Irises in all their glory...

Ohhhh how lucky I am to have a neighbor with a touch for irises!

The highlight of Spring for me is when I can take a simple stroll down our street and feast my eyes on the results of her green thumb. With the intense heat we are experiencing, these beauties won't last long, so I've had to drop everything and get the photos while they are in their glory. I've done a number of paintings from her iris garden, and I can't wait to tackle some more!

I like the white irises on the left here....painting white flowers of any kind presents a challenge, especially in watercolor! These will be a lot of fun to do.....rendering the shadows and leaving the white of the paper as the brightest, sunlit parts of the flower.

I'm anxious to get back to painting! The Spring gardening chores have eaten up a lot of my time...but once those tasks are completed, I can get back to my brushes. I'll have a lot of fun sorting through all the beautiful iris photos... and saying thanks to the neighbor with the green thumb!

Kauai's Polihali Beach....

I've been working on a series of smaller paintings lately. Getting ready for the summer art festival season (and as I say this, there are frost warnings for this weekend)! The painting on the left is of Polihali Beach on the island of Kauai...the most beautiful place I have ever seen. I wanted to show just the vast expanse of beach here. People always focus on the NaPali cliffs, that are behind me and off to the right. And while spectacular, I wanted to paint just an empty stretch of beach, so this is the view looking out over the water. The island of Niihau, or sometimes called the Forbidden Island, is off in the distance. This smaller sized piece was fun to do. This is a painting that someone can buy as more of an impulse purchase....for themselves or as a gift for someone. Someday I will tackle a painting of those glorious cliffs! But boy....that will have to be a very large painting to do them justice!!