Suddenly, it's July. From March 16 until now, I have made about 15 paintings. That's an enormous output for me. At first I was working every day for several hours, but now I'm on a more normal schedule in these abnormal times. All these paintings have mostly been inspired by what I'm seeing in my neighbor's gardens. All are in my new style, and very detailed. It's been really satisfying to have enough time to make this amount of work, in which I feel my work and I have grown.
My most recent painting was inspired by a visit to Lotusland in Montecito, CA. I've just finished that one, not 10 minutes ago. There's more to Lotusland than just the gorgeous lotuses, and my latest painting has flowers and plants from the shade garden, the insectary and other areas of the large garden.
Yesterday I had a field trip with a friend to one of our favorite galleries in Santa Barbara, Sullivan-Goss. The whole gallery was filled with the work of women artists. I specifically wanted to see the exhibit of Susan McDonnell, who makes beautiful paintings and drawings of animals and birds. Very inspiring work.
The image I've included here is of an 8x10 painting of sweet peas and other plants, titled "Sweet Pea Big Bee" . I saw these sweet peas along the fence of a farm up the street. I added one of the ubiquitous caterpillars that arrive in our back garden every year. I remember my Mom growing these from seed when I was a kid.
I am part of collaborative exhibit at Vita Arts Center in Ventura, CA called "Truly Exquisite". Several local artists are participating. It is a project based on the Exquisite Corpse game. Each artist creates a body using 4 panels oriented horizontally. Then the curator mixes all the panels up to create figures using the work of the different artists.
In my 4 panels I stayed true to my botanical style, and made a body using flowers and plants, birds and insects. Should be a lot of fun to see the results. Check it out: vitaartcenter.com. The show should be up on their website on July 11,2020, and you can find info about how to see it in person if you live close to Ventura, CA.
Tomorrow is the 4th of July. We will always remember this one, won't we?
Take care, I'll be back on my blog next month.
Lisa
SkyheartArt.com
