This current "play" is actually a little piece that I started for fun early in the summer. I've also posted the preliminary work so you can see how a painting gets started. A departure for me, this is acrylic on heavy gessoed paper. It was a challenge to work with acrylics the same way I work with oils because they both behave very differently.
Originally, I had intended to paint a picture of the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco a la Monet. I got sidetracked though when a friend offered me his photos and after picking one out, I found that when I enlarged it, there was a little boy taking part in the traditional tea service. So I scrapped Monet and did MJ instead, creating my own version, redoing the scene and the little boy.
I was just telling a friend the other day that I don't think I could ever settle in to painting just one thing or one style. I love being an artist - I can be a gardener, an architect, a cowboy, a traveler, a naturalist, a child, a florist...the world is my inspiration!
"Tradition and the Tea Ceremony"
11"x14" acrylic on gessoed paper
