Aztec Inspired

I like to work kind of by "themes" or a certain style/topic for a while. I like to switch up materials & topics &  once I've exhausted an idea I start a new one.

I bought this "Mexican Folk Art" book by Marty Noble because I liked the patterns it had inside. They're kind of Aztec, geometric patters. I started coming up with my own patterns. I realized they could be arranged so that they were symmetrical. In the book they also incorporated a lot of animals so I decided that I was going to make the patterns point towards the animals.

The first piece I mapped out was this hummingbird piece. I LOVE hummingbirds so I definitely wanted to incorporate them. Hummingbirds were know as the "sun warriors",  so I added a sun in the middle & vines to make it very nature like.

The Black Widow piece was inspired by my sister, she's a Halloween/Frankenstein/Dracula kind of chick.  I knew I wanted this piece to be big so I drew very big Widows. For some reason I think spiders & roses go together & in the book they had lots of flowers so I did those. I had bought these metallic watercolors & I used them in this piece because of that shimmer spider webs have.

The Monarch Butterflies were very last minute. I had an art show that day & I needed to turn in the pieces at a certain time all the way in L.A. I really couldn't think about what to do for a third piece & I was exhausted but then it came to me. First I drew a butterfly to see if I could replicate it, it came out perfect. Then I decided to place them on the edge of the paper since I had worked towards the middle in my other pieces. I really didn't have time to make complicated patterns in the background because I knew most of my time would be taken up painting the butterflies. The result I feel has more of an Asian feel but it's still one of my favorite pieces.