Bee and Flowers in the Window with Red Drapes

Bee in the Window with Red Drapes

Oil/Beeswax

20 x 24

Judy Vars

350.00

Come and take a sentimental journey with me do you remember as a child staring out your grandmothers window? Fresh flowers placed in the open window sill bringing a touch of nature inside her small but cozy home. What is about doors and windows that is so endlessly delightful? If the eyes are the window to the soul then and the home and hearth represents our soul then it stands to reason why these kinds of paintings are so heart warming. 

This was painted with oil and to make the window trim look even more rustic and dimensional I used encaustic beeswax, to put the whipped cream and cherry on the top I found this old shabby chick frame. I hope this window painting warms your heart and brings you joy.

Encaustic Wax Art

Encaustic is a Greek word translated means “to burn in” natural pigments are made from pure organic beeswax, mixed with dammar resin and fixed with heat. The exact formula was lost until a modern chemist reinvented it in the 1940’s.

The earliest surviving examples are the Fayum mummy portraits (300 B.C. to 100 A.D.), discovered near Alexandria, Egypt where embalming was big business and lengthy process taking 70 days, the head and shoulder portraits of the individual was painted onto wood panels for the mummy casing - an early Greek version of the funeral makeup artist. 

On a recent trip to Southern California we visited the J. Paul Getty Museum; this marvelous museum contained a room devoted to Fayum portraits and other fascinating funerary from Roman and Egyptian culture. Alone in this room I felt a visceral connection to the long dead people and the artists who faithfully tried to create a likeness of the person, it was a rare glimpse into the faces and eyes of an ancient civilization

The earliest icons were painted with encaustic wax.

Encaustic painting fell into obscurity by the seventh century and was forgotten with the invention of more practical methods such as oil and tempura. Electricity and pre-made pigments have made encaustic more available to everyone. Now in the 21^st century encaustic is back in a big way!

The qualities of the artwork that can be achieved with encaustics are unique. The beeswax is pure and organic, perfect for artists concerned with the Green Revolution. The methods are more like alchemy and magic than painting. It can be layered with translucent pigments to mysteriously reveal what lies partially hidden, carved back to reveal what is beneath. The depth and luminosity that can be achieved is remarkable.  Modern artists have taken the wax to amazing places. It also appeals to artists who want to carve, sculpt or collage. 

As encaustic goes main-stream, art collectors and galleries are becoming more interested in the medium. Encaustic art is losing some of its novelty - which is good. Collectors will not shy away from this medium as more people hear about it and understand its unique qualities which include durability and permanence.

My mission is to spread the “cult of the wax” so, fired up with enthusiasm!  I will be teaching a 1 ½ day workshop Artist Technique, Experimentation and Enlightenment in Encaustic paints at the Machetanz Art Festival at Mat-Su College June 3^rd and 4^th … Bring your ephemera, sacred objects, photographs  and I’ll bring mine, together we’ll create some art, imagination and willingness are all that is required.

http://judyvars.com/

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Studio: (907) 355-2219

Marilyn Monroe RIP

Marilyn

Acrylic/Oil

16x20

400.00
Judy Vars

Marilyn Monroe

June 1st - August 5, 1962

The iconic Marilyn Monroe has fascinated my psyche since I was a little girl. As a budding teenager 

I watched her perform her song "Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend" on my parents black and white TV the excitement she created kept me awake! I imagined myself like her a beautiful blonde sex goddess. Fifty four years after her passing she is still alive in our hearts and imagination. 

Enduring fame is the definition of immortality!

Just like Vincent Van Gogh who painted prolifically for just a decade, she was an actress for only 10 years. On June 1st of this year she will have turned 90.  If only we could have watched her grow old beautifully.

I queried my friends of FaceBook to see what they would name this painting, here are some of their responses; Resurrection, Addiction, Beautiful, Marilyn Macabre, PhenoBarbie, I Am What I Am, Nearly Dawn Getting Ready For the day, Indulgent Woman, She Lives, True Identity, Fleeting Beauty, Beauty is Transient, Beauty is only Skin Deep, Eye See You, Sweet Reality, Life and Death, My Fair Lady, Equalizer, Pamela, Scary Date, Wife of Trump, Beauty Inside and Out and Skin Deep. Veeeeery interesting this proves that people are different and everyone sees art differently Marilyn cannot be labeled.

