Big hair bands, booming economy, wallpaper, things that were in, in the 80's. My mom signed me up for a watercolour course after having done some drawing lessons back in 85. Sonya Vernot was the teacher, she got us started by bringing in a vase of flowers, and after that, some other still life items like baskets and fruit. Flower painting would occupy most of my output until 1993 when I started paintings landscapes from photos. This painting was likely done from my imagination, I seemed content to invent as many flowers as I could! Two Yellow Daisies, 9 x 12" watercolour paper, watercolour 1989 (No. 0050)
Here is another one, even more inventive than the last. This is a really far-out flower, with a beaker-like vase. Starting around 1991 I would rely more on source material like flower books and calendars of flower paintings, but at this time it was from imagination. These were done outside of the course. I recently gave names and code numbers to all the old paintings for my catalogue. There were about 15 paintings from 1989, although I may have sold a few back in the day. Purple Space Flower, 9 x 12" watercolour paper, watercolour 1989 (No. 0092)
It was a sign of things to come, during the lessons with Vernot and the group I got bored with the flowers and started looking out the window. I saw the top of a tree, and did this imaginary scene based on the real life tree. In some ways this would be my first landscape painting. Sonya took some time to show me how to properly paint a sky and use wet and wet to make the skyline, there are a few of those practice paintings. Sepia Tree and Hills 9 x 12" watercolour paper, watercolour 1989 (No. 0093)
A few others I already blogged about can be seen in the links here, here, and here.
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