Tea Ceremony & Tradition - Golden Gate Park

Art is my work, but it is also my play. I have been doing a lot of playing over the summer months, hence my lack of posts. In between commissions, I have been playing at new kinds of media (different types of paint, pencils, pens). It's been rejuvenating and revealing.

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

Japanese Tea Garden Koi (Small Study)

My original photo for this small study was taken in the Japanese Tea Garden of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. We were blessed by a lovely, sunny (!) March day and enjoyed a walk through the Japanese Tea Garden. I remember being slightly disappointed that we were missing all the Spring color that would be present in the flowering trees had we been there a few weeks later, but the koi certainly didn't disapoint with their jewel-like tones.

For Asian cultures, koi are good luck signs in business and life. I have read that there is even a blue version of koi, and I will be on the lookout now. I'm tempted to paint a much larger version of this - the colors were so fun, with the lighting and water almost giving an abstract effect to the painting.

"Japanese Tea Garden Koi" (Small Study)

8"x10" oil on canvas $55+s/h (tax if applicable)

Different Strokes

Artist Karin Jurick has created a fun blog where she posts a bi-weekly photograph and invites artists from all over to interpret, paint and submit their paintings which she then posts on the blog "Different Strokes from Different Folks."

I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing how different artists will express themselves through various media while using the same reference photo. This week, I decided to join in on all the fun and this is my resulting painting.

I love visiting San Francisco and driving by all the colorful Victorian homes, dreaming what it would be like to actually live in one.

If you are interested in seeing the various artists' interpretations, be sure to click here to go to her blog
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"Pink Ladies"

9"x12" oil on canvas, $150 + S/H