Planting Hawaiian Style

When Paul and I first discussed his ideas for this painting he asked if I could add the company logo as a bronze metal cutout on the wall. He’d sent us this cool tumbler a few months ago so I had a good pattern of the logo to follow. In designing the painting I decided to sacrifice wall space so we could have a wider doorway, therefore showing more of the ocean view. So I had to become inventive. Actually it was Jack who came up with the answer. He said, “Why don’t you just emboss the logo on one of the ceramic flower pots?” I like it, what do you think?

All of the large flower pots are painted with mixtures of Ultramarine Blue + White. After completing the ceramic containers I begin painting the leaves of the Ginger. This is one of the exceptions to my Flowers First, Leaves Last rule. Because the flowers of the Ginger plant are so randomly placed it’s easier to paint the large leaves first with cool greens made of Pthalo Blue + Lemon Yellow.

Then I gently “Lay” the thick paint of the pink flowers on top of the underlying green. I have to be extremely careful so I don’t pick up any of the leaf color on my brush and dull the blooms.

One of our fondest memories of living in Hawaii was driving along the winding roads and coming upon small flower stands with buckets full of Ginger, Heliconia and Birds of Paradise. A sign would read, “Dollar a Bunch”. It was all on the honor system, you’d take a bunch and leave your dollar in a small pot by the sign! This is a little painting of one we frequently visited, I took artistic liberty and moved it down by the beach!

Since the flowers of the Clivia grow in clumps they are roughed in first with mixes of Cadmium Red Light + Alizarin Crimson, Alizarin Crimson + Cadmium Orange and pure Cadmium Orange. If you would like to see this or any of the other pictures larger just click on the image.

Cadmium Yellow Medium is mixed into the greens leftover from the ginger to use for the warmer Clivia foliage. Then the broad strap-like leaves are painted around the blossoms.

Clivia are such beautiful plants, Jack and I first discovered them in Maui at the Kula Botanical Gardens. We didn’t know what they were called until about a year or so ago. I put them in one of my paintings and asked our blog readers if they could identify this wonderful plant for me. One of my followers from New Zealand wrote back with the answer. I think I have the best bunch of blog followers in the world! AND…If you would like to receive an email every time I publish a new post please feel free to subscribe to my blog. CLICK THIS LINK and scroll to the upper right side of the page. You will see a heading EMAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS. Just enter your email address and click the button “Sign me up!”  It’s easy. If you enjoy my blog please CLICK the FaceBook LIKE Button. As we say in Texas, “Much Obliged!