Love is in the air….

Wishing everyone a peaceful, magical and blessed Valentine’s Day!

Lillypond Fairy Lovers

Unicorn Magic the art of Fantasy the power of Imagination

Never before has there been such a need for magic in the world. But there is magic ~ all around us and most of all, inside us, if we just choose to see and experience it.

Here is my magic Unicorn, held by a Maiden. The Unicorn can only be approached by a human of pure spirit. In the midst of the darkness, there is a stronger Light. It is the magic that is the creative Human Being, dreaming a more gentle and enlightened path, conjuring up the true spirit of Creation: Love and endless potential. The original is for sale here.

I have always lived very much within my Imagination, creating fantasy realms and expressing this with my art on many different levels. I believe that Magical Realism is not just a creative genre, it is a way of Life. Unicorns are the ultimate symbol of this magical realm, that resied within us, and exists with that

…and more unicorns, on t-shirts and other things

Thank you for visiting ! Please, share the love, share your Light, and live the Magic 🙂

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Miniature original watercolor paintings

For some time now I’ve been creating these cute little original miniature watercolor paintings, previously outlined in this post.

         Burmese Cat original miniature painting

 

     Little Cardinal  miniature painting               

Using pigment colored pencils and ink pens, tube watercolor (I use Rembrandt & Van Gogh watercolors) and a combination of beautiful handmade mulberry bark paper and rough textured watercolour paper, I create them with little to no preliminary sketching – it keeps the process spontaneous!

      Fairy Queen miniature painting

Each little painting measures 1 3/4 x 1 3/4 inches, and I put them in a little matt, perfect for gift giving! I love painting cats, flowers and owls especially, but have also done dragonflies, unicorns and fairies.

                       Unicorn original miniature painting

They are exclusively for sale at Outside the Lines Gallery in Dubuque, Iowa ~ a lovely gallery filled with very unique and local art. If you would like a custom order for any of my unique and original paintings, please contact me on my website contact page or check out my originals for sale here.

Thanks for visiting!

       Sleepy Owl miniature painting

The Owlings portrait of two sisters in watercolor : Magical Realism painting

This is my new painting, titled “The Owlings”

This lovely whimsical painting was inspired by a folk-style portrait of two girls I saw from the 1800’s.

It was a tradtion in former times for parents to place a coral necklaces on children as coral was thought to protect the wearer from ill health and harm.

I love the style of Magical Realism painting, where is the subject matter is often blurred between realism and a strong nuance of the quirky or magical.

This painting is primarily done in watercolours, with touches of gold, silver and coloured pigment ink.

I particularly enjoyed painting the two sisters, as it is a dedication to my own sister and the beautiful spirit of sisterhood…

….who knows what they, and their little totem owls within their arms are thinking?

Paintings like this one are so very special that I only release a small amount of print reproductions of them. The edition of this size print of the painting is only 50 prints and is available for sale here.

The original painting is also for sale – please contact me for more information. Thanks for visiting !

Sumi-e dragonfly original brush paintings to go!

I’ve created some new paintings featuring beautiful Dragonflies, done in Sumi-e  Japanese / Chinese brush style on acid-free handmade mulberry bark paper which has a lovely silky surface texture.

These original one-off watercolour paintings are all available for $30 or under in my Esty Shop

I love creating anything to do with dragonflies : they have a unique meaning across many cultures, symbolising transformation, ressurrection and enlightenment as they are born wriggling in the water, and transmute into stunning winged creatures of the air…..

You can see more of my original Dragonfly Artwork and Jewelry design here.

Thank you for stopping by – I’ll soon be posting more new paintings in an Owl extravaganza !

Whimsical Mermaid painting : Ulysses Muse !

My latest painting springs from the imagining of a wonderful and epic story of a voyage in Ancient times. Ulysses – known as Odysseus in his Greek persona –  is a mythological sea-faring hero and warrior who managed to hear the seductive song of the devastatingly beautiful but deadly Sirens whilst avoiding being drowned by them.

