Last year I wanted to paint some white azaleas, but I didn't have any growing in our yard and I wasn't brave enough to go around the neighborhood asking for some. 

This year Spring had a little surprise for me. Out of nowhere I found a small white azalea plant in our back yard, it had about a dozen blooms...oh I was happy.  

I cut almost all of them, picked a few purple ones from our neighbor, Ellen's yard and got to work. It took a while to finish - this is  the largest still life painting I've completed, but it was so much fun to paint. Here it is:

Another one for some detail:

Thank you for visiting.
MT

Things have been slow in the studio since Ian's birth - not only do I have less time to spend at the easel, but I've also been putting more work into each painting by adding more layers of paint. 

I've been able to complete two paintings in the last three months, one that should be done soon, and one more that's still early in the process. Below are the two I recently finished:

I will be posting a couple of "in-progress" photos of the painting I'm currently working on in the next couple of days.

Thank you for visiting!
MT 

At the beginning I wanted this painting to be mostly blue with the white hydrangea as the center of interest, with the addition of a little gold here and there for variety. I had the flowers and vases set up but I thought something was missing. I looked at it for a while and then decided to try adding the red cloth behind the hydrangea. As I stepped back to take a look, a song started to play in my head: Lady in Red.

[I think is safe to say that most Nicaraguans know this song, it's played very often on the radio during the "Clasicos de los 80" segments. It's very popular. There is a Spanish version of it too, it's called Linda Mujer (Pretty Woman) and the lyrics are a little different. I think you'll agree that the video is breathtaking.]

Originally, this still life was bathed in a soft light coming from a window on the left, which is the light source in many of my paintings. I wanted a little more drama so I closed the blinds and illuminated the composition with a flash light. I loved the increased drama - and decided it was time to put the paint onto the canvas.

The concept for this painting is very similar to the previous one, only in this one I used a yellow color scheme and a different light source. The red cloth pushed its way into this one as well. 

I really like these paintings, I hope you like them too.  Thanks for visiting!

Hello everyone, I hope you are all enjoying these beautiful days. Everything is so green, the birds are chirping all day and the morning sun  feels so gentle on your skin. It's gardening time!

I really enjoy working outside. I think gardening is very similar to painting.

With gardening you start by building a fence around the area and getting the soil ready. In painting, it begins with the preparation of canvases. Sometimes I will buy canvases from an art supply store, but I prefer making them myself so I have control of the tightness and smoothness of the surface.

The next step in the garden is to plant the seeds: decide what to plant and put them in the ground. In the studio, you start by choosing your subject and arranging each object until you get a composition you like.
 
After that is just a matter of time, things begin to appear in both the garden and on the canvas: little plants with two leaves, colors, more leaves, colors turn to forms, and the plant grows until it produces its fruits and the canvas/garden becomes a new world of lines, shapes and colors.

Once all this done it's time to enjoy, time to share, the vegetables with the neighbors and the art with you all.

Here are my new creations:

...and fresh from the garden, some radishes.
Thanks for visiting!