Happiness is not anything I ever took for granted.

If I am going to be a symbol of something I'd rather it be sex. 

Marilyn Monroe

My Fetish Doll

Look at my fetish doll - it's mine all mine - not everything is for sale . Driftwood gathered from the beach at Golovin, Alaska, Raven feathers, Seagull feathers, seabird beak, cracked seagull egg, old spoon and beeswax to hold it all together. 

“According to doll making legend, the original work for doll was “idol” We have just lopped off the “I.”
When we make dolls we are invoking God like powers. Doll making is a very powerful form of magic.
Because we are working directly with the human figure in a form that appeals to our child self, we are talking directly to our creative consciousness, which in turn speaks directly to our Higher Self.

“Doll making is a very potent form of magic. Therefore, dolls are extremely potent tools for manifestation. (It is no accident that dolls are used in Voodoo.)” But if dolls can be—and have been—used negatively, they can also be used positively, and that is what I did here.”

 

Why is it that dexterity, knowledge of art, and taste do not necessarily add up to what we seek in art?
Peter London

HAPPY DECEMBER! From My Cabin To Yours

Happy November

Pumpkin Head Snowman with Raven

OIL

Judy Vars

125.00

It's that time of year Halloween is over and the big Feast Day Thanksgiving is just 21 days away and then Christmas.
I created this piece today in the spirit of the season with my paint buddies at Grannie Frannies Painting loft. First I painted a crazy colorful abstract in acrylics and when it was dry I painted this cute pumpkin head snowman with a sweet raven sitting on his stick arm, it's too cute. This underpainting created a lively effect of color peeking from underneath it literally sings and dances.
In fact it was sooo much fun making this one that I am going to create more Christmas joy this season.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Snowman-with-Pumpkin-Head-and-Raven-Snow-Scene-for-Halloween-or-Christmas-/191731937321?http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/191731937321?

Geneva's House with Ghosts of the Past

Geneva's House with Ghosts

by 

Judy Vars

Private Collection

The other day something my grandmother Geneva had written turned up, it was written a long time ago in the perfect script of a school teacher using the indelible led pencil and her words were fading fast and the paper it was written on deteriorating. Well admittedly I have frequent contact with the other side through impressions, coincidences, funny happenstances so this I could not ignore. My grandmother was asking me to transcribe this before it's gone. The following is what she wrote long ago.

     My Grandfather Wesley Rose and his wife Maria Gates Rose accepted the gospel in Canada moved to Kirtland where the saints were gathered. They assisted in the building of the Kirtland Temple. They moved with the saints to Nauvoo helped building the city and Temple at Nauvoo. They were in the company of the prophet Joseph Smith on many occasions. Grandmas brother Henry Gates was set apart by the prophet Joseph Smith to teach singing and dancing in church socials. The Gates were great singers as was grandmother and a number of her family. 

