Detail shots of ‘Amid the Scent of Roses’ –
Watch a video of this painting being made here.
If you’d like to see this painting in person, please email me, holly.vanhart@gmail.com
Thanks for your interest!
With this new tree painting Slipping Between the Notes, the “notes” are the leaves on the trees. My intention was to paint a sunny, happy forest that tempted you to come in and play.
Will you please join me here, running around and slipping between the notes?
Here are some in-progress pics for this painting –
Here’s the finished painting –
And here’s how it would look against a blue wall –
Want to see all available paintings? Click here to request a digital catalog.
In “Top Fifty Questions”, I’ll answer the top things I’m asked as an artist. (These questions usually come up at cocktail parties and other fun social events.)
Sure!
I definitely miss seeing my work-friends and colleagues more regularly. They were/are an amazingly talented and multi-faceted group of people. Good thing Facebook and LinkedIn give us an easy way to keep in touch!
What I also loved about high tech was the opportunity to constantly stretch myself and learn new things. Luckily I have that in abundance as an artist too.
One thing’s for sure . . . Being a full-time artist feels like what I was meant to do.
To read more about my career move to professional artist, click here.
With Magnetic Dreams, I was aiming for a moody painting. The scene is imagined, drawn from a love of the ocean and memories of many captivating ferry rides.
The calm of the quiet mountains is juxtaposed with the energy of the watercolor techniques and drips. (This is a mixed media painting on canvas, using acrylic paints, but painted with watercolor techniques.)
Here are some detail pics –
To purchase, email holly.vanhart@gmail.com. Free shipping in the US for VIP members.
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Does ‘Wandering in Wonder’ make you want to wander through this forest? And take in the wonder of nature and life? Hope so!
Here’s how this painting looks in a living room –
Wandering in Wonder is sold, but you can see available forest, flower, landscape, and nest paintings here.
More info here –
Studio visit
Purchase details
Try Before You Buy program
Questions? Email holly.vanhart@gmail.com.
Thanks for your interest!
Nestled is about the warm feelings of being nestled close to our loved ones. The variety of the twigs and branches in the nest symbolize the variety of personalities and habits and desires we have within our own families. They are all intertwined.
When you click on the image to get a larger view, you can see some of the texture that underlies this painting. This is meant to convey the complexity and nuances of the interactions in our families, oftentimes unseen to the outside world.
Gallery Wrap side view of “Nestled”
This painting is sold, but prints are available here.
Originally published in 2013, and updated with info on prints
Yellow Passage
20″ x 16″ oil painting by Holly Van Hart (sold)
“Yellow Passage” is meant to convey the majesty and mystery a large mountain range. The size and angular forms of the mountains indicate the majesty, and unusual red and yellow colors add intrigue.
This scene was inspired by my time in the Rocky Mountains a few years ago. I used a photograph as a very loose reference for the shapes of the mountains and the lake, and my imagination for the colors and texture.
This painting is sold and here’s how it looks in its new gorgeous home –
Yellow Passage, Oil painting by Holly Van Hart, installed
Thank you Susan and Steve for placing my artwork in your dining room. I’m honored! Love how you had it framed, and found just the right spot for it.
For more pics of paintings installed in collectors’ homes, click here.
Palm Winds (detail)
Oil painting by Holly Van Hart
See full painting here
In “Top Fifty Questions”, I’ll answer the top questions I’m asked as an artist. (These are usually asked at cocktail parties and other fun social events.)
Can I mix styles of art in my home? Yes!
Combining a mix of art styles in your home shows off your unique tastes, life experiences, and creativity. It personalizes your home, makes it even more interesting, and opens up whole new conversations.
That’s my humble opinion 🙂 To look at some ideas from professional interior designers, click here.
Click here to see the rest of the Top 50 Questions
Palm Winds
30″ x 40″ oil painting by Holly Van Hart (sold)
Welcome to the tropics!
As you view “Palm Winds”, can you feel the warm wind on your skin? This painting is meant to instill a feeling of peacefulness from the beauty of the trees, sea, and sky. The empty picnic tables are inviting you to sit down and have a meal. It is a hot day, and the wind is offsetting the tropical heat.
The inspiration for this painting draws on my travels to Tahiti, Thailand, Costa Rica and other places of tropical awesomeness. In addition, it was inspired by an amazing photo taken by my friend Veronique Gillard. (Thank you Veronique!)
Palm Winds
Side view
30″ x 40″ oil painting by Holly Van Hart
This painting is sold. For available paintings, click here.
Originally published in 2013, and just updated
The holidays are almost here. Need a special gift for your special someone?
New! Petite Treasures are gift-sized original paintings by yours truly. They are created with the same great care used with my large-scale paintings, and with the highest quality archival materials. Each painting is museum-quality and ready to hang in the finest of homes and work spaces.
