Tulip Time, Watercolor by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

Happy Spring! It's Tulip Time in Texas. Don't you just love springtime? It's like the earth is bursting forth with blooms and buds everywhere...and the lovely spring green of the trees glistening in the sun absolutely takes your breath away. Not to mention the gorgeous, delicate fushia blooms of the fruit trees and redbuds. Inspiration is all around!

 As an artist it is hard to focus, so much beauty around me. I want to paint it all and share with you, my world as I see it. The baby lambs, calves and llamas in the green pastures...baby chicks, ducks and birds, flowers blooming. Beauty is all around us, we just have to look around and observe it and take the time to be grateful for all that we have.

 I think Claude Monet said it best, "I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers."

"Tulip Time" ©2017 Leada Wood

 

A Passion For Mango Hibiscus by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

The lovely April showers in Texas have made dazzling April and May flowers everywhere! I especially like Hibiscus in pots around the pool to give a tropical effect and they are gorgeous! My friend  Penny sent me this one and I have enjoyed it so much. The lovely mango color and ruffled petals were begging to be painted so I did. I created a 5x7 thank you card for my sweet friend....I just love getting mail, don't you?

"A Passion For Mangos " copyright 2015 Leada Wood.

                 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Happy Easter, by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

Wishing you a blessed day filled with love!

Texas Tulips by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

                                      

                 

                                         Texas Tulips by Leada Wood copyright 2014

With all the whacky weather we have had this year and the long cold winter my tulips did not bloom until mid April.I took photos and have finally gotten around to painting them. I tried a different technique using acrylics paints on canvas. I painted the entire canvas a mid tone pink and then started painting my lights and darks. It was new to me anyway! I really enjoyed painting this way and will continue to play around with it.  Texas Tulips is 5x7 on canvas.

Golden Poppy by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

Day 26 of Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge.

Bet you thought I wasn't going to make it today...to tell you the truth neither did I! Getting tired! Only 4 more days....

Golden Poppy by Leada Wood©2014

 

Vincent's Poppies by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

Vincent's Poppies by Leada Wood©
DO NOT COPY!

I think all artists are drawn to nature and beautiful flowers. Especially sunflowers and poppies...such vivid happy colors they possess. Georgia O’ Keefe and Vincent Van Gogh were my favorite painters of flowers. They both painted Poppies, rich red poppies. I too have always loved to paint poppies...in every hue. I have painted their portraits large like O’Keefe and I have painted them in still lives like Van Gogh, but always in my own style throughout my career.

For the Messin' with the Masters show I decided to paint my own rendition of poppies with Van Gogh as my inspiration. He has inspired so many artists throughout the years. Such a pity he knew no fame and sold only one painting during his brief lifetime. A great artist and a prolific painter, I felt compelled to pay homage to him.

I love Vincent's vibrant red poppy paintings...how happy they make me as i look at them. I hope they brought him great joy painting them. Maybe that is why he did so many paintings...they were his only joy in life.

His letters to his brother Theo were somber and sad. I find comfort thinking that his art brought him great happiness. I know his art has brought pleasure to generations of people who have seen his works.

I too hope that my art brings you pleasure and brightens your day.

The Red Poppies and Butterflies by Van Gogh had an Oriental feeling to me so I decided to use a Chinese newspaper for the calligraphic under layer. Then I started layering Glazes of color to give a golden glow to background yet allowing the calligraphy to remain visible. I used some of my own Poppy photos for the drawing.

 I didn't want to slavishly copy his work but to interpret it with my style. I think I successfully gave it a contemporary look yet paid homage to the master Van Gogh.

This is another one of my paintings for the Messin With The Masters Show. It is 24x30, acrylic on canvas.

Thanks for stopping by!

Princess Alina by Leada Wood ©



Princess Alina by Leada Wood ©

I was laying in bed thinking about what I was going to do for the IA weekly challenge sunflowers and a little story began weaving in my mind.

Princess Alina

In the land of sunshine where sunflowers are plentiful, a little fairy princess dwelled. Her name was Alina (the fair) and she lived in a pasture full of beautiful yellow sunflowers. The warm gentle breeze would make them sway back and forth and they looked as if they were dancing. Princess Alina would sit for hours and watch their cheerful faces glisten in the sunshine. Sometimes she would join them in the dancing and you could hear the wind whispering sweet melodies.  The warm summer air was heavy with their pleasant fragrance and life was good at

Dragonfly  Farm.    ©Leada Wood

So begins my story and the first illustration for my little tale.
I enjoy the weekly challenges at Inspiration Avenue...you never know what they will come up with next and they always spark my imagination!