Beginning

 

10 x 10" original oil

sold

The tulips in this painting are just beginning to see the sun and open up. Spring has come again. This is from a photograph I took at last year's tulip festival. Today, I should be at the tulip festival taking more pictures but it's snowing outside. That's spring in Utah for you. 

I loved painting this one - the shapes and colors all come together like a mosaic, and there are so many changes from warm backlighting to cooler reflective lighting. Tulips have such a great silhouette too; I love their shape and this painting really showcases their shape.

The hardest part of this painting was the left side. In the original photograph I worked from, there was a big tangled darkness of leaves and petals. I had to invent some peepholes and colors. I think it turned out OK and it feels balanced. 

 

Here is a close-up showing the abstracted shapes/brush strokes that make up my paintings. I love that swath of cool gray-blue in the middle of the hot-orange tulip petal. That is my favorite brushstroke in this painting.

 

This big one is 28x42". Two weeks ago I had it on an easel in-progress at a print signing and was working on it here and there while I was signing prints, and a couple in the store in town from Hong Kong purchased it before it was even finished! It is hanging in my studio in line to be completed, and once it's dry, it'll be packaged and shipped to their home in Hong Kong. Isn't that exciting?! That is the farthest away one of my paintings has ever ended up from my studio (that I know of).