"Making a Difference" just starting out

Starting with the textures (c) April M Rimpo

I was invited to participate in an exhibition to be held at the Columbia Art Center Galleries in coordination with the Howard County Tourism & Promotion’s Blossoms of Hope.  The exhibition is titled Visions of Hope. The goal of this annual event is to help raise awareness about and funds for the Claudia Mayer/Tina Broccolino Cancer Resource Center at Howard County General Hospital.

I thought I'd share the evolution of this painting.  As you can see I started out creating some textures in the background that will help provide some form to the trees and give depth to the Washington Monument.

The stars in this image will be the runners in this walk to fight breast cancer.  Since I don't want them to get lost in the trees I decided to develop them first and then move to the background so I can balance the values to keep them as the stars.

"Shipping Port", 10.25" X 24" watercolor

Shipping Port by April M Rimpo

Shipping Port

watercolor 

10.25" X 24" image

16" X 30" brushed silver frame

$615

AVAILABLE NOW FOR PURCHASE HERE

Maybe I should have named this painting "Three Cheers for the Little Tugboat" but it was the cranes in the shipping port that really attracted me to this landscape.  My husband and I were traveling across Puget Sound on a ferry when this port became visible across the water.  The large structure of the cranes and the rainbow hues of the crates stacked at the port are what  caught my eye.  I had fun using very wet and soft washes of the background hill and down into the crates at the port.  I left the soft background to provide a sense of distance, arial perspective.

I layered washes over that soft pastel area to the right of the cranes to add structure to the crates.  Although the ship was in the foreground I simplified shapes on the ship so the lines and structure of the cranes could be the stars of the painting.

"Icicles", 26.5" X18" fluid acrylic and watercolor.

Icicles by April M Rimpo

Yesterday the Mid-Atlantic region what glazed with ice.  Lots of people shared their photos of beautiful chrystaline scenes.  This storm reminded me of another we had a few years ago that had resulted in my painting, Icicles.

I've loved icicles as a child in New England when they grew from the gutters into long swords. Here in Maryland the icicles create amazing fringe on the plants and trees.  The ice encapsulate berries and seed pods.  Trees bend like they are bowing to Mother Nature.

Creating the delicate pale pastels of the ice while achieving the bold and varied colors of the leave led me to use a combination of watercolor and fluid acrylic.  Combining these two media let me use their strengths to capture this icy scene.

Below are photographs that show a few of the steps along the way.

Icicles

watercolor & acrylic on paper, matted and framed 35.5" x 27"

$1000 shipped within US