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Thursday, May 21, 2009

Crop Till You Drop!

This time the challenge was actually the challenge of having time to do a challenge piece so Chris and I decided to take a snippet from a much larger painting and create an image from that. We discovered that both our paintings reminded us of our Grandmothers so this ended up being a tribute to them as well.

A lot of Chris' work comes from memories of her grandmother's things as she explained to me " My grandparents built the house I grew up in -- my parents moved in with my grandfather after my grandmother died -- so there were lots of her things around when I was a young child. She loved her flower gardens and vases and pretty tablecloths. Even though the elements in my painting never belonged to my grandmother, they remind me of her."

I received a lot of positive feedback on the hair in "Xochitl" (pronounced So-Shee-tl which means Queen of Flowers) but I was really more interested in painting the embroidery because not only was it challenging, but it brought me back to days of watching my grandma creating magical flowers with her needles and colorful threads. I could go on and on about Little Shell and all the magic she did, from healing babies to her famous tamales, but I'll save that for future paintings.

"Xochitl" by Me




"Red Anemone" by Chris Beck


4 comments:

Unknown said...

I love how you have been able to portray the embroidery on her clothing - so intricate and colorful. And then there is her skin and hair... so beautifully painted! (Oh - I just read what you said- guess we are on the same page here!) Whatever way you look at it, this is a fabulous watercolor.

Pablo Villicaña Lara said...

Thank you Joanne. I really like the way it came out.

The Lone Beader® said...

I love the red flowers! :)

RH Carpenter said...

Pablo, the way you painted the embroidery, it is so 3D, one can almost reach out and feel the fabric! Beautiful work and great skin and hair on your beautiful model, too.