"Poppy Dreams" (watercolor on Yupo; 6" x 8") sold

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I am continuing my Yupo painting explorations.  Everyday I work on two or three paintings.  Why?  Because paints on Yupo dry very slowly; water has to evaporate, as the synthetic support does not absorb any moisture.  While a section on a painting is drying, I work on something else on anther painting.  I go for puddly, spontaneous, watercolory look in these paintings, but they are actually painted slowly, patiently, and in stages.  How do you like "Poppy Dreams"?

By the way, I found a great quote by Claude Monet: "I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers."  He took words right out of my mouth!  I can paint flowers everyday for months without running out of inspiration!

"Tulip Bouquet" (watercolor on paper; 8" x 10")

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matted size: 12" x 14"

Although nothing beats the flowers from my own garden, I don't know what I would do without those from the florists during the dull months between the mid-fall and the early spring.  A dinner guest brought a bouquet of magenta tulips last month.  I was already planning on doing a series of watercolor florals, so I took some pictures in the kitchen, as it was too chilly to take the tender flowers outside.  They are long gone now, but they will live forever, now transformed into an artwork!

There are two bouquets in this painting: one of the flowers and the other of the shadows.  It has an unusual, compact design with the flowers and shadows melting into each other.  Kind of tricky to pull it off, but it seems to work, don't you agree?

If you want to win a painting from my "Spring Fever" series at the end of the month, please sign in to follow my blog.  Thanks!

"Bougainvillea Country" (oil on linen; 6" x 8")

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Reference photo

Where I live, bougainvillea is something you see in the US Botanic Garden on The Mall.  I gather it is a tropical plant, although at the moment with the temperature dangerously hovering near 100 degrees, northern Virginia feels quite tropical!

Bougainvillea at the US Botanic Garden

While driving around in Kauai back in February, I spotted this charming, bougainvillea-covered, scene. Wow!  As a matter of fact, bougainvillea was quite common in the island.  Lucky Hawaiians.  The flowers seem to come in rainbow colors, my favorite being magenta as in the reference photo.  When I first saw the entire country road smothered in bougainvillea, the light was not right.  We went back a couple of days later, to take a whole bunch of pictures, which became inspiration for the painting.