Lesley Spanos Art » Garden and Floral

Sunflower Medley

Lesley Spanos — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 00:26:16 +0000

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.

Available on Artfire

For Luck

Lesley Spanos — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 23:19:52 +0000

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

Lesley Spanos — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 07:03:54 +0000

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

Lesley Spanos — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 01:51:55 +0000

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!

Available on Artfire

Gift Worthy

Lesley Spanos — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 18:09:23 +0000

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.

Bid at Daily Paintworks

A few images taken along the way:

tuyi

Red Tulips, Green Leaves

Lesley Spanos — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 19:21:53 +0000

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:

Sunflower Memories

Lesley Spanos — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 05:09:50 +0000

My husband is so cool. Even though we have a yard full of flowers, he brought home sunflowers because we didn’t have any flowers in the house. I painted them because there’s no better way to commit a sight to memory.

See my Artfire storefront for purchasing information.

Favorite Things

Lesley Spanos — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:57:01 +0000

“Favorite Things”
Oil painting on hardboard panel, 11 x 14″

A few of artist Karen Jurick’s favorite things. This was painted from her photo on her weekly artist’s challenge, Different Strokes From Different Folks. Go to the blog to see the reference photo we were given to use, and the many interpretations submitted by artists.

Somewhere I have a similar painting I did ten years ago, of some of my favorite things at the time: A white ceramic Buddah given to me by a friend in college, a glass and black metal votive holder with lighted candle, a carved brass vase from India via Pier One, and some tiny yellow mums (not my favorite) to bridge the composition. I could have easily used hydrangeas instead – I always have dried hydrangeas, cat mint, and statice hanging in the kitchen. My hydrangeas are a light lime green.

There were too many things demanding my attention this week, so I really struggled with this painting, spreading it out over three short sessions due to lack of time. I never really got into the “zone.” There are still things that bother me about it, but I’ve tortured it enough. Sometimes you’ve just gotta clean those brushes and move on to the next thing!