Butterflies in my studio

Back in my studio.. yippiee!!!! I was listening to the song Necta by Sashamon, a local Hawaiian boy that I listened to often when we were in Hawaii. (I added it to my playlist...see below) The song inspired me to do this painting and it was soooo much fun to do. I was just in my element this morning, creating and listening to music. There isn't a more sacred place on earth for me than here in my own space doing art. My birds singing, the cat sleeping in the sun, and Marley sprawled out on the floor at my feet.. HEAVEN!!..

I used a 12 x12 panel board that I primed roughly with some light moulding paste. I applied it on with an old credit card to give the surface some texture. After it dried, I started layering the background with acrylics and some oil pastels in blues and purples. I then used a square piece of corrugated cardboard and "stamped" white acrylic randomly. I love the background. It is always fun to work with color and texture when doing backgrounds. It's pure P_L_A_Y!!!!.

I painted the girl (inspired by my blonde granddaughter Emalie) with acrylics, highlighting some with the oil pastels. Her dress has flowers that I stamped with white paint.. using one of my hand carved stamps. I added the tropical flowers called an Indonesian Wax Ginger flower, which we saw over there. And the butterflies were even fluttering on the beach. But my girl is in the tropical jungle surrounded by hanging fronds of lush green. So here she is.. enjoying the butterflies in the tropics while being serenaded to. It is such a sweet songand reminds me of the laid back easiness of Kauai. I will listen to it often I think.

I have 5 more of these 12 x 12 panel boards and will paint a series of tropical inspired memories from our trip. I need to start getting a good inventory for the upcoming Wild Women Art Show that starts in June and runs for 3 months. With the economy, I want to do a good range of priced pieces. It all helps sell I think.

It was most joyful to be back in my studio painting. It is a beautiful blue sky day here and I need to take Marley for a walk before we get more snow this upcoming week. Brrrrr. Spring snows here can be huge, but they are normally short lived. Melting and the promise of spring

keeps me out of the winter blues that I sometimes get. I listen to tropical music and trust that warm sunshine summer is on it's way.

taaaa