Lavender Lake

This new painting, titled Lavender Lake, is 12"w x 12"h, acrylic on canvas. I recently brought this one in to Siiviis Gallery in Duluth along with other bird themed paintings. The cardinals have been requested by every gallery that represents my work, and their customers love the red birds. I've been painting cardinals for several years now, often wondering if they will ever 'go out of style'. I'll stray from them as a subject matter, only to get pulled back by requests from people who love them. I've been told it has to do with the bright red and crisp birch .. along with complementary colors. While I don't mind painting cardinals, I don't want to duplicate a previous painting and so I often think about how to present the birds in a new way. I've used color, composition, perspective, style, repetition ... many different design aspects to portray the subject matter over the years. In this case, I've brought in some color close to blue on the color wheel ... lavender. When you add red to blue you get purple, and when you add purple to a red and blue landscape you get ... cardinals at a lake. And not just any lake ... a Lavender Lake. :)

Lavender Crocus

"Lavender Crocus" 10"wx8"h

April showers bring May flowers. Except here in northern Minnesota, where the landscape is still covered by a thick blanket of snow in April. The sunny 50 degree temps may do something about that snow this week, however. I painted a series of flowers pushing up through the snow last week, as we were getting hit by a couple snowstorms and spring seemed like a fleeting dream, and this is one of the new works titled Lavender Crocus, 10"w x 8"h. Crocus and tulips seem to be resilient flowers, often found pushing through snow, and thriving amongst the cold weather. And I don't blame them ... after this record setting cold and snowy winter I join these flowers in saying enough is enough. Time to start growing again.