This design took a complete 180 from what I thought would be a perfect flower garden. At the start I chose a dark burnt sienna background — a different color for me, and I added the bold sunflower on top. Then I was at a standstill for many weeks. Last week I envisioned a much different composition […] more »
Marybeth Heikes recently received an Honors Award in the annual Midwest National Abstract Exhibition in Indianapolis. She received a cash/ribbon award for her watercolor painting, Engine Series #5, part of her series of train engines. The juror, Paige Williams, commented on the piece: “The lushness of contrasting color and variation of edges creates a compelling push/pull spatial quality. […] more »
This painting was inspired by my garden flowers and antique bottle collection. Still lifes are one of my favorite subject matter to paint, and I love the bright colors of summer flowers! I decided from the start to use some of my flower sketches of our larkspur plants and fire engine red petunias. I began […] more »
Two of Marybeth Heikes’ original collages have been selected for the 22nd annual Greater Des Moines Exhibition. Her collages, RAGBRAI, depicting a close up of a bicycle wheel and pieces of Iowa map of the Mississippi river towns, and Supreme Sunflowers with Red Stems, a floral bouquet, will be part of this exhibit featuring Iowa […] more »
I couldn’t resist doing another design using our cats as models and the crossword block pattern for the background. The main character here is the red cat with green whiskers and pink-striped tail. His buddy is beige with teal eyes. The background is limited to the colors of emerald green, reds, ultramarine blue and teal. […] more »
This watercolor painting was commissioned by my brother Joe. It is a beautiful Great Dane. He provided the photograph and I began this piece by drawing the design in pencil first. The main purpose of the portrait was to capture her inquisitive and playful expression. The background uses a wet-in-wet method, to keep it simple and […] more »
I have been inspired by bicycles and decided to begin a fourth design in early August. It’s been a busy summer and taken me almost a month to complete this. Drawing is the foundation of all my work and I love doing loose, contour drawings to begin my piece. I believe contour drawing provides a […] more »
This was inspired by our playful and ornery goats. And because the year 2015 is the Chinese Year of the Sheep/Goat, this was perfect! In the past I have done some Chinese zodiac animals in ink and decided it was time to try them using collage papers. Working from my sketch and some of my […] more »
This artwork was done in conjunction with Velocity, using similar shapes, but with different colors. My goal was to complete an abstract piece without using a preliminary drawing. I concentrated on larger shapes and began with the letter “M.” Basically, I play with the shapes, adding, subtracting and moving elements around the picture space until the […] more »
It is a bit difficult doing an abstract design, having no sketch to work from. I began by choosing some of my textured, hand-painted papers and concentrating on big shapes and colors. It took me a while with the placement of these, adding other shapes and subtracting ones I didn’t like. This is mostly an intuitive process where […] more »