Geri Hawkins Art

10/01/2024

Happy 100 Birthday President Carter

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10/01/2024

Zinnia, watercolour. Something a bit different for me, a really saturated, red flower. I love zinnias, available in a whole range of hot, hot colours, and I wanted to capture their in-your-face, zingy personality. So I did the whole painting mostly red, including much of the background, where the vermilion and magentas colours suggest nearby flowers. Sometimes you just need to try something different. The complement to all these red, vermilion and magenta colours is the lovely textured center of the zinnia. The light creamy yellow of the baby petals and the greeny-blacks at the base offer a lovely value contrast, and the spiralling gold thingies add energy and a more delicate and graceful kind of movement. This painting was featured in Splash 17, The Best of Watercolor, for many years a very prestigious, annual competition and book. The original painting is available as are Press Prints and giclee prints, check my website for more information, www.marneyward.com.

10/01/2024

10/01/2024

Iridescent Iris, watercolour. This is a super-closeup view of one of my irises. I have another version not quite so close-up, called Iridescent Iris II. I have Press Prints of both of them. I wanted to focus on the "beard" of this Bearded Iris, the brushy filaments that lead the bee into the center of the flower, where it will not only find nectar, but pollinate the flower. The iridescence is that lovely turquoise, which isn't really there in the petal but is an opical "trick", like the flash of red on a hummingbird. Iris is the Greek goddess of the rainbow, and irises are known for the variety of colours they display, as well as that special iridescence. A stong painting for a flower with a very strong personality. It is a full sheet and is available.

09/26/2024

Fall Crocus, watercolour. This is not actually a crocus, its botanical name is Colchicum autumnal, but it is commonly called a Fall Crocus because it blooms in September and it looks rather like a crocus. In this painting I've focused on the contrast between the springlike crocus with its pinky-mauve colours and the dying foliage around it. I took the photo in Abkhazi Gardens in Victoria, BC, Canada, where I live. There is something poignant about this fragile flower poking up amongst the surrounding foliage of early fall, some of which is still green and thriving but much of which is dying. I make use of the upward thrust of the flower and the downward movement of the dying leaf to accentuate this contrast, but also to keep the eye moving around the painting. I like the large, dying, yellowish leaf just as much as I like the delicate, emerging, pinkish flower. Spring and Fall have equal roles in the natural cycle of life.