Monday, May 10, 2010

Dominque's RainForest - Texas Wildflowers

Dominique Eichi's sketchbook theme for The Flying Moleskins project is forests, back roads, and stuff like that. Dominique first made contact with me while I was living in Costa Rica, and before I had a blogspot. So I chose to depict a Costa Rican rain forest. Actually, it's just so neat to paint the colorful wildlife.

7 x 22 Acrylic (Click to Enlarge)

When I posted this on The Flying Moleskins site, I later notieed I had forgotten to give the toucan feet or the butterflies antennae. The above images have the little critters with all parts attached.
I loved living in Costa Rica, and spent a lot of time in the rainforest there, and in Panama. I studied the wildlife and was very for
tunate to actually encounter much of what I have depicted. I've had howler monkeys throw seed pods at me (which I threw back at em), I've kissed a hummingbird....actually, I was showing some friends a trick I learned,,,I put a hibiscus flower in my mouth and within a couple of minutes, a little rufous hummingbird came to visit. I could feel the wind from his wings on my nose. I collected a handful of the little red and blue "blue jeans" poison dart frogs.,,they're of the lesser potency, but can stll be an irritant to sensitive skin. I've held scarlet macaws, baby toucans, and had my loyal 5 foot iguana, Darwin, frequently perch on my shoulder. And I've been awoken in the middle of the night by visiting Mexican free-tail bats and, once, by a six foot boa constrictor. I've held an 8 inch Blue Morph butterfly and watched a glass butterfly emerge from its chrysalis. And more. So I thought I'd share a bit of the memories with Dominique.
I received another commission...this time, a small (5x7) painting of Texas wildflowers. So I did this one, below, which is similar to another I had done some months back, except I gave more attention to realistic detail and used a toothbrush spackled background (which I really like).


And lastly... I have a friend out in West Texas who says they developed two new breeds of chickens. One, a 3-legged variety to meet the growing demand for drumsticks. However, they don't know how it tastes because they haven't been able to catch one. And two, a super smart chicken, and he sent a photo to prove it... below. Hm-m-m.


6 comments:

  1. Beautiful work on Dominique's book, James! It is so colorful and happy! It so great how your experiences in Costa Rica has shaped your art.

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  2. I love the piece for Dominique!! It's beautiful and so rich in colors!! Hope you're doing well!!

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  3. Fabulous memories you've shared, James, and the most exquisite photos. What a life experience! The painting for Dominique's moleskine is gorgeous.

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  4. I LOVE the wildflower painting. And, the Flying Moleskins painting is fabulous. I'm sure she'll really like it. All your journals are unique.

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  5. Love the jungle painting! Plenty of great color.

    Great flower painting. I'm with you in liking the speckled background.

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  6. James Parker uses all type of mediums: Pin and ink, liquid watercolors, acrylics, and the mixing of mediums are used for these works. His work is a mix between reality and fantasy which I am a big fan of. The way he depicts light in a playful, colorful way makes his work look more fantasy like . He pays attention to such little detail since his work is mostly 11in. by 17in. It’s amazing how detailed some of his landscapes are on such a small canvas. These small paintings are just the right size to be colorful and give enough impact to the viewer. His inspiration has to be from living in Costa Rica and or Florida, because he uses a lot of bold colorful colors. I love his painting of “Texas Wildflowers”; I love the simplicity of it. The flowers are painted in gallant colors and the background textured with speckles of color that was used in the flowers.

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