    When the saints were driven from Nauvoo they took a few of their belongings and crossed the Missouri River on the ice late in the fall of 1847 on the Iowa side of the river they made a dugout in the bank of the river and spent the winter there. My father Hyrum Rose was born December 26 1847 in the dug out and early in the spring of 1848 they loaded up the things they had left in a handcart and with their two small children started on a thousand mile journey to Salt Lake to join the saints once more, arriving in the late summer of 1848.  They lived in Salt Lake for a few years and South to Cottonwood and later moved to North Ogden. My grandparents and father underwent the hardships of the early settlers of Utah and there were many at this place where my grandparents spent the remainder of their lives.
     My father Hyrum Rose spent his boyhood days in North Ogden at his place a few family had gathered and built a small fort to protect themselves from the indians. The young men would stand on guard the fort watching the Indians when they saw them coming they told the people inside the fort. this was the duty of my father as a young man. When he was about 20 years old he was called to cross the plains with an ox team and bring emigrants to Salt Lake City. It was late in the Fall when he returned. They had to travel in snow from Laramie Wyoming to Salt Lake City.
     My father Hyrum Rose married Martha Ellen Shaw of North Ogden in the Old Endowment House in Salt Lake City with Elder Daniel H Wells officiating. My mother Martha Ellen Shaw was the daughter of Elijah Shaw and Martha Ann Thomas Shaw. She was born in Salt Lake city August 25th 1852 her parents were converts to the church from Tennessee they also underwent the hardships of the early settlers of Utah When Johnsons Army came to Utah mother as a small girl helped drive the sheep and pigs when the saints moved South. After their marriage they lived in North Ogden until the spring of 1880 when they moved to Weston Idaho to start pioneering again.
     They settled on a lot in the northeast part of town across from the public square where Albert Jensen now lives. Here my father planted the first shade trees ever planted in Weston. He engaged in farming cutting his grain with a cradle he went on the hills and prairies south of town and cut grass with the scythe to feed the cattle during the winter months. He helped make the irrigation ditches in the South and East fields where he owned land. later he took up a farm in the Southeast part of town on the hill south of the Weston Mill. This place was covered with heavy sage brush he cleared the brush built a house and went6 thirty six miles to get more trees to plant and also lilac bushes which were planted. Now the oldest row of lilac bushes in the state of Idaho the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers put up a marker in 1941. At this place my mother and father lived until their death. They took part in the religious and civic activities in Weston all their lives. Nine children were born to them five girls and four boys at the time of this writing five are living.
     My father took part in all social events of the town he always called for all the square dances in Weston and surrounding towns. He was a good dancer as he was taught in his early life by his mother.
     Father and mother always raised a good garden. He took vegetables to Pocatello, Idaho to sell going in horse and buggy. He had a fruit orchard in Weston he was a strict tither paying his tenth in hay, grain, and produce. He broke his knee cap working on a threshing machine in Dayton which left him crippled. I remember him using a cane with the head of
Grover Cleveland and when he worked at night he took a lighted lantern. He took an active part in the seventy quorum. I remember.........................................
 

Little Gothic Girl

Gothic Girl

Oil

20 x 17

ORIGINAL NFS

Oh the joys of Grandmotherhood. Nicole my eldest daughter and I dressed up Rhaya my granddaughter for a photo shoot just so we could have some fun and so I could paint her. She being hyper kinetic and more of a sporty girl than a make-up girl cannot sit still for even 2 minutes so she indulged our urge to play dress up on her. We got quite a few poses for future paintings. Rhaya is my pride and joy; bi-lingual, smart, healthy, good esteem, "her future is so bright she's got to wear shades" I seem to have caught her impish essence.
I guess the Alaska State Fair judges thought so to because this won the big prize!!The Grand Champion. WOOT WOOT (that's me tooting my own horn).

15 Limited edition artist galley wrapped canvas giclee prints (artist enhanced): 20 x 17  $265.00

15 limited edition giclee prints of fine paper  20 x 17 $130.00





                                           
Small prints: 8.5 x 5.5  $15.00

Please contact me if interested: 907.355.2219

Liquid Sunshine

Liquid Sunshine

54 X 60

3240.00

Original Oil

Judy Vars

 I've had this intimidating gigantic blank canvas on my wall for several years taunting me to paint something upon it. Ideas for a large scale painting came and went. I wanted to paint a big deep space nebula but this would have been my first one. Then came abstract painting ideas; I am not comfortable with abstracts so I watched tons of demonstrations on YouTube. Next I thought just make it easy with Rothko like painting: paint a red field with a yellow square in the middle (too easy I thought). How about a group of people engaged in some kind of activity, no, that would be way too hard. All this over thinking was getting in the way of just doing. So one sunny Sunday day I set up the canvas on the deck, squeezed out gobs of paint, and just went for it painting happy clouds.  Right then Bob Ross did a fly by and whispered in my ear: “paint some Happy Trees.”  I said to myself “yeah trees, all kinds of trees,” I don’t care if my trees live together in nature because this is my world, and I can do as I like.  So I painted trees: ornamental trees, Poplar trees, Aspen trees, Oak trees, Rain Forest Trees, pine trees and more.  As I was painting, the clouds started to gray and become heavy and then there was a deluge of rain and hail, so I painted that too.

This painting did not come without frustration, bugs, and things blowing in the wind that kept sticking to it, and I had to haul in and out of the house when it rained.

The joys of painting for me is the meditative contemplative act of doing it, things roll through my mind, like how beautiful the world is how the cycles of sunshine, clouds, and rain nourish us and I contemplate the nature of trees, which I love, I’m a tree hugger! I imagine trees as people should co-existing side by side in harmony and love.

