Mini Paintings Blog

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.

By jennyfloravita
Published: January 10, 2012
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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.

By jennyfloravita
Published: December 14, 2011
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IFDA Dining By Design set-up day, 2012

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.

By jennyfloravita
Published: December 14, 2011
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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…

By jennyfloravita
Published: November 7, 2011
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Tropical Flower Mural for 2011 Dining by Design Finished!

Finally, my tropical flower mural is finished! This is really a very lovely oil painting in person. It has very ‘designer’ colors in the background and will look lovely in our table-scape for the upcoming 2011 Dining by Design, which will be hosted at the San Francisco Design Center Galleria in two weeks.

There will be a preview and taste party. Patrons will bid on the ‘tables’ and then winners will come back on the following night with their dinner party guests to feast. This is a wonderful event and proceeds go to help the AIDS community.

The Preview Party: Table Hop & Taste is Wednesday, November 16, 6—11pm and tickets are 100. Cuisine will be provided by: 25 Lusk, Bar Bambino, Barbara Llewellyn Catering, Bisou, Chef Tyler Stone, Limon and Mission Minis. To order tickets, click here. Stay tuned for event photos!

By jennyfloravita
Published: November 3, 2011
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Beginning To Paint The Background

The background of this large, tropical jungle flower painting will be done loosely with a different mixture of colors that will create light. I will use a large amount of soft mixing white with my “sunlight” hues which include yellow ochre and cadmium yellow with some sap green. These will be the background tones that will serve as the basis for my palm fronds and background jungle foliage.

With the next session I will tackle the rest of the background and perhaps the bottom sections as well. This phase is a preliminary background. Once the entire background fills my canvas I will paint more sunlight colors, more layers of palm fronds in greater contrast and I will bring in more extreme highlights. What I will be looking to create next is a balance of color and contrast.

I decided that in this painting that I want my background to have more designer colors and hues to make the piece more sophisticated. Tropcals can be in danger of looking cheesy if not done with thought. I give credit to the tiki era of the 50s and 60s for creating a sort of faux visual culture that represents the Hawaiian Islands. For the last decade of my painting career I have striven to paint tropicals with the same sophistication as any other subject that collectors would find worthy enough to hang as an original on their walls, in any room of their house. Given the fact that this mural is for an interior design project and the fact that it is brimming with brightly colored flowers, I wanted to create some decor balance considering the people who will be viewing this work. Most of the people who will see this mural installed will have very urban sensibilities and will likely enjoy very contemporary spaces.

Tropicals can add a beauty and a sense of feung shui to a space that brings feelings of relaxation, happiness, peacefulness and growth.

The image below shows how my first background color mix without palm fronds.

By jennyfloravita
Published: October 2, 2011
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Another Day With A Bit More Progress

Today was an important milestone in the creation of this mural. I’ve completed 95% of the main composition by adding a few more leaf structures and the trunks of two palms. There will be one more palm trunk to the right and that will be created tomorrow.

Then I’ll be ready to paint the sunlit-filled background—a favorite section of this mural. I’m really looking forward to the freedom that the back section offers. I will paint background leaves and vines freehand. The back section will then bring the mural one more step towards completion of the first layer. I am lucky that the paint drys fast in the Indian Summer warmth.

By jennyfloravita
Published: September 17, 2011
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Adding more Birds of Paradise Leaves

The central section of this painting needs more leaves! This is a great time in the process to develop this area further. The leaves act as filler and also create lines of energy and interest in the overall composition. This makes the shapes and direction of the leaves important.

You can compare this image to the image that was taken at the end of the previous day’s work to better see the overall progression. Just a few more leaves have made a big difference.

I choose to draw and paint the direction and flow of the leaves based on where I feel energy is needed in the composition. You have to step back from the painting a lot during this process.

Though I didn’t add a lot of leaves today, you can see that every day that I work on this painting provides necessary progress. It’s important to keep large projects moving and sometimes it’s better to consistently do a little bit at a time than a lot in one day.

If I choose, I could begin to work in the background in the upper half of the painting next.

By jennyfloravita
Published: September 2, 2011
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Adding Red and Yellow Heliconias and Pink Anthuriums

It’s now time to add tropical flowers to the upper tier of the painting. I have begun to block in yellow for two different types of heliconia flowers, seen in the upper right and the upper left. The general colors of the flowers that I will paint today will be yellow, red and pink.

