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| Poinsettia Tree by April M. Rimpo |
The inspiration for Poinsettia Tree started during a trip to Guatemala where the Poinsettia was a tree with blooms
larger than I had ever seen towering way above my head. I took several photographs trying to capture
their magnificence just to discover that the photographs did not come
close. I felt I needed to paint them as
they were in my minds eye to make them come to life.
I decided I wanted to capture the size of the tree by
working in a much larger format than I normally paint, the image size is 40” X 37”, which meant starting from a roll of elephant size Arches Hot
Press. I selected Hot Press since I
wanted to create an organic feel in the background by using an acrylic “batik”
approach I had learned from Nicholas Simmons, applying sections of paint and
then washing it off before it was fully dry.
This approach creates interesting edges and irregular patches of
color. However, instead of letting the batik dry before applying more paint I immediately applied several other acrylic colors to allow them to blend on the very wet paper. Phthalo Blue and Dioxazine Purple were used in shadow areas of the foliage while Green Gold and other warmer greens were used in the green areas in the sun. I had applied a film mask over the flowers before I started to paint so the petals were protected from the flowing acrylic paint allowing me to work the background and leaves loosely. Since I feel watercolor is slightly more transparent than fluid acrylic I used watercolor to paint the blossoms of the poinsettia.
Recently I had limited edition archival prints made of this painting. A maximum of 50 prints will be created in each size and substrate listed below.
Interested in a print, contact April.
To see other paintings where I used a combination of fluid acrylic and watercolor look here.
Copyright April M Rimpo All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.
Recently I had limited edition archival prints made of this painting. A maximum of 50 prints will be created in each size and substrate listed below.
Poinsettia Tree
40" x 37" image
48" x 45" bronze tone frame
$2590
Interested in a print, contact April.
To see other paintings where I used a combination of fluid acrylic and watercolor look here.
Copyright April M Rimpo All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.
Wow! I love the acrylic batik technique you did! You definitely achieved a very organic, 'alive' look to the piece. And I admire you so much for embracing the elephant size paper! I'm laughing to myself, because, to me, 16 x 20 is elephant size... I can't imagine 40 x 37. Finally, I'm so intrigued by the fact that poinsettias can grow on trees! It must be beautiful to stand beneath a whole tree that looks like your beautiful painting!
ReplyDeleteIn some ways the large paper is liberating, although very scary at first. The poinsettias are growing on the trees, they are the trees. Incredibly huge plants.
DeleteOK so I just noticed I wrote this wrong. I meant to say the poinsettias are NOT growing on the trees, but art the trees.
Delete