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- AboutJenny Floravita was born to be an artist. She began her studies in painting, drawing, music and dance as a small child, excelling in all. Her life in the San Francisco Bay Area afforded her great exposure to the arts. Jenny won numerous awards as a young artist including four California Governor’s Medallions and four California State Seals, two each for art and dance. After receiving several scholarships, Jenny went on to study and receive her formal art degree through University of California, Santa Cruz. She lived and worked in Santa Cruz as a graphic designer and fine art painter for several years before re-locating to her family’s home town in the Delta. Since 2000, Jenny Floravita’s fine art career has blossomed. She has exhibited in numerous galleries and high-end art festivals. She paints island scenes and tropical flowers in both oil and watercolor. Jenny’s journey in reverse glass painting began in the early summer of 2007 and since then she has added her beautiful custom glass painted chandeliers to her line of oil and watercolor paintings.
- ExhibitionsMarch 10-13, 2011 La Quinta Arts Festival for info and to purchase tickets: 706-564-1244 www.lqaf.com Please check back in the spring of 2011 for additional events.
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Watercolor painting, Glowing Ti Leaves of the Hawaiian Islands, also shown at Woodbridge by Mondavi Winery art show
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One of my newest over-sized watercolors, Glowing Ti Leaves of the Hawaiian Islands (along with my reverse painted chandelier titled June Garden Bloom) was also included in the juried art show at Woodbridge by Mondavi Winery in May. This is my current favorite tropical flower painting. The flowers for this piece were seen on Kauai though this scene could be from any garden enthusiasts home in the Hawaiian Islands.
There were over 700 entries in the various categories so I was very excited to have this piece of art included in the show, especially considering that one of my favorite chandeliers was also chosen. I must confess that if I could do this over again, I would have framed this piece differently. Normally we frame all of my watercolor paintings here at the studio and all of my watercolors have been framed in the same style for the past several years. My husband does the chops and assembly, I cut the mats and assemble the fillets, backing, etc… I had decided that I wanted to do something different with this one piece and wanted to give a local frame shop (that has a flaky reputation but is well known among the local artists) another try at framing simply to support another local business that is not a big box business…gave them plenty of time…with disastrous results. Right down to the last minute this was a stressful frame job and in the end I didn’t get the moulding, matting, fillet that was specifically chosen for this piece—as a last resort we had to put the painting into a thin molding that warps because the size of the painting is too large for the molding.
I am planning on re-framing this piece in the way in which it deserves, you can see here how beautiful it is and that it deserves to be shown well. Framing is an important part of a watercolor’s presentation. In the near future, I will do a blog or two on how this piece will be framed and why certain frame and matting decisions are made.
If any of you know an awesome framer, I’m open to ideas for this piece!
Banana Shack, Hawaiian Waimea Plantation Cottage painting
Spring has arrived along with soft rains and new banana plant stalks are shooting up in the garden of my California studio. While I’m waiting for my garden to become green again, I’ll be painting banana plants in my small Hawaiian waimea plantation cottage paintings…and dreaming of the lush season that follows.
You can see that my Mini Master paintings are created on professional quality canvas. Each painting is painted around the edges. Many collectors display multiple paintings in a grouping or stand them up on a mantle. These little gems are very lovely in person.
North Shore Living, Hawaiian Waimea Plantation Cottage painting
North Shore Living is a 12″ long by 6″ tall original oil painting from my long running Hawaiian Waimea Plantation Cottage Series.
This is a beautiful island home vignette painting—a small treasure. You can see in the side shot how the colors glow. All of my paintings look really lovely in person—my collectors are always very happy with their purchases be they small or large.
My husband is lucky, he gets to go back to Big Island for a quick visit next month to look for our ‘spot’ on Hawaii. With a little luck and some vision, it might be possible for us to fulfill our dream someday of living in the islands—full time or part time, I don’t know yet. What I’ve noticed of people that we know who live in the islands, they tend to transition. At some point in their later working years they start to go for a month one a year as time permits, then next for two, at some point down the road it’s three and then…at some point they realize it’s been 2 years or more before they’ve been back to California.
We’re way too young for any serious dreaming of living in the islands soon but hey, there is serious truth in that if you only dream but never lay out a true vision in a plan then you will never arrive at your goal. For us, the goal has always been to enjoy life, to have a fabulous tropical garden and to live with art!
Hawaii in Summer, tropical waimea plantation cottage art
Hawaii in Summer is one of my newest mini Waimea Plantation Cottage Series paintings. Those of you who have been following my painting blogs for a couple years know that I can paint these small Hawaiian sugar cottages endlessly.
This piece forgoes the usual island cottage blue and utilizes the colors of the sun. Bright orange and red flowers bring cheer and texture to the front of the house while tall coconut palms and bougainvillaea prosper in the back.
Personally, I do understand why I paint these island houses—they represent the good life and maybe even a future life in the islands and buy judging on how many of these I’ve sold through the years, others can certainly relate!
Morning Glory House, waimea plantation cottage painting
Late last month I was blessed to visit Hawaii proper also known as Big Island. Hawaii is a very dynamic, living island. Though our entry and exit to and from the island happened late at night, if you fly in to land during the day you will be able to see how the lava effects the landscape.
