Thursday, April 3, 2008

Coconuts palms in pastels

Coconut Infancy
12 x 9 soft pastels on Art Spectrum Colourfix
Miki Willa
If you are an artist in Hawaii, it seems you must do a coconut palm. The first juried show I entered here, the top prize went to a close-up of maturing coconuts in the crown of the tree. I was a bit confused because I had seen that image in so many other galleries by so many artists. I vowed I would never do one because I wanted to be different. How quickly our words can come back to bite us when we see something so cool to paint.
These are very immature coconuts, still very green. I had so much fun painting this. I chose not to be specific about each palm frond, but to indicate palm frondness. I guess I am now a real Hawaiian artist. I think I may keep this one for those cold winter days in the Pacific Northwest (Washington).

3 comments:

virtual nexus said...

Lovely - your post made me smile; especially about our words coming back to bite us! I thought you had achieved a real sense of movement in the waterfall - and interesting what you said about the 'realist voice'.

- I have changed over to virtual nexus as my main place to post at the moment - though there is a history post on voyage, and I have some photos of Italian statues to go up.

virtual nexus said...

Miki - so sorry to hear your news, - can imagine how you feel. Every best wish in the coming days.

Tom Willa said...

You created a lovely pond frondness. The base of the tree is a bold color. I like how you incorporated the many aspect of the palm tree into your painting.
Have a good week. I am looking forward to seeing more of your paintings