Click to see all available Petite Treasures
Treat yourself or a loved one! Click to see all available Petite Treasures.
Additional info here – Purchase / Guarantee / Gift Certificates, Petite Treasures, Try Before You Buy, Studio Visit
What does ‘vulnerability’ mean to you? Does hearing that word make you squirm and feel uncomfortable? It does that to me!
To put it all out there, my most vulnerable moments are when . . .
* I express love or appreciation to someone, and am not sure whether the feeling is returned
* My art is being exhibited and I’m in a room full of people seeing it for the first time
* I send an image of a new painting to all the people on my VIP email list
* Someone unsubscribes to my email list (ouch!)
* I post a new painting or article (like this one) on this blog
* My work is not accepted into a competition or exhibition
* My sons (now ages 11 and 13) are facing disappointment, and I can’t just ‘fix it’ for them any more
Luckily, from my years in high tech, I had many opportunities to experience both acceptance and rejection. I know how to roll with rejection. Sometimes I might need a few moments or hours or days to catch my breath and recover, but then I do, and life goes on and I can keep making progress. Thank goodness. Without that, life as an artist would be impossible!
To see the rest of my top 50 questions, click here.
Have a question for me? Click here.
Let’s stay in touch! Become a VIP member. Learn more
Yes, absolutely! Being a full-time artist feels like what I was meant to do.
In 2013, I made the decision to leave a 20-year career in high tech to become a professional artist. (While in high tech, I painted with passion, exhibited my work, and sold it. But painting was a hobby then.)
Being in high tech was challenging, interesting, and rewarding. High tech gave me the opportunity to work with so many fascinating people, and I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.
But I definitely made the right decision! High tech was fun, but a career in the arts is even “funner”.
Click here to see the rest of the Top 50 Questions I’m asked as an artist (usually at cocktail parties or other fun events).
Funny thing happened the other night. A friend came to dinner and it was the height of the gladiolus season. He looked at my husband’s garden –
and then at this painting hanging on our living room wall –
He pointed to one, and then the other, and asked the question . . . which came first, the flowers or the painting?
Oddly enough, the flowers came from my imagination about 6 months before my husband grew his first gladiolus flowers. But his garden is spectacular and will inspire many more paintings to come!
‘Beckoning’ is currently hanging in our home. If you’d like to hang it in yours, please email me at holly.vanhart@gmail.com or call 650 646 5590.
To see all available paintings, click here.
High quality prints are available here (on canvas, paper, metal, framed, unframed, and so much more).
Treat yourself! 🙂
February 1, 2020 –
Today I was just awarded a prestigious art achievement award from the National Association of Pen Women. Feeling so very honored!!
At the Celebrity Luncheon for the National League of American Pen Women, about to receive the arts achievement award. (Thanks to Patricia Dennis for the photo.)
Here’s the story of the inspiration and making of a new tree painting named Summer Sparkle –
Erik (our younger son) gave me a tour of the lush New York forest. He drove my Dad’s ATV. I sat behind him and snapped photos.
One of the 100+ photos I took while on the ATV that afternoon.
In keeping with my theme of limitless possibilities, I’m inspired by subjects that reveal life and growth and abundance. In this case, lush green trees were everywhere. I also like the sense of motion in this pic.
Back in the studio . . . the start of a new forest painting, ‘Summer Sparkle’
In progress pic of ‘Summer Sparkle’ (detail)
Completed painting – Summer Sparkle
48 x 36″ oil painting by Holly Van Hart
‘Autumn Dance‘ ‘Summer Sparkle’ and ‘Amid the Scent of Roses‘
They are hanging in my living room, but they could be in yours :-).
This story was first published for my VIP subscribers. If you would like to be first to see new paintings, please become a VIP.
To see all tree and forest paintings, click here.
This painting is sold, but you can see the latest available paintings here.
To see more pics and articles on ‘What Inspired This Painting?’, click here.
Possibilities on High
24″ x 30″ oil on canvas
Commission a custom nature painting
Yes, that does happen sometimes, unfortunately.
Usually I’m brimming with ideas for paintings, and almost always have a few ideas that are competing for attention on any given day.
But on some days I’m just not feeling it. When that happens, I follow the advice of Chuck Close, an amazing and famous artist, who says “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. . . . All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself.”
That’s my experience too. Once I pick up a pencil or paintbrush, ideas will often reveal themselves. Then I’m inspired all over again!
Click here to see the rest of the Top 50 Questions
Have a question to add to the top 50? Please send an email to holly.vanhart@gmail.com.
To live life to the fullest, we’re often told to give the highest value to our relationships. And that things like fancy cars, clothes, homes, TVs, phones, etc give us only very fleeting pleasure.
Do you find this to be true for yourself?
I do, for the most part. Spending time with family and friends is my absolute favorite thing in the world. Hands down. Without question. I value these relationships above all things. (Hence the name of the painting.)
