Japanese Tea Garden

The koi fish in the small ponds at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco are vibrant orange, gold, and ultramarine blue.  In painting this scene, I wanted to play off these complementary colors and show the wonderful patterns created by the sun on both the water surface as well as the cast shadows of the fish on the pond bottom.  The shadows cast by the fish reminded me of Japanese calligraphy.  For those of you who follow my work, you know my paintings contain fragmented association and memory of the sites I visit; thus, the underpainting is comprised of scattered tea leaves and tea bags, which I fixed to the canvas with acrylic prior to completing the scene in oil.  A small Japanese pagoda and glimpses of the garden are reflected off the water in the upper portion of the painting.

A Long Walk and a Little White Ball

This lonely, lovely cypress is right on the beach of Carmel, CA.  If you walk just a few hundred yards north of the cypress, the Pebble Beach Golf Course stretches down to the sand.  This painting grew out of the juxtaposition of the two and is a fragmented amalgam of imagery linking them. While my cypress is based on an actual tree on the beach, I did find it interesting that Pebble Beach's logo on their golf balls is a graphic tree. The golf ball dimples transitioned well into shadowed sand dips.  Hope you like it.

A "Striking" Image -

During a recent winter visit to the Colorado mountains, I was drawn to this solitary fire hydrant on a little-travelled road.  I loved the solitary splash of red color against the dry sienna grass and blue Colorado sky.  More importantly, its presence reminded me that it was the sole protection for the area against wildfires, and that the very road I walked on was a few hundred yards from a massive fire a few years before.  I incorporated these associated thought fragments into the final painting; the dry grass has actual matches enmeshed in the tangle of grass strands. Enjoy.
Western Sentinel,  20" x 20", mixed media 2012 

Happy Birthday, Columbus!

This year marks the 200th birthday of Columbus, Ohio and the city is celebrating all year.  In response to the momentous event, I created this painting, Columbus Reflections.  It is a mixed media piece that juxtaposes the present and the past.  The city skyline is reflected in the Scioto River, with current events reflecting back in the newspaper clippings.  However, the past rural history of Cowtown is also revealed in the reflections, as the memory of cows suggested by clouds floating over the city. Enjoy.

Chinatown, San Francisco

I just finished Chinatown, San Francisco.  It is a mixed media piece that is painted on Chinese newsprint and features the beautiful red cloth/paper lanterns that hang over the streets of Chinatown in San Francisco.  I was drawn to the brilliant reds and yellows of the lanterns and banners as well as the chaotic atmosphere of the crowded streets.  I hope you enjoy it!

January Sunshine

Today is a cold, gray wintery day in Ohio and my mind keeps going back to this past summer when I traveled to the Italian Amalfi coast.  The steep hills were terraced with beautiful lemon groves laden with huge bulbous lemons.  My senses were overwhelmed: bright yellows,  sap greens, citrus perfumes, blue sky. My taste buds popped with the sweet and sour limoncello syrup.  I tried to capture this feeling in Limoncello, a painting I finished a few months ago.  If you look closely you will see the yellow netting of the lemon bag incorporated on the cut flesh of the lemons, and the lemon label in some of the leaves.

Happy New Year!

This year starts off with a bang for me professionally, as my new website has officially launched!  You can see it with the link above:  www.bevdarwin.com.  It was designed by Evelyn Davis of Davis Walker Creative and is based on my signature used for my paintings. I hope you like it.  The home page rotates to a different painting each time you visit the site.  Gallery One is a collection of my thesis paintings and Gallery 2 is a collection of some of my 2011 paintings.  I have posted one of my 2011 paintings, Desert Reef, on this blog.  It is my response to a trip to Arizona this year.  As I surveyed the desert landscape, the cacti reminded me of underwater staghorn coral reefs.  The two environments couldn't be more different, and I thought the juxtaposition of the two would be fun and visually compelling.  Enjoy!