I choose to begin with yellow because it’s a light color and I want to make sure that red doesn’t bleed into the yellow areas for my pendant heliconias that will drop down on the right. I need to keep the yellow pure in these areas. Red is a very strong pigment and adds powerful color with the tiniest of flecks on the brush. I always start these specific flowers with yellow first. I absolutely LOVE pendant heliconias. To me, they are the most exotic flower…wish I could grow them here in my semi-tropical garden in California.

This entire composition comes from flowers that I have photographed either here in my garden of through my travels.

After softly blending the yellow heliconia on the left, I decid to block in colors for the pink anthuriums in the central part of the painting. I’ve taken alizirium crimson, soft mixing white and cadium yellow to create the color variation. You can see from the picture on the right how roughly the colors are blocked. This is my starting base. I’m capturing the hues and tones of the flower in gesture. The next step will be to softly blend the flowers until they look the way that I want them to look.

I’ll then be able to layer a bit of contrast in the form of pure alizirum crimson and add a few highlights with my white.

In the final image, below, you can see the progress for the day. The pink anthuriums are blended and have some depth and add a nice color variation to the scene. They will need to dry before I can layer more color and highlights. I have also painted the red heliconia in the upper left and added the red to my pendant heliconas in the upper right.

In the next set of days, I’ll begin the process of adding more background to this painting. Keep in mind that the flowers are all still in progress and do not yet possess all of their dimension. Painting is illusion and is created thought multiple steps that include backgrounds and layering. This is a rather complex painting. A lot of time has been spent up to this point and a lot more time will go into this piece before it is completed.

By jennyfloravita
Published: September 2, 2011
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Pink Gingers

Here is a pic of what my working palate looks like. I mix my colors freely, utilizing the various tones that naturally combine on the palate as the paint is mixed. Color is very exciting and inspirational to artists. As young as age 15 I can remember being excited to put down the first blocks of color on my watercolor paper. Each new painting represented endless possibilities. Various shades of red in the form of alizarin crimson was usually my starting color of choice. These first brush strokes on white paper were always the most vibrant.

Today my go-to color will be a pale pink made from magenta and soft mixing white. Various shades of pink are laid onto the canvas, loosely, to for the background painting of the pink ginger flowers.

Shapes for the pink ginger leaves are painted. These leaves are important to my composition. They break and divide the vast white space of the canvas to make interesting shapes and lines. Painting is illusion.

I step back frequently to view the overall effects of this budding composition. This helps to ensure that my flowers and leaves are in proportion to one another. It’s important to make sure that your colors are also balanced.

The next step will be to begin filling the background color for the leaves. The pink ginger leaves will have a slightly different base of color from the bird of paradise leaves. I want these leaves to be a little more on the yellow side, I want them to be a little brighter in color and their veins will be smaller. These leaves will also be a little thinner.

I want to capture the movement and essence of each leaf. To do this, I vary the intensity of greens and yellows. I’ve also begun to blend the blocks of colors softly. This gives the leaves the right effect to make the leaves convincing.

The pink ginger flowers look flat at this point. I’m working a rather large section of this canvas all at once so I’m not yet adding detail to the flowers. This will come later, when this first base of paint is dry. I will then be able to layer colors of greater intensity to help create the illusion of depth in the flowers. Bright highlights will be the final touches.

What I can do at this point, after all of my pink ginger leaves have been painted, is add the veins that help to bring character to the leaves. You can see detail in the central leaves in the photo to the right.

My leaf detailing process usually begins while my leaves are still wet. My brush grabs contrasting colors from my palate, usually pure color of my sap green, and then my brush freely adds the line, capturing the gesture of the leaf. All of these tropical leaves that are featured in this scene have similarities. The differences lie within the colors and the detailing. It’s these differences that make a leaf look like it belongs to a pink ginger as opposed to a red heliconia or a bird of paradise.

The pink ginger leaves must appear lighter and more delicate next to the tougher, broader leaves of the birds of paradise. In the future I will return to these leaves and add extreme highlights, shadows and burn spots in the form of orange and brown sections that have been burn by the sun.  These marks will add a lovely dimension to the leaves of this section.

It’s important for me to finish painting this section of leaves so that this part of the painting dries at the same rate. At a glance, I’ve completed a big section of this painting. I’m off to a good start and will be well ahead of my completion deadline if I continue to work steadily through the next couple of weeks. You can see from this photo that I finished adding veins to the pink ginger leaves and I also went back in and layered transparent magenta to the ginger flowers go give them a boost in depth. These flowers and leaves will still receive detailing (described above) once this section is dry.

By jennyfloravita
Published: September 1, 2011
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