Don’t get me wrong . . . many things give me lasting pleasure too. Mostly visual things. I still love the shape of the wedding ring we picked out over 15 years ago. And the windows in our home that let in lots of light. And some pieces of our furniture. My husband’s garden. The list is very long.
What’s your experience? What do you value ‘above all things’?
To check out more flower paintings and the inspirations behind them, click here.
This painting is sold. To see all available paintings, click here.
Landscapes are a subject I come back to again and again. Even in the midst of working on a series of forest or flower paintings, sometimes I feel compelled to paint an abstract landscape using oil paints.
With ‘Grazing the Light’, I was aiming to capture the feeling of an overcast day, but with some sunlight breaking through. Across the expanse of water, we can see mountains near and far. But what is that splash of yellow/orange? Is it man-made or natural? It is meant to add mystery to the painting.
It’s hard to see in this digital image, but etched into the foreground of this painting (bottom left) is part of a poem by Walt Whitman, “Every hour is an unspeakably perfect miracle”.
If you’d like to see a higher resolution image, please lmk.
To purchase, email holly.vanhart@gmail.com. Free shipping in the US.
This book includes essays by DeWitt Cheng and Preston Metcalf –
“Van Hart’s naturalistic yet symbolic paintings present their enigmatic subjects with both beauty and conviction, memorably”
– DeWitt Cheng, Art writer for Art Ltd, Artillery, ARTnews, and Visual Art Source
“powerful in its message of human connectivity”
– Preston Metcalf, Chief Curator of the Triton Museum of Art
Click for FREE Instant Download
(This book is also available on Amazon for $27)
If you like this book, please share it with your friends!
For a holiday party, I paired a painting with a custom cocktail. ‘The Boundary of Spring’ (above) was paired with a cocktail I named ‘Spring-tini’.
Here’s the recipe –
2 ounces vodka
1 ounce pear juice
1 ounce rosemary syrup (I used rosemary from our front garden)
A squeeze of fresh lemon (we picked the lemons from trees in our back yard)
Rosemary sprig, for garnish
Why Spring-tini is paired with The Boundary of Spring
The Spring-tini cocktail has pear juice. Pear is a soft flavor; it is analogous to the soft sky in the painting.
Rosemary has a tea-like aroma and an assertive piney flavor; it is analogous to the stronger color of the green/brown ground in the painting.
Vodka is a subtle but absolutely necessary component of this drink. Similarly, the texture in the painting is both subtle and absolutely necessary to the success of the painting.
Enjoy!
Embracing the Light
48 x 60″ mixed media painting on canvas by Holly Van Hart
Sold
For a holiday party, I paired paintings with custom cocktails. ‘Embracing the Light’ (above) was paired with a cocktail I named ‘Red Smash’.
Here’s the recipe –
2 ounces London dry gin
1 ounce cranberry juice
1 ounce Rose’s lime juice
Whole fresh cranberries, for garnish
It was a big hit!!
Why Red Smash is paired with Embracing the Light
In keeping with the Dutch theme for our party . . . gin was first made in Holland and is known as ‘Dutch courage’.
The gin in this drink uses juniper berries as its primary ingredient. ‘Embracing the Light’ is primarily dark green, like juniper.
Gin uses ‘botanicals’ to give it its complex flavor. In addition to juniper, Boodles British Gin includes hints of coriander seed, angelica root, angelica seed, cassia bark, nutmeg, rosemary and sage. The painting ‘Embracing the Light’ uses an equally wide range of colors to give it its complexity; in fact it uses all the colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) and many variations.
Enjoy! (The cocktail and the painting!)
Possibilities in Full Color
24″ x 30″ oil painting by Holly Van Hart
Purchase (email holly.vanhart@gmail.com)
When I look at the painting and am pleased with it, then it’s done.
To be pleased with it, the painting needs to convey the desired idea or feeling or mood, be well designed, well executed, and have some kind of pop or surprise or glow that makes it special. If it’s missing any one of these things, it’s not finished!
I sometimes have the feeling that a painting is done, but then after a couple of weeks, decide it needs further tweaks or even major changes. Then it goes back to the easel.
On rare occasions, I know right away when a painting is done. It feels like a personal breakthrough, and all the stars and moons have aligned, and I’m really digging what I see in front of me. Wish I had more of those days 🙂
Click here to see the rest of the Top 50 Questions
Be the first to get Holly Van Hart’s latest paintings, art exhibit news, and VIP members-only special offers (includes a free gift). Click here to learn more.
The abstract nature paintings you see on this website are inspired by life’s limitless possibilities!
Each painting is meant to convey a sense of plenty, fullness, color, prosperity, and opportunity. Sometimes we have all of these things in our lives. Sometimes we’re only wishing for them.
But it’s always nice to think and dream about them!
