Purple Orchids

Title: "Purple Orchids"
12"x12" digital painting
© 2009 Christine Pierce

The Kahala Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Honolulu has an entire wall covered with live orchids. I have never seen so many beautiful orchids in one place. Here is a picture I took after we enjoyed lunch there recently. The wall is two stories tall (although for some reason this picture remains small when clicked on):

Title: "Wall of Orchids"
Kahala Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Hawaii
© 2009 Christine Pierce

But, lest I think I've seen a majority of orchid varieties at the orchid wall, here's a fun fact from Wikipedia: There are about four times as many orchid species in the world as there are mammal species. That's a lot of orchids!

Princess of Kaua'i Floral Headdress

Title: "Hawaiian Headdress"
12"x12" digital painting
© 2009 Christine Pierce

We happened to be in Hawaii during the 93rd annual King Kamehameha Celebration Floral Parade. It ended in the nearby Kapi'olani Park which was filled with live music and several food and craft vendors.

I saw a beautifully-dressed woman sitting in the audience listening to the concert. She was wearing traditional Hawaiian leis and garlands topped by an extravagant floral headdress. I think she was one of the festival princesses, Gayle Fujita Ramsey, Princess of Kaua'i. I took a photograph of her ornate headdress, and used it as a reference for the digital painting, above.

Honolulu Sailboat

Title: "Honolulu Sailboat"
12"x12" digital painting
© 2009 Christine Pierce
(please click on image to enlarge)

I love to sail and was happy to look up from our veranda in Honolulu and see this solitary sailboat flying across the water. Nothing but blue sky, azure sea and racing sloop. The trade winds were especially strong that day; the boat was really heeling and looked like it might tip completely over, but, fortunately, it did not.

Here is the same painting in a woodcut style:

Title: "Honolulu Sailboat, woodcut"
12"x12" digital painting
© 2009 Christine Pierce
(please click on image to enlarge)

We had a wonderful tropical vacation and I look forward to sharing my paintings from Hawaii as I finish them.

Aloha!

Title: "Hawaiian Breeze"
12"x12" digital painting
© 2009 Christine Pierce

I'm heading off today on a vacation to Hawaii with my family. I probably will not be able to post any art while I'm away, so I leave you with the above digital painting. It is based on a photograph I took a few years ago, from Napili, Maui, looking northwest toward the island of Molokai.

Aloha!