Art by Niki Hilsabeck

"Venetian Duck" 12 x 16 Chalk pastel on flat canvas Click here to view large or purchase Water is one of my favorite subjects to paint.  It's also one of the most difficult subjects to paint (for me, anyway).  I took the photo for the above painting in Venice, California.  We took a walk along the canals and happened upon a duck (apparently the locals nicknamed her "Daisy.")  I took the photo because of the reflections in the water, knowing I would like to try to turn it into a painting. I tried it out on textured paper with dry pastel, but I kept losing my darks.  It came out much better on the second try, when I pressed wet chalk pastels directly onto flat canvas to get those nice dark shapes.  It took many layers of wet chalk, fixative, and dry chalk to get the final result. It you're going to paint water, it helps to remember a few things: *Water is always horizontally straight to the eye.  That means any horizontal lines you make in your wat

"Avocado Lights" 24 x 30 in Acrylic on Gallery Wrap Canvas ORIGINAL SOLD Click here to view print choices It's Avocado time again...April is the month of the Avocado Festival and Art of the Avocado show in Fallbrook.  The piece above is my entry in the Art of the Avocado, on display at Brandon Gallery in Fallbrook, California through April 27th. What do frogs have to do with avocados?  Nothing, except that if I hadn't realized I'd turned into one, I wouldn't have finished my piece for the Art of the Avocado show.  I've heard of the phrase "frog in boiling water," meaning that if you cook(?) a frog in boiling water that starts out cold, the frog doesn't realize what's happening until it's too late, since the water heats slowly, gradually increasing in temperature. I spent a couple of months feeling gradually more and more fatigued, until I got so tired I could barely stand to get through the day.  I thought it was a post-b