"Iris Glow" (oil on stretched canvas; 10" x 8")

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I celebrated the first iris to bloom in my garden with its portrait.  After a week of working on portraits, it was fun to paint loosely and expressively!

"Siberian Irises" (watercolor on paper; 10" x 7")

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A tender bouquet of Siberian irises cheered me up, as nothing else would, on a spring day last year during my husband's illness.  I am glad that I took a picture.  The painting is a reminder of glorious spring, life's fragility, and kindness that sustains us.

Weekly Original Watercolor Greeting Card Giveaway!

I am giving away this lovely card this week!

A new month and a new adventure!  I am going to give away an original watercolor greeting card every week!  A lucky Facebook fan will receive the above card with my hand-written message this week.

How to win my frameable card?  First like my Facebook page.  Then, share my posts generously during the week.  Invite your friends to like my page too.  I will announce the winner next Sunday morning on my Facebook page.  Good luck and thank you for playing!

"Purple Beauties" (watercolor on Yupo; 10" x 8") sold

matted size: 14" x 11"
sold

I have painted these purple irises from my garden many times before--in watercolor on paper, in oil on linen, in different sizes, etc.--all of them sold, of course.  I just love them so much!  This time, it is watercolor on Yupo, because I wanted to see whether I would be able to paint such a complicated subject on Yupo.  In the process I made an important discovery.

After the flowers and spiky leaves were done, I sprayed the workable fixative on the painting.  This fixative protects the artwork, but allows the artist to continue to work on the support. Would the finicky Yupo take the spray too, as even a bit of grease from fingers makes it impossible to move paints around on the darned "paper"?  I experimented on a small unpainted piece of Yupo before this drastic action, but you never know.

To my relief, I was able to manipulate the background wash without worrying about "melting" the finished subject.  The dark dramatic background has the effect of making the backlit flowers pop out.  By chance, the top portion happened to dry a little lighter, mimicking the sunlight from the sky.  I am loving my Yupo explorations, pushing the boundaries, going where I have never gone before.  It's like "Star Trek"!

"Memories of Spring" (watercolor on paper; 17" x 8" each) sold

sold
matted size: 24 x 24"

When you love irises so much, you have to paint them big and in diptych!  These majestic purple irises sadly died out in my garden.  All I have are the memories.  So, in a way, the painting is the reminder of the ephemeral nature of life.  I am feeling philosophical.

"Glorious Irises" (oil on canvas; 24" x 18") sold

"Glorious Irises"
sold

"Purple Irises" (oil, 12" x 9")
sold

"Purple Glory" (watercolor, 20" x 14")
sold

Yup, you are right.  All three paintings above are based on the same photo reference.  I am guilty of copying myself.  "Purple Glory" came first, painted many years ago when I was a watercolorist.  It got an award, then got sold in another show.  Last year, I did a smaller version in oil--"Purple Irises"--and sold it on eBay.  A client of mine who saw it on my website wanted it blown up.  So I painted "Glorious Irises" for him.  What can I say?  Some compositions are so darn great that they deserve to be revisited several times.

Whenever I look at the image of "Purple Glory," I feel a pang and regret that I don't paint watercolors any more.  But the regret doesn't last long.  These days I find watercolors tedious.  One has to draw the composition very carefully with a pencil in fear of marring the paper. When glazing, one has to wait each time for the previous layer to dry completely.  Most importantly, one has to preserve the lights with absolute determination. 

When a watercolor painting works, it glows.  When it goes awry, there is not much one can do.  The medium tends to collect fanatical devotees who look at other mediums with a thinly-disguised contempt, because only the most disciplined artists can stick to it.  I have such friends.  (I hope they are not reading this blog entry; I still like them despite their stubbornness.)  I also have friends who had hit the wall and wandered to find other, I dare say, more fun, mediums. 

Despite what many people believe, oil paints can be transparent as well as opaque.  (Watercolors can be opaque too, but only up to a point.)  To me, the fun of painting in oil lies in playing with this dual characteristics of the oil medium, plus its tactile quality.  In "Glorious Irises," I didn't leave the dark background transparent, because I thought it might not stand up to the strong, sculptural presence of the back-lit irises.  Ordinarily, I play transparent areas against opaque ones, lathering thick globs of paints on highlights, highly-textured petals, and so on.  Oh, the glory of oil painting!