‘A Full Life’ is available for purchase (30 x 40″ original oil painting on canvas, painted on the edges, wired on the back, ready to hang, $3800 + tax). For a limited time, shipping is free for VIP members. Contact holly.vanhart@gmail.com for details.
Have you ever tried meditation?
I’ve tried it multiple times, including a 2-day class in Indonesia, but failed miserably each time. I can’t calm my mind in that way.
On the other hand, the act of painting has a meditative quality to it that I love.
Painting can completely absorb me and transport me to a different place.
My paintings often go through a bunch of twists and turns before they are done. Sometimes, by the end of all that, I don’t quite remember how things progressed along the way.
‘Alternate Reality’ (shown above) was a painting that was totally absorbed me like that.
It felt so refreshing. Lucky me.
Do you have a meditation practice, activity, hobby or job like that? If so, lucky you!
Most of us may not feel like geniuses, but everyone has a special quality or skill that is unique to this world. That is the ‘genius in all of us’.
This new floral painting “The Genius in All of Us” features large abstract tulips in red, purple, blue, yellow, and orange. The tulips represent and celebrate the diversity of our individual strengths.
What are your strengths?
My strength is painting. I suppose another strength is being a jack-of-all-trades generalist that includes some of the business skills needed to be a full-time artist and entrepreneur. (Still working on those others!!)
btw, the Genius in All of Us was purchased as a surprise birthday gift for my new friend Heike by her husband.
The Genius in All of Us
Hanging in their beautiful home in Silicon Valley, California
Heike is thrilled with her new painting, so I’m thrilled too 🙂
Interested in seeing other available floral and tree paintings? Or learning about commissions (custom paintings)?
Or learn more on these pages – About, Press (Huffington Post, Professional Artist, ABC News, and more), Testimonials.
The hardest part of creating a painting is coming up with an amazing idea, and then turning that idea into an inspired design.
Producing the painting (that is, putting the paint on the canvas) isn’t a piece of cake either, but that seems to flow once the first part is nailed down.
Click here to see the rest of the Top 50 Questions
Have a question to add to the top 50? Ask away (in the comments section below or send an email to holly.vanhart@gmail.com).
“If not me, who? If not now, when?” These are the words that Dr. Leslie Field asked herself about tackling the huge problem of global warming.
Dr. Field is a prolific inventor, the Founder of SmallTech Consulting, a Consulting Prof at Stanford University, a mom of two, an art-lover, and the founder of Ice911.
Ice911 is a boots on the ground solution to reduce global warming.
In this Facebook Live interview with Dr. Field, we learn more about what inspired her to start Ice911, and the steps she is taking now to slow down global warming.
Click below to listen and to get inspired!
Having Fun“Having Fun” was intended to capture an amazing afternoon spent with 3 girlfriends. We went on a huge hike, and at the top of the mountain, took some goofy photos of each other.
A photo was snapped of me. To keep the moment alive, I used it as inspiration for this painting.
A lot of people don’t realize this is a self-portrait. But my intent was to capture the vibrancy of the moment (not the details of facial features & skin colors).
When I finish a painting, I often let it rest out of sight for a week or two, and then take it out with a fresh eye and make some improvements.
“Having Fun” was different. I finished the painting relatively quickly (for me at least) and then felt it was done. It didn’t get the normal ‘out of sight’ treatment that my other paintings get.
What do you think . . . will this painting stand the test of time?
Do you stick to certain daily habits? Would you think that habits help (or hinder) your creativity?
This might surprise you, but many creative people have strong daily habits. And we go to enormous lengths to maintain them.
Habits allow our mental bandwidth to be channeled to create new stuff (art, music, computer programs, legal strategies, etc), rather than being wasted on the mundane (for example, which route should I take to work?).
If this topic fascinates you (as it does me), you might like to check out the highly rated book ‘Daily Rituals: How Artists Work‘ by Mason Currey.
One of the conclusions of ‘Daily Rituals’ is that there is no set of habits that is best for creativity. But when we develop habits that suit our values and lifestyle, we are setting ourselves up for success.
Some of my habits include eating oatmeal for breakfast every day (all 7 days of the week, all 52 weeks of the year, with very rare exceptions), and heading to my studio to start painting as soon as my sons leave for school.
One of my habits is eating a bowl of oatmeal every morning.
The extras vary (strawberries, nuts, cinnamon, coffee, hot chili pepper, . . . ) but the Quaker Oats stay the same.
I have some other daily habits (bad ones) that I’m trying to kick and that do not contribute to my creativity – like eating far too much chocolate. But that’s a subject for another time.
What daily habits do you find most helpful?
At cocktail parties and other fun social events, people often ask me questions about life as an artist. They are answered in my ‘Top 50 Questions’ list. This blog post is the latest addition to my Top 50. To see the other questions & answers, click here.