Rose

Red is such an energizing color. Sketching this beauty in my backyard today was the perfect way to spend a sunny summer day.

Daisies

Years ago, the local newspaper art critic slammed the artists of the Hawaii Watercolor Society, saying we painted "pretty" pictures, particularly flowers. Ugh! The fact is, we DID paint pretty flower pictures, in retrospect truly excellent paintings, but I took her point to heart and began painting fewer flower paintings and attempted more "meaningful" paintings. I regret that now. Hawaii's flowers are glorious and I wish I had painted a boatload of them. Now I will attempt to make up for lost time and enjoy painting mainland flowers.

Wildflowers - 1

My daughter is getting married next year and has asked me to paint a small watercolor for each of her invited guests. I'm pleased to do it since she lives many thousands of miles away so helping her with most of her other wedding preparations will be pretty difficult. I painted this little watercolor today to warm up and start getting some ideas flowing between us for what she's looking for in her little paintings.

Joyride

The light and the happy expression on the face of the motorcycle passenger drew me to this scene from Thailand for this month's Virtual Paintout. I challenged myself to stick to a limited palette of cad yellow light, bright violet, manganese and ultramarine blue. I did dip into a red a tiny bit for the helmet but for the most part stuck to the challenge. This was a fairly big deal for me as I tend to dip into every color on my palette as I go. I enjoyed this process and think that it quiets the painting and adds harmony.