watercolor print – Karen Hilliard Art

Just a nine minute drive from Arches National Park can get you to a desert wonderland. Many have trekked out to Moab for its amazing topographical wonders. Mountain Bikers especially love this place for the amazing desert slab sandstone trails. One could ride through beautiful canyons, challenging trails, beginner trails, and more! I personally went to this magical place on a bouldering trip many years ago. The weather was perfect and there were many rocks to explore for climbing purposes. One morning, I was fortunate enough to wake up to a gigantic boulder right outside my camp spot. I immediately saw a whale breaching out of the water. All this before my morning coffee, very surreal.

The rock and morning light created these beautiful blue hues all over the rock which made it look even more like water being splashed around. I pondered what I would have done if I was on a ship and saw a massive whale breach out of the water and jump super high in the air before ascending back into the ocean. There was no answer. I was just left in complete awe and decided to stare at the rock for a long time studying every inch of it. Later in the day I got a nice photograph of the same boulder and decided to paint it later when I was home in my studio. While out in nature I became very inspired by all the colors of the Southwest desert. It is truly a remarkable place to visit and I hope you all get the chance to do so. This Watercolor Fine Art Giclée Print is Available Now on my website. I have Four Sizes Available! Shipping is Included in the price for all USA addresses. I hope this print brings many years of wonder into your homes every time you look at it. Thank you for reading and have a splendid Saturday!

-Karen Hilliard

I am pleased to announce I sold my first print of “Let Your Light Shine” yesterday. I am so happy a print of this painting will be hanging in someone’s home bringing them joy. After painting each original, I take several photographs of the piece. Then, I watermark one of the pictures using the GIMP program, and finally put the image on my website. With each moment of the editing and computer process, I think about my hopes of the painting bringing a smile to someone’s face. I am only able to afford prints of some originals so I have to be selective in the paintings I choose to have printed. “Let Your Light Shine” was chosen for many reasons.

The brand new original watercolor was created from 4 different photographs. I started this piece by sketching out my concept of the composition. I created videos, took photographs, and looked at them many times before starting this painting. I used a wet on wet technique for the girl in the sketch and wet on dry for the bees. I decided that the 15” x 20” would be painted with a wet on dry technique using my detailed style of watercolor with Windsor and Newton Professional Watercoulors. There is no pencil work and this was created with paint only directly on to the paper. She took many hours to complete.

The reference person is a dear friend who shines her light on others. I chose to have this painting printed because she is wonderfully kind to everyone she knows and will put a smile on anyone’s face who is around her. The hope of this print is that it will bring happiness, light, and joy into anyone’s home. As for the person, she currently lives in Colorado and is working on building her community while empowering others. She created a website where women share their creativity and businesses. She is a yoga instructor as well. Click here to see her amazing website! Celebratingthewheeloflife.com

I decided to add a perspective of light from my life into the painting. The bees and sunflowers are references from our garden in Nevada. My husband and I loved watching them pollinate the sunflowers last year. We were always fascinated by what attracted the bees. They often landed on our shiny tea mugs. In the painting, I placed a bee in her hair showing it’s attraction to the glass bead she wears in her dreadlocks. The image of the person is looking down at the bee in pure delight. The Sunflower near her head is meant to represent the sun and is painted lighter and more faded than the bottom flower. I wanted to show the white light and brightness of the sun as well as the subject’s character.

CLICK HERE->https://khilliardart.com/product/let-your-light-shine-print/

Prints are available under the prints section on my website. Please contact me if you are interested in buying the original at https://khilliardart.com/contact/

-Karen Hilliard