What gift goes with a 25th anniversary?

Wild Apple, my art licensing company, is celebrating their twenty-fifth year of being in business.  And while silver is the traditional gift for 25 years, I didn’t think that was going to cut it.  Instead, Wild Apple nicely ask each licensed artist to create a celebratory post in their unique style to commemorate the big event.  Next, they plan to make a video of all the artists holding up their posters and share it with their clients.  Hopefully, I can get a copy of the video.  But in the meantime, here’s a look at my poster.

 

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish

I was approached with the opportunity to license my work through Wild Apple Publishing.  They picked out a couple of paintings they liked the best and ask me to make companion paintings to go with them (kind of like a matched set).  I’ve been working on the companion painting to Hide and Seek Orange.  I’ve included some in process pictures so you can see my layering process.  Here’s Hide and Seek Red, mixed media, 48″ x 48″.

I started by washing in an ocean background, then I painted in some distance kelp.  Next I collaged in hand-painted paper kelp:

  

I initially used yellow fish but I didn’t think there was enough contrast, so I switched to red instead, and added some last kelp strands:

Here are the two Hide and Seek paintings side by side: