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!