Garden and Floral

"Sunflower Medley" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on Ampersand Aquabord, 5" x 5". Copyright ©2011 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

The hubby bought me sunflowers again, so I painted them. The red ones came from an Amish woman at the farmer’s market, and the yellow ones were from Fresh Market.

In other news, Liquitex added more of my acrylic paintings to their Inspire site: Bumble Bee Bop, Rivalry, Portrait of the Chicken as a Young Cockerel, and Little Big Dog. Liquitex Inspire is a beautifully designed site featuring the work of a variety of artists who use Liquitex acrylics.

"For Luck" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on Ampersand Aquabord, 7" x 5". Copyright ©2011 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

Thought I’d try a more subdued palette for these water lilies. These plants were part of an indoor Japanese garden at the Indiana State Fair last year. Further proof that I can find just about any subject at the fair.

Speaking of my state fair, it opens next week. I keep a running list of subjects I still need to photograph and paint for my book. Number one on my list this year is Dachshund racing!  I crave doing a painting of them. Dock diving dogs are another one I’d love to paint. I’m imagining a painting of a  flying dog in mid-air, nothing but sky behind him. Hope I can position myself so I can shoot some good references.

Back to the lilies, here are a few images captured along the way:

"Life Becoming" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on Ampersand Gessobord, 6" x 8". Copyright ©2011 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

This week I’m hosting the painting challenge on Daily Paintworks. It’s called “The Color Of Music,”  and you’re invited to play along! The idea is to paint a favorite piece of music, converting sound to pigment.

My song choice, “Life Becoming,” comes from a long-time favorite album by Michael Nesmith called “The Garden.”   This mostly instrumental album comes boxed with a short novel. The idea is to play the music while reading the book, allowing the written word to sync with the music. Sounds weird, but if you’re a visually-minded person, it’s almost like watching a movie in your mind. The album provides the script and soundtrack, and the user is free to create whatever mind-pictures they want. Be your own cinematographer. I like that.

As an artist, I also appreciate that the book is illustrated with paintings by Monet, and loosely suggests his efforts to bring water to his garden in Giverny. The main character is named Jason, and he’s not a painter, but the garden described is definitely Monet’s.

“Life Becoming” is the final “scene” in the story. Jason has returned home after his quest to discover that his once-dry yard is now a beautiful garden. Monet’s garden. He walks down the rose-arbor allée to the lily pond, where he is greeted by the woman he loves. They stand silently on the Japanese bridge, gazing over the peaceful lily pond.   The music is repetitive and graceful, almost circular, so painting a series of repeating round shapes – lily pads – was a natural choice.  The two lilies represent the man and the woman.

"Summer Yellow" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on Ampersand Aquabord, 6" x 6". Copyright ©2011 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

This pretty sunflower and its five friends currently reside on my work table, thanks to my wonderful husband. Usually I paint from printouts or my monitor, but this one was painted from life thanks to the impending demise of my computer.  Poor thing has been overheating and locking up every few minutes and generally making my life miserable. Tomorrow I’ll send it over the electronic rainbow bridge and set up its replacement. Then I can finally get some work done!

"Gift Worthy" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on Fredrix Watercolor Canvas panel, 11 x 14". Copyright ©2011 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved.

Confession: I’ve always wanted to paint a gift wrapped up in shiny ribbons, but it’s an iconic subject for some artists, and therefore one I stay away from. If you want to see what I mean, check out Karen Appleton’s work. Or Carol Marine, who does awesome bowage. (My word.) When Carol offered The Gift Challenge on Daily Paintworks, I jumped in, because everyone will be doing bows this week so it won’t look like I’m copying someone else.

My usual package wrapping MO is to tie a ribbon around flowers in season, or dried flowers and grasses if it’s winter. I threw the gold ribbon on top so I could paint some reflections. I wanted to do a cute little square box, but couldn’t find such a box anywhere in the house. Until I stumbled on this little gem. If you ever saw the episode of Seinfeld called The Sponge, you can guess both the contents of the box, and the source of the title.

"Red Tulips, Green Leaves" by Lesley Spanos. Acrylic painting on American Easel wood panel, 6" x 8". Copyright ©2011 Lesley Spanos, all rights reserved. Sold.

Soon, our tulips will be gone, so it was time to paint them. When the light shines through them, they look like glowing lanterns.

I tried a couple of new things this time:

One, a cradled wood panel by American Easel. They’re very well made, and don’t need to be framed. I used GAC 100 as a clear barrier so I could still see the wood as I painted. I wanted to leave the wood sides natural (varnished), but they looked unfinished, so they got a coat of black paint.

Two, I finally pulled out the Golden Open acrylics that have been sitting unused in my paint cabinet. Not sure yet if I like them, but one use isn’t a fair trial. Sometimes the texture felt like oils, but as it started to dry, it got sticky, and I didn’t like that. Some of the thicker paint took two days to dry! That’s a good thing if you want to rework, but a bad thing if you want to get it on the scanner and post it right away. The M. Graham oils I use with their walnut alkyd dry faster!

Here are some images captured along the way: