Originals by Anna Crawford

This painting of a dragonfly was created while working on a commission of a lily pond scene, "The Blue Dasher" (below). As I was studding the details of this intricate creature, I was inspired to paint a larger dragonfly to feel the whole effect to its shape and form. I started with a chaos background (adding colors randomly on wet wc. paper and letting it of what it will) then, once it was dry, adding the detail to the surface. This technique ties together the background with the foreground in an interesting way.

This piece was created from to photo's and it was my job, not only to paint it but also to figure out how to tie the to together. After researching the subjects and playing with compositions I came up with the idea of layering the two images which gave this piece a fun surprising character.

The first of this series of paintings, "Kelp" was introduced in 2005. Since then I have been inspired to paint more with the plant and also the introduction of the human form, such as in "Kelp Women" and "Sanctuary". I love the way their grace and beauty echo each other.

Working with a drip under painting technique was the first step in this painting. The drip technique is where you apply your paint to wet or dry watercolor paper while holding your paper vertical and applying the wet paint to the top edge of you paper, allowing it to drip to the bottom of your paper. Once you like what you have, laying it flat to let it dry. One can use this method to create any subject, non-the less, it is often lends itself to landscapes. I used that idea in a slightly different manner by using grace and beauty, curves, bends and folds of the human body instead of creating a landscape.