A Painting for China

Another painting for Starbucks! This one will be installed in Taiyuan, China.

Starbucks asked me to start this painting with a narrative describing the town and its feeling of community and celebration. I wrote this - "A gentle winter wind blows snow toward Taiyuan from Mount Wutai as people celebrate their community with the colorful Lantern Festival. A few months later peonies bloom around the Twin Pagodas and winter seems a distant memory. Just as winter and summer are brought together in this dream of Taiyuan, the past and present mingle in ancient buildings and the modern city." Pretty snappy eh!

My favourite part of the painting is the charcoal and wash of this couple. And the shape of the trees behind them. The snow was fun to paint falling on on everything.

Kenna Guizio from Starbucks art directed this painting - with many emails and phone calls and a lot of faith in me. We had five weeks from start to finish. Crazy. Thanks Kenna!

Now I can get my life back together, do my laundry and maybe even clean out last summer's flowers from the garden. I love a New Year. I can't wait to see what projects happen next.