into the canvas

I worked long and hard to earn my master's degree in ecological restoration, and now I finally have the chance, with a little more free time, to tackle the empty and half-done canvases I've had sitting around.  At last!  Just like the call of soil to my botanist's hands, the oil paint has been whispering my name, renewing that dull ache in the base of my spine.  While the job search and interviews continue, I can relax at last, with my old painting pals, and get a different kind of dirty.  Tasks at hand now are the second in my collection of "Naughty Bits" paintings of flower 'genitalia', and a birch tree landscape request for the mum.

More to come, and hopefully soon.