"Wisterias at Monet's Garden" (oil on stretched canvas; 11" x 14") sold

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Visit Monet's Garden in Giverny during the wisteria season.  Wow!  In my painting, wisterias in the foreground frame the lyrical landscape created by the Impressionist painter.

"Lotus Dream" (oil on linen; 10" x 8") sold

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Every summer I visit a lotus pond at a nearby park to admire the noble beauty of the lotus flower.  For the rest of the year I dream about its beauty.

Here I am using a Silver Bristlon flat brush #4 for the transparent underpainting.  The drawing has a lot of straight lines, so it helps to use a new brush with nice straight edge.  The unnatural green color is viridian.

I am in the process of blocking in with opaque paints.  The challenge of this painting is differentiating many greens in lotus pads: warm/cool, dark/light, and intense/grayed.

Continuing to develop the pads.  I also changed the "background" colors.

"Lotus Pond" (oil on linen; 8" x 8") sold

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I love everything about the lotus plant--its sculptural form, flowers, seedpods, and Buddhist symbolism.  Of course, I have to wait for five more months to see lotus flowers in bloom in my favorite park.  I went over there last Friday, a couple of days after the Nor'easter.  The scene below is what I found.  It's pretty, isn't it?  But I didn't paint it, because I know everybody is sick of snow.  Instead, I painted my favorite flowers.  How about that!

Geese in the lotus pond at the Green Spring Gardens Park in Alexandria, VA

"Tropical Water Lily" (oil on linen; 6" x 8") sold

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There is a beautiful conservatory at Como Park in St. Paul, Minnesota.  It is landscaped outside with a floating garden of water lilies.  A sign that reads "Tropical Water Lily" that stood among the flower stems gave the painting its title.  They look like lotuses to me. 

The lotus plant has a great symbolic meaning in Buddhism.  These sculptural flowers grow in a standing water, which is usually muddy, algoid, and not pretty looking--just as you can find peace and nirvana wherever you are.  I grew up in a Buddhist family in Korea.  On the birthday celebration of the Enlightened One (April 8th in the Lunar Calendar), thousands of Buddhists made a colorful procession holding lanterns shaped like lotuses, with candles glowing inside in the evening streets in downtown Seoul.  Ah, sweet memories of my dear mother, excited like a little girl, dressed up in a Korean traditional dress, getting ready for the annual procession ....

I am happy with the way the painting turned out--lyrical and watery.  It may be the best painting of water lilies I have ever done so far.  I am sure I will be painting many more.  Not because of Monet, but for my mother.  With love.