My IF post this week is an homage to Joseph Raffael, a painter whose work I have admired and been inspired by for many years. His is the wonderful top image and is called 'Spirit'. I worked on the koi in the more humble lower image very quickly and in my more painterly way-wanting to somehow take off just a bit on his sense of color, movement and interpretation of nature which just astound me. I initially saw an exhibit of huge oil paintings of his at the Newport Harbor Museum of Art in Orange County, California about 30 years ago - aaaah!! They really were the most beautiful paintings I've ever seen-water lilies, water, foresty things. I'm not sure when he shifted to watercolor - but now I think that's his primary medium - huge very saturated watercolors. I could step into them and be very happy. He left California and is now in France and shows in New York- do see if you're there. You can see more on his website: http://www.josephraffael.com/