This island is still producing shoreline. The lava has a beauty in itself that is hard to describe if you have never experienced standing on and in an immense dried lava bed in person as we did on the grounds of the great 1990 eruption. I’ll have to create a few paintings this year that incorporate the beauty of lava rock.
My husband and I also realized that we really love the East side of the island. It’s the wet side of the island. As an artist who is inspired by the islands, it was great to finally be back on Big Island—it really helped me to reconnect with my chosen subject.
Though the painting featured here does not have lava it does have one of my other favorite elements to paint—the Hawaiian sugar plantation cottage. This piece titled, Morning Glory House is a small canvas, 6″x12″. There is a lot of fun texture on this painting. You can see a couple more details of this fine vignette oil painting under my Mini Paintings category: http://floravitalights.com/portfolio/blue-waimea-plantation-cottage-with-purple-morning-glory-and-pink-flowers/
Red & Orange Tropical Flower Glow, watercolor
8″ x 8.5″ watercolor on rough 300lb Arches paper, 50 plus 6 packing/ship—I’ve shipped my paintings and chandeliers all over the country
Red & Orange Tropical Flower Glow is a watercolor study for possibly a larger watercolor painting. It is on a thick, 300lb rough watercolor paper. Normally I don’t paint on ‘rough’ surface paper so that said, this is a very true contemporary watercolor—though it’s highly realistic, it’s painted very freely, with a lot of layers and vibrant tropical colors.
The torn edges add a lovely element to this painting. Watercolor has always been my first love. I’ve been painting in watercolor for much of my professional career. Though galleries have largely preferred oils I’ve stuck with this exquisite medium through the years, showing them alongside my oil paintings and sometimes exclusively.
My first watercolors were painted at age 11 and I painted exclusively in watercolor for the first 20 years of my painting life. My floral paintings are inspired by tropical flowers. I travel to the Hawaiian Islands most every year and we also grow tropical flowers in my California home garden.
Red & Orange Tropical Flower Glow, watercolor
8″ x 8.5″ watercolor on rough 300lb Arches paper, 50 plus 6 packing/ship—I’ve shipped my paintings and chandeliers all over the country
Red & Orange Tropical Flower Glow is a watercolor study for possibly a larger watercolor painting. It is on a thick, 300lb rough watercolor paper. Normally I don’t paint on ‘rough’ surface paper so that said, this is a very true contemporary watercolor—though it’s highly realistic, it’s painted very freely, with a lot of layers and vibrant tropical colors.
The torn edges add a lovely element to this painting. Watercolor has always been my first love. I’ve been painting in watercolor for much of my professional career. Though galleries have largely preferred oils I’ve stuck with this exquisite medium through the years, showing them alongside my oil paintings and sometimes exclusively.
My first watercolors were painted at age 11 and I painted exclusively in watercolor for the first 20 years of my painting life. My floral paintings are inspired by tropical flowers. I travel to the Hawaiian Islands most every year and we also grow tropical flowers in my California home garden.
IFDA’s Dining by Design Table Taste & Hop
These images below are of the evening of Dining By Design’s Table Taste & Hop, 2012 at the San Francisco Design Center Galleria. Everything came together beautifully! The IFDA team worked very hard and included team members:
Lauren Shelby— www.spaceswithin.com
Athena Charis—www.athenacharis.com
Diane Nicolson—www.pbd.org
Tim Manning—web.me.com/timothydmanning
Davis Dalbok—Living Green
Jenny Floravita (me)—floravitalights.com
Susan Crane—Bloom Artistry (floral arrangements)
The following evening was the actual dinner for those who purchased seats at 500 and tables at 5,000 and up. Click on the images to view larger and scroll through the entire portfolio.
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- Detail of our troical flower theme
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- Detail of our troical flower theme
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- Our table in it’s prime
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- Detail of tropical flower mural
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- Check out the lovely table setting!
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- Our floral designer tied in flowers on the table with the flowers in the mural
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- Our floral designer tied in flowers on the table with the flowers in the mural
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- Bravo to the entire IFDA team!
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- Bravo to the entire IFDA team!
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- This was a multiple-designer effort!
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- SFDC rocks the Table Taste & Hop!
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- The crystal chandelier costs 20K
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- More shots of our table!
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- More shots of our table!
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- Tim Manning too this shot, and it’s lovely!
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- The evening of the event!
IFDA Dining By Design set-up day, 2012
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- Piece by piece, the table comes together
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- Members of the IFDA team install the mural and prep the table
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- The mural, ready to roll out
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- Tim Manning’s shot of two of our lovely IFDA designers, Athena Charis and Lauren Shelby
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- The San Francisco Design Center Galleria on set-up day
Finally I’ve had a chance to “process” all of my photos from the 2012 Dining By Design event. Our (IFDA) table scape was one of the best! We definitely had a lot of energy in this space and a lot of time and thought went into our Pirates-of-the-Caribbean-meets-Lost theme.
Dining by Design is a national AIDs fundraiser. The event was held at the San Francisco Design Center Galleria.
Click on the photos above to view larger versions.
Tropical Flower Mural in Floravita’s Main Gallery Room
I’m going to miss this tropical flower mural in my main gallery room…but alas, all good things must come to an end.
One week from tomorrow this tropical flower mural will be installed at the San Francisco Design Center for the 2011 Dining By Design charity fundraiser.
I think this wall will feel empty after this painting’s release…and I think it’s time to complete a few more tropical flower paintings to show in it’s place…
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