Death and Love

This painting has two of the processes that I love to do with acrylics, sea sponging and swirly tree like patterns. I think of this as the fire and energy of death that comes with love. In every time of love with anything or anyone, there is a degree of death and dying to other things and oneself. There is so much complexity and levels to the power of that love and the continual death of other things to sacrifice for the love. This is, as said early, an acrylic painting. It is a larger painting at 24" by 18" with the the name, "Death and Love," in order to communicate the interwoven complexity of these too factors as they swirl and twist together. This was the last painting that I completed, but I have a few in the works. However, the rigors of family and a young child get in the way at times. Also reflecting in some ways this death and love. The love of my child so often brings about a death to the things I often took for granted as a single person; however, I would not trade the love and times to be with my little for anything else.

Ocean Mist - A return to art

This journey of child and art has been a long one. The past year was one of great struggle and turmoil as my family had to walk through the beginnings of Epilepsy with our then not quite two year old daughter. It has been very hard to keep up with the art life with many hospitalizations and constant monitoring, medicine changes, and just trying to keep up with everyday life. This past month I have been making an attempt at getting back to my love and joy of art. This first abstract is probably just the release of trying to recapture the peace and tranquility of the ocean those many years that I went to be by its shore. "Ocean Mist" Acrylic 10X10 was just a pure release of energy and process to get back into the space of doing art again. A process of trying to get my mind centered and to calm my soul in order to create again. I hope everyone enjoys this return to art with my new painting.

Reflections

This was the lake reflections painting that I have been working on for a while now. It was a very interesting painting to work on as I have not done a lake scene in quite a while. I am not sure that I am as satisfied with it as I wanted to be, but I did enjoy the process of working on it. It is a 24X18 size Acrylic.

Spiral Tree Sunset Acrylic

This Spiral Tree Sunset Acrylic (18X14) was done in January 2016 at Art Awakenings Studio. My husband when I was editing the picture for this post asked how many of these tree paintings I have done. This is actually my third of this style tree. I do enjoy doing these paintings. They flow out of me and each of them are completely different, but the spiral tree look is all the same. They are extremely meditative for me and my brain. I really love to work on them when I am anxious or worried, and I have done each of them at times when I just want a break from doing more intense detailed paintings. I completed this one while working on a lake acrylic which has a lot of detail in the reflection on the water. I needed a bit of a break and relaxed into this crazy fire sunset background and meditatively worked on the tree. It was fun and got me back to the lake scene which is not complete as of yet.

Explosion of Pink

It has been a while, keeping up with art and a baby can be a difficult thing at times. However, I have some new art to put up being I finally got pictures of everything. This first one is a smaller acrylic than I usually do at only 10X10. I was having a lot of fun blending whites, reds, and pinks to make these pink flowers which I have decided to call "Explosion of Pink." I hope everyone enjoys them as much as I enjoyed the process of making them.

Vermont Farm in the Fall

This is my latest acrylic just finished this week. It is from a picture that I took when I went back several years ago to visit my sister. It is a 18X24 acrylic with the Autumn trees and changing leaves. It was so beautiful to see Vermont in the Fall that I have been wanting to paint this for a long time and finally completed it.This interesting thing about the last two paintings posted is that I finally changed my signature to CH instead of CR. I am still struggling to remember that I changed my name, but I hope I will get used to it soon.

Through the Window 2

This is an acrylic that I did just in the last couple of months. It is an interesting shape being 10X20. I painted this scene before, but I changed it up a bit for the second rendering of it. I am going to send this up with another I just finished today to Phoenix Art Awakenings Gallery.

Fall Into Winter

Another Fall scene of trees posted today. This is a 18X24 acrylic that I did a few months ago and was in a gallery in Phoenix at Art Awakenings for a while. I like the feel of Autumn trees moving into the bareness of Winter.

Desert Path

This is a painting that I did for a Southwest Restaurant viewing. I have done several cards of this scene that people really like. I added a few more details into the Acrylic that is 18X24. This is what it looks like now, but I might make some few adjustments for it over the next couple of weeks.

Night Rose

I actually love this new Acrylic very much. It is an 11X14 which is smaller than I usually complete, but this is very similar to a watercolor that I did several years ago for a good friend of mine. This Acrylic has a similar look to, and I tried to give the background more of a watercolor fell. I love painting plants and floral scene, so it was a pleasure working on this one. It was up for a month at Art Awakenings Gallery in Tucson, AZ. I am thinking about sending up to the sister gallery in Phoenix.

Grand View Sunrise

Grand View Sunrise is a 18X24 acrylic which was based on a photo taken at the Grand View in Grand Canyon in the middle of winter. It was interesting doing this painting because the photo did some things to the scene that may or may not have been in the original scene due to the light and extreme brightness of the sun. I included some of these aspects in the painting because I wanted to capture the brightness of the morning sun breaking through the snow.

Ocean Sunset, August 12, 2015

I just love the ocean and it has been one of the things that I calms me the most and even when I am just painting it, the picture soothes my soul. This was a 18X24 acrylic that is up in a gallery in Phoenix or will be soon through PSA Art Awakenings.

Cacti Garden

The picture of the Cacti that I used for this painting was from the Tohono Chul Park in Tucson, AZ and the butterfly was from one at the Botanical Gardens when they do butterfly magic in their greenhouse. I combined the pictures and integrated something different for the background. This is an acrylic on a 10X10 canvas.

Autumn Pond Acrylic

This was another acrylic created this fall as the Autumn Pond of the Journey to the Autumn Pond. I have this up in a gallery at Art Awakenings in Phoenix, AZ and at this very moment I am not sure what I used for the final name of the painting. This is also another 20X16 Acrylic which seems to be my favorite size to do as of late.

Tree of Life Acrylic

This is the Tree of Life Acrylic that I completed recently; it is also another 16X20 format. This painting was in process for over a year before I finished deciding what I wanted to do with it to complete it. I like the idea of the creative with the spiritual again with the fire gates behind it guarding the tree and the fresh new tree in front for the actual tree of life.

Purple Mountains Majesty

This is a 16X20 Acrylic called Purple Mountains Majesty. It has a bit of the Southwest added into it for a little bit of home with the saguaro cacti.

Purple and Teal Centering Acrylic

I made this acrylic that is 16X20 for a commission for a worker at 711 who found out I was an artist and requested one of my centering acrylic's in Purple and Teal. I like doing these a lot as they are very calming like making a mandala.I got a computer again, so I can finally get posts back on this website. Going to try to keep up with it as life is a bit crazy right not preparing for a new baby girl.

Through the Window, painting

So, this is one of the paintings that I have worked on this semester at Art Awakenings. The title is Through the Window. This is a 10 by 20 inch painting. It is an acrylic of a photo that I took somewhere in town, Tucson, AZ a long time ago. It is my first real geometrical painting because of the shelves. It was a challenge, but fun. I have in the past done perspective with buildings and structures only in pencil and charcoal.

Safe Place Painting

I have now been working in trauma therapy for a little over six months. Early on, I had this visualization of a safe place to go when the memories and flashbacks come at me. This was the acrylic painting that I did at the Art Studio to help me to remember to relax in nature.

Purple Prickly Pear

I did this acrylic painting at Art Awakenings a couple of weeks ago. My new housemate loves the blossoms and the purple prickly pear, so this was for Rebekah.