Marybeth Heikes

Paintings in Watercolor & Mixed Media

Stunning Still Lifes

Pollen Swirl

Pollen Swirl

February 9, 2015

Sunflowers provide a never ending inspiration; I absolutely love these flowers with their huge heads and bold, bright yellow shapes. My challenge for this piece was the size. Larger paintings are my forte. This is scaled down to 5.25 by 7.5 — very minuscule for me. I edited the seed-head and just added a spiral […] more »

Confetti Tulips

Confetti Tulips

February 6, 2015

Flowers are one of my favorite subjects. For this collage, I used one of my sketches done in 2005. I love the shapes of tulips and the curved leaf patterns. I did not have a background planned, but improvised one using paper scraps to keep it fresh and exciting. The tiny triangle pieces were nipped from […] more »

Lotus Buds

Lotus Buds

February 2, 2015

This is another in a series of the beautiful lotus plant. I usually work from my photo and do a preliminary sketch and simplify shapes. The leaf shapes were edited, as there were too many to add anything extra to the design. The main focus are the buds of these flowers. This collage is done on […] more »

Breezy Spring

Breezy Spring

January 28, 2015

Looking through my sketchbooks, I decided to work from a sketch done around 2005 of my garden tulips. I used an archival matboard for the support, instead of watercolor paper. No background was planned initially; I worked with various paper scraps and color shapes to achieve an unusual background. Leaves are at the edges and […] more »

Lotus 2

Lotus 2

January 20, 2015

This is a collage design of a lotus plant, from my photograph of the plant at Balboa Park. Pieces of rice paper were used to add depth and dimension with my usual acrylic papers. It was edited throughout the process, focusing on bold, simple shapes. I posted this previously as a “Daily Painting,” although it […] more »

Rock n Roll

Rock n Roll

January 12, 2015

This particular design of my daughter’s electric guitar has been on my mind for a long time. I worked from some old sketches and photographs, but also did a series of just sections of this instrument. Most of the time I use tracing paper to compile my sketches, then edit during the process of designing […] more »

Indian Corn

Indian Corn

November 7, 2014

This artwork came about by way of request, but I have been thinking of doing one of the indian corn for a long time. I worked from my original pencil drawing done in 1980, which is very detailed and took me many months to complete. In the collage design my drawing is simplified — just […] more »

Violin

Violin

November 4, 2014

This piece was inspired by the interesting shape of the violin, and it was something that has been on the back burner for a while. When a friend asked me if I had any collages of this particular subject, I jumped right in and designed a piece. My favorite part of designing a piece is choosing […] more »

Poinsettia

Poinsettia

October 23, 2014

Flowers have always inspired me, and this piece was special because I wanted to try this in collage instead of the traditional watercolor methods. I began with a loose contour drawing of this Christmas plant and experimented using colored pencils in my sketchbook with unusual colors. I decided to limit my palette and edited my contour […] more »

Autumn Leaves

Autumn Leaves

October 14, 2014

This watercolor motif was requested by a client, but I have been thinking of doing some autumn leaves for a long time. In the past, I have completed realistic drawings of oak leaves on a branch and my goal was to try this in watercolor. I wanted to do a piece a little smaller than […] more »