My name is Chris Venema, and I am a professional artist local to Arizona. I paint with acrylics on canvas and wood board. I also paint large art and have created some local murals. I typically start painting outside in nature, then finish my work in the studio. I feature vivid and bright colors. For the background, I use bright teals to depict daytime and dark velvety blues for night skies. My main subjects are bold and up front. For example, I feature flowers, aloes and trees, which are typically strong and vibrant. Every flower grows wild somewhere.

I look up to Monet, Van Gogh and O’Keeffe for their use of colors, depiction of the beauty of nature and being authentic. Painting brings me adventure and calmness. I like to capture nature from surprising points of view.

– Chris. Venema

Painting outside is important to me. For one, it allows me to capture the colors. Nature fascinates me, specifically the stages of the flower, tree or plant, etc… I use acrylic, because, the colors pop.  Plus, I paint fast, and acrylics are fast drying.  I use water and acrylic to layer and layer the paint on to the surface to make the colors pop.  Every time I stop and look at nature, I learn something new.  Life’s stages, and nature’s stages, have similarities.

– Chris. Venema

Art Process: Pink Poppies

Poppies, a show of glory. In this painting I wanted to catch the poppies at different stages. Make these pink poppies the star of the painting. The stages of the poppies: the green pod grows from the seed. Then the green pod reached straight up to the sun. The weight of the many petals growing in the pod makes the poppy droop down. Then the pod splits open to show the many layers of translucent pink petals to make them seem red. Then the pod pops up, the petals open and reach for the sun. Before the petals drop there is a moment when the poppies petals are partly falling to the ground. They are also partly reaching to the sky. This moment reminds me of a dancer spreading their arms far apart. My inspiration was from a garden and my imagination of many adventures hiking. It’s a surprising point of view.

– Chris. Venema

Art Process: Yellow

Yellow, the brightest color and the hardest color for me to paint. With this painting I decided to make blue the background. Naturally, yellow and blue make green. So, how are these flowers not all green? First, I started with the background. I left the shapes of the flowers as canvas. Then, I filled in each of the flowers. Lots of patience and layering of whites and yellows, and waiting for the paint to dry. Yellow is so easy to muddy up, so I used browns and oranges for shadows. My inspiration was a mixture of morning glory and hibiscus flowers. My goal was to show the beauty of the flower open wide.

– Chris. Venema

The Bachelor Button. I used cobalt blue to paint these wildflowers. Blue is often hard to find in nature.

Art Process: Monarch Butterfly

The Monarch butterfly, drinking from some milkweed.