Now after weeks of joy and frustration I have given birth to this masterpiece Liquid Sunshine and it is now ready to go out into the world find a home.  It would make an impressive statement piece for your home or office. Please call me with any questions you may have. 

Raven Quadriptych

Raven Quadriptych 

Encaustic Beeswax

15 x 15

Judy Vars

$299.00

My Rant or is Facebook the Definition of Addiction?

After this week ends drama with Facebook I am ready to pick up my crayons and leave the playhouse. When one friend who likes to say fuck lightheartedly posts an article about people who use the word "FUCK" are Hotter and Healthier. Another Facebook friend who has strong opinions about the word fuck and the people who uses "said" word posts a confrontational judgmental generalization of people who use the word fuck in comments. This started a tit for tat that got ridiculous. I was reading this banter saying WTF!@#

I stand up for the person who was rudely insulted for basically a joke and support the other person’s right to their opinion and their constitutional freedom of speech. In the end they are mature adults and worked it out themselves.

My granddaughter Rhaya TEXT Messaged me: What’s up grandma? I reply: Drama on Facebook. She replies: LOL Grandma you're addicted to Facebook!

Out of the mouth of babes! Yes Facebook tickles my need to connect, click and get instant satisfaction. I get annoyed with the right wingers Hillary and Obama bashing,  giggle at the cute kitties, love to see funny stuff, hate to see hateful stuff, shutter at the gross stuff.  I enjoy looking at your life events; your vacations, new born baby, fun events and I also see your personal struggles even death sometimes the sadness and grief is too much for me to bear it breaks my heart a little more, still I look.

I endeavor to respect everyone's right to be who they are unique individuals with their own point of view and life experiences.I pride myself on my diverse menagerie of friends from all over the world, liberals, conservatives, Communists, Mormons, Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Pagans, Born Again, New Age, Buddhist, young, old, artists and missfits you are all my friends.

Don't misunderstand me I love me some Facebook.  
But there is such thing as too much sharing? I know I am guilty of this!  
I share my new mani-pedi, post my fancy Yuppie meal, share the ugly photos of my stitches, make vague comments to get people to engage with me, take a proud selfie of me on my new lawnmower, post some clever thing I am thinking the moment like "Some People Just Need to Lighten Up", or do my favorite thing scroll, LIKE and comment on all your posts until my pointer finger hurts.

I’m not sure if this post is going anywhere or who has the patience to read it.

I was just thinking about how many extra layers of skin I have had to grow over the years to be able to just deal with life on lifes terms and at the same time deal with my traits to be open minded, compassionate and empathic. I need some balance FRIENDS so it might be a good time to take a little break from Facebook and get back to my family, my blog and creating art. Hey if you see me lurking about on Facebook feel free to call me out or give me a call me my phone number is easy find.

One cute saying going around  Facebook:

 "NOT MY MONKEYS  NOT MY CIRCUS".
by
Judy Vars

That’s all I have to say for now but here is a picture of a cute baby turtle just because.

Northern Lights Tryptich

Winter Trees Abstraction #2

Winter Trees Abstraction #2

Mixed Media

20x16  (with 3" painted top and sides)

320.00

What a strange winter in the Northlands, one day it's -0 and the next day it feels more like Spring there has been very little snow, the nights are long. This tranquil yet moody painting reminds us of our long winter night we enjoy in Alaska. Winter is a time to hunker down and read a good book by the fire.

When the midnight sun returns and one is too hyped up to sleep the long days brings its own kind of madness.

Winter Trees Abstraction
Oil
24x24x1
650.00
Judy Vars

Last nights full moon has inspired me with a sense of wonder, awe and gratitude because I live in Alaska one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

This moody abstract painting reflects the winter blues in Alaska also known as Cabin Fever.  Cabin Fever is not necessarily a bad thing, when the days are short and the temperature is below zero it allows time to reflect into a blazing fire, make mulligatawny, bake bread and catch up on the works of Shakespeare.

Who am I kidding, what I really enjoy is some good Netflix binge watching; Breaking Bad, Orange is the New Black, Sons of Anarchy and my Dead Files and for a lighter fare Downton Abbey. But before I settle in for a long winter's night and while the sun is still bright, I shall take one of the dogs to get the mail and give myself a little vitamin D which keeps SAD Seasonal Affect Disorder at bay. 

