A Nice Award - National Orange Show

Last night I got some good news.  I had entered two paintings into the National Orange Show All-California Juried Art Exhibition in San Bernadino, CA.  Both were juried in and I was awarded third place for one of them in the Citrus category.  When I originally saw the prospectus for this show and saw that there was a citrus category I knew I had the perfect paintings to enter.  The paintings could be up to 5 years old which is unusual for an art competition.  Usually the requirement is that they must have been painted within two years.  Three years ago I painted a series titled "Paradise Lost", my statement about the over-building of Orange County.  The first two paintings in the series were my favorites and they are the paintings that I entered and were juried into the show.

Paradise Lost II is the one that received the award last night.  I was really happy because I've always liked this painting and have entered it into many shows where it has been rejected.  I was glad to have this one last chance for it to get some glory before it is retired from entering shows.

Paradise Lost II

And here is the other painting that was juried into the show.

Paradise Lost I

Paradise Lost I was awarded third place in Watercolor West in 2009.  This series has been good to me.  If you would like to see the other three paintings in the series, click here.

Category › All California juried art exhibition , Citrus art , National Orange Show , Orange art , orange county , oranges , paradise lost

Paradise Lost II - Watercolor

Here is the second painting in my Paradise Lost series. Can you tell what is in the background (the brown part of the painting)? Only about half of the people I ask get what I was trying to portray. Of course, it seems really obvious to me but that's because I painted it. I would love to hear your feedback on this one.

Paradise Lost II

Image Size 22" x 30"

Watercolor

Framed

Category › nancy goldman , orange county , Orange County art , overbuilding of Orange County , paradise lost , watercolor

Paradise Lost I - Watercolor

I am one very excited artist right now. Last night was the reception for the 41st Watercolor West exhibition and I was awarded 3rd place for this painting! Watercolor West is one of the major international juried watercolor shows. This year they got almost 700 entries and from those, about 100 paintings were juried into the show. Getting a painting juried into this competition has been a goal of mine for a long time. I was so thrilled when I found out that my painting got into the show back in July. I didn't post that news then because this painting is the first in a series that I'm doing and I was going to wait and post all of them once the series was finished. But since I received 3rd place I can't wait any longer! The second painting in this series is finished and #3 and #4 are being worked on concurrently so I am going to post one each week.

This series is my statement about how Orange County has changed in the 25 years that I've lived here. Even though this is a rather negative view, I really love Orange County. I just hate how every square inch is being covered with houses. When I went driving around to take reference pictures of orange trees, I drove all around OC where I knew orange groves were before but they have all been destroyed. I finally found a small grove in a person's yard so I went up to their door and asked permission to take pictures of their trees. They probably thought I was nuts!

I actually started this series back in 1995 while we were living in Anaheim Hills. I was very affected by seeing the smog as I would drive over the hill and into AH. I painted 2 paintings back then and I'm repainting them now as part of this series. As I post the new ones, I'll post the original ones also so you can see the difference. Those will be #4 and #5. I know 14 years is a long time to take to finish a series but I wasn't painting very much back then and so my motivation disappeared. Now that I'm doing a painting each week, my motivation seems constant and I get excited about new painting ideas almost daily.

Here is the information in case you are interested in seeing the exhibition. If you are in the So Cal area and love watercolor paintings, I highly recommend seeing the show. We are very fortunate to have 2 of the major watercolor shows in our area each year. The other one is the National Watercolor Society exhibit and when that opens I'll give you that info.

Watercolor West

EXHIBIT DATES: September 12th - October 24th

Riverside Art Museum

3425 Mission Inn Avenue

Riverside, CA 92501

(951) 684-7111

Paradise Lost I

Image size 22" x 22"

Watercolor

Framed

Category › nancy goldman , orange county , orange trees , over building of orange county , paradise lost , watercolor west 3rd place winner 2009