He was on his way back home to his Grecian island kingdom of Ithaca in the Ionian sea after fighting in the Trojan War, and his incredible adventures have become legendary. My interest in this story, which may have very well been based on factual events in prehistory, stems from the fact that my Greek ancestry goes back just two generations to this beautiful little Greek island. It was from there that my grandparents immigrated to South Africa in the 1930’s, and my great-great grandfather sailed the surrounding Mediterranean seas right up into the Black sea as a merchant sailor, captaining his very own ship.

In this watercolor and pigment colored pencil and wax resist painting, I’ve depicted one of the Sirens as a mermaid, who has Ulysses’ soul in her heart as she sings her exquisite song to him ~ perhaps she is in love with him…perhaps it is she who inspires him to keep going on his voyage home despite all the trials he endures. I imagine her as being almost doll-like, as a marionette mermaid…

As always in my paintings, there is much expressive movement, along with little details hidden away for the viewer to discover. For the colour palette I enjoyed using corals, salmon pinks, tones of blue grey for the stormy sky and highlights of creamy yellow. These colors are very inspired by my own visit to the Greek islands, where everything is imbued by a mystical, magical hue that is timeless.

I wanted to keep the feeling of this magic, with a whimsy that always surrounds mythological tales, especially ones about mermaids, the sea, heros and the longing of love….

The original painting is for sale here.

Stunning archival art prints are for sale here.

A Silver Cat picture, and a little Dog portrait

I have completed two new works for an exhibition titled “It’s Raining Cats, Dogs and Cows”

at my wonderful local art gallery The McGregor Marquette Centre for the Arts.

“Silver Cat”

This is Pewter Repousse or embossing, a lovely form of art which I learned in my home country of South Africa. It is a very popular craft there, and I immediately took to it, as I love working with pewter in any form. I have made many jewellery pieces  cast in pewter from my original wax carvings, it is considered a semi-precious metal, and it very mouldable, shiny and has a gorgeous feel to it.

This piece measures about 9 x 7 inches, and it’s basically a form of relief modelling with this soft metal, pushing out from the back as well as the front to give shape and detail.

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“Simon”

This is the completed Dachshund watercolor and ink painting shown in my earlier post. It is available for sale as an archival giclee print here.

I loved to use gentle line work in the sky reminiscent of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” , with naive art style motifs to match the gorgeous frame I found especially for it. Both of these original framed pieces are for sale – please contact me if you are interested!

Dachshund Painting, and other Animal Portraits

“Simon”

As I had mentioned in a previous post, I love to do portrait commissions.

I am currently working on this little painting of a Dachshund, done in a whimsical Folk art style, for an upcoming exhibition at my local art gallery. It is based on a wonderful dog my family owned called Simon, who loved to run outside and chase all sorts of creatures in his path. He was a very special pet, and this is my tribute to him.

I have done a few animal portraits in the past, and am always inspired to capture its spirit in a style that reflects its uniqueness. Here are some of them – and I do have a penchant for owls and cats! I do custom commissions for any kind of portrait, painting, tattoo design etc – please contact me if you are interested.

 

Watercolor portrait painting completed…

My portrait of Maggie is finished !  As described in my previous two posts, after sketching the initial outlines in pencil, I free-formed the rest of the composition, continuing to layer the watercolours, working around the dired pressed flowers,  adding more detail to the peony fairy and the hair, more flowers, and brushstrokes reminiscent of those of Vincent Van Gogh, whose artwork Maggie loves.

Below is a detailed excerpt of the painting – please click on it for a larger view – it is a blend of watercolor, dried flowers and s mall touch of Caran d’Ache colored pigment pencil for highlights. The paper is Stonehenge smooth textured paper. I mostly use Rembrandt or Van Gogh watercolors, with touches of Chinese white for highlights. I am looking forward to my next painting – please keep an eye on my blog for my next project. You can purchase a beautiful print of this painting from my shop here.

Thanks for visiting!

Portrait Painting Progress….

This is the painting of Maggie so far – in my previous post I described the beginnings of this work.

Here, I have layered the watercolour on Stonehenge ivory paper, and filled in more details, like the fairy by the peony top right, and the cats. I have begun to blend the dried flowers in with painted flowers, too. I will be doing more of this, as well as filling out her hair, adding more small details and subtle highlights. What I love to do is basically free-form the painting; I have an idea of colours and composition, but mostly it’s a process of playing with the paint, with the flow and feel of the painting….you can click on it to view it closer up.