But not to despair come June old Sol will be up all night which brings about it's own kind of madness. 

Postage and handling professionally done and is included in this price. If you have any questions please call me @ (907) 355-2219

Butterflies and Elk Mount Vanitas - Memento Mori

Butterflies and Elk Mount Vanitas

20" X 16" X 2"

Oil

Judy Vars

420.00

The pretty butterflies with their ethereal nature float upon the air and seem to enjoy their happiness; they fly about on their gossamer wings dancing around the once proud elk. They both remind us of the paradoxes in life and death and give us a vision of some of mother earths delights.

This is my latest in a series of memento mori paintings (translated to remember that you will die) or vanitas paintings. Vanitas art explores the age old theme of resurrection, transience and transcendence.  Up until recent history death was seen as a motivator to live a good and meaningful life. To help men remember artists created paintings depicting skulls, and other symbols of death. The skulls and skeletons on some grave markers remind the visiting family members to get right with God before they bit the dust.  So quit wasting your time on stupid stuff and start living your life the way you want today.

We acquired this European elk mount at an auction held to raise money for dying friend’s medical expenses.  My husband the carver is going to carve Celtic patterns onto the skull but in the mean time it resides in the corner of my studio, the only problem with this is it is as big as a lazy boy! The antlers have poked me while trying to find a book or get my supplies.  So needless to say I was cussing the elk daily, after spending some time painting this once proud creature we are on better terms.

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty."  Maya Angelou

"If we catch a glimpse of freedom, we wish to possess it; if we catch a glimpse of death, we want nothing to do with it." One we cannot have, the other we cannot avoid.  Jeremy P. Johnson

A Modern Fayum Portrait

Encaustic Beeswax

20 x 24

720.00

Around the time Cleopatra committed suicide with the asp 100 B.C. to 300 A.D. in the fertile Nile Delta region of Egypt lived a cosmopolitan blend of Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Africans and Europeans. In the practice of the day they built huge necropolis and practiced some of the same spiritual beliefs and used similar funerary practices of the Egyptians. Evidence shows preparing for the afterlife was a huge industry with embalmers, craftsmen, stone masons, mummy wrappers and artisans.

Grave robbers were the first to find the mysterious Fayum portraits thousands were carelessly burned and tossed aside because it was the dried mummy the grave robbers wanted for poultices and potions. Later early archeologists discovered the huge cemetery complexes and with a little more care and skill saved some of these portraits (estimated only about 1,000 in existence today). Some of these portraits were simple and crude and others were rendered with such skill it would have been painted by Leonardo or another such modern day master.

These portraits over 2,000 years old give us a window in which we can look upon the face of an ancient ancestor. The eyes were usually exaggerated to emphasize the spiritual and as a window to the soul. These paints are made more alive because they were rendered in beeswax and attached a human person. Some were painted while the person was still alive and kept in the home in a simple Oxford frame (like this one) until the persons death. In some cases it was a practice to keep the embalmed loved one around for years afterward and dance them out for festivities when later generations didn't care about Uncle Flavius they tossed him carelessly into a grave with others like him.  The artists whose stock and trade was to paint these never signed their name because it was not about the art or the artist it's about the afterworld, the artist hand meticulously tried to depict the likeness and nature of the departed loved one.  I assume also they did not expect them to be dug up someday and placed in hermetically sealed Plexiglas boxes so we could come to museums and stare back at these humans that lived in the time that Jesus walked the earth and performed miracles.  

Halloween Vanitas Painting with Black Bird and Butterfly

Halloween Vanitas Painting with Black Bird and Butterfly

Oil

16 x 20

350.00

A vanitas painting flourished in the Netherlands around 1612-1656. These paintings contain an elaborate pictorial message, which contain moral undertones, such as relinquish earthly pleasures and pursue a meaningful spiritual life. Usually contained in a vanitas painting are skulls, books, clocks, shells, candles and other symbolism, the meaning obviously the impermanence of life, flowers and fruit in a state of dying or decay.

Although vanitas paintings have gone out of style, perhaps because in this modern fast moving world people do not want to be reminded of their mortality.
As an artist I believe it is my obligation, my mission if you will, to ask you to stop for a moment and reflect on the everyday treasures and understand that life is transient, like the butterfly we are born from a supreme struggle and emerge our cocoon live for a beautiful moment and then return to the earth.” Whether or not we join the procession or just let it happen, “life keeps on lifeing” and there is no cheating death. So enjoy the life we have and remember to be kind to all creatures great and small.

The Willow Witch with Grandpa aka Zeus

The Willow Witch and Grandpa

Oil

16 x 20

Judy Vars

$350.00

Rhonda also known as the Willow Witch is sitting pretty sipping absinthe with her familiar and faithful dog “Grandpa.”  The Willow Witch offers intuitive readings and will use her powers of perception and piercing eyes to council you and help guide you down a positive path.

From potent potions, herbs, incense, candles, crystals and oils, stop in and shop with Rhonda for all your witchy needs.

The Willow Witch also offers beautiful Tarot decks, jewelry, staffs, clothes, brooms, the original artwork of local artisans and other beautiful curiosities. For your prurient interests you will be more than satisfied - guaranteed.
62835 South Parks Hwy, Willow, Alaska
mile marker 85.5

8 x 10 Prints
$80.00

Cards
$5.00 Each

Costa Rican Girl With Fruit Basket

Costa Rican Girl With Fruit Basket

20 X 20

Encaustic Beeswax

by

Judy Vars and Gabriela Catarinella

600.00

This painting is a result of a happy happenstance.  We went to the Talentum Art Gallery to meet my bohemian friend Martha Sanchez.  Outside the gallery we noticed chairs placed on the wall in a colorful cavorting way, then we go inside this place is twaneese, twaneese, too nice, too nice. Talentum is located in the historic French district of San Jose, in an old mansion.  Peter and I looked at all the great art upstairs and downstaris and then sat down for some coffee and pie. Gilda (pronounced Hilda) runs the show and makes pies out of tropical fruit we've never tasted anything so deliciouso.  Sebastian the Chef/Artist is divine.  Martha  shows her art here and introduced me to a brilliant woman Gabrela Catarinella, besides being an artist, speaks multiple languages, she is a microbiologist, and the director of this beautiful gallery and bistro.

When she found out I was an encaustic artist she became very interested and asked me to teach her the process. She had already purchased some wax sheets and turpentine, I sent her after a heat gun and some natural bristle brushes. She bought us a gourmet lunch and after closing all of us went to the kitchen downstairs. I demonstrated encaustic painting and Gabriela took over together we painted wax all over her beautiful landscape. We had a blast!

Afterword Gabriela offered to pay me, ridiculous! I said, so she gave me her oil painting of a child and told me to put encaustic wax on top of it.  Well I was so humbled and grateful to be allowed to paint on another’s painting, I hope she approves.  We did not have all the equipment that we needed but it was just enough to get the idea and get her hooked on encaustic painting.  This slide show is for Gabriela.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qOJ4cxlZQw

Winter Morning Birch Trees



Winter Morning Birch Trees

Judy Vars

Original Oil and Cold Wax Painting

60 x 54

4,500.00



As a long time Alaskan, I've noticed that were all obsessed with the sun and with most in the winter there is not enough sunshine to keep my mood up and in the summer there is too much sun, it shines way, way, way  past sleeptime keeping me awake and hyper all night long. Today in January the days have started to get a little longer currently the hours of daylight are a full seven hours and 30 minutes.

This time of year the slanted angle of the sun and the far Northern latitude make for the most spectacular sunrises and sunsets that I have ever witnessed. Sometimes the light is pure lavender in the sky and on the mountains, sometimes the sky in powder blue, sometimes it’s lit up like a campfire, and sometimes it’s every shade of pink God makes. Since I’ve lived here I have seen sundogs, ice halos around the sun and the moon, phantom lights that I can’t explain and northern lights. One thing for sure it’s never ho-hum .

As an artist and nature lover, I have contemplated the sunlight and the atmosphere for decades, and as an artist I have the hubris to attempt to duplicate what I see in nature through my art.

Winter Sunrise and Birch Trees has been a labor of love. At the beginning I applied the Fibonacci sequence and the golden mean to make a pleasing composition (this left brained activity made my head hurt) This painting was developed in stages some areas have up to 10 layers of paint. To pump up the paint and give the birch trees added texture and dimension I used cold wax medium, the effect is one of hyper reality. The kind of experience we Alaskans wish the rest of the world could experience. 



Treat yourself to some serenity take this morning sunrise birch tree painting home today.