Bamboo Garden is a slightly abstracted, but naturalistic painting of the Sasa Palmate bamboo that grew wildly on the side of my house. 

Working from a black and white photo, I took much liberty in “colorizing” not only the bamboo plants, but the background as well. I painted the bamboo leaves in the foreground with super detail and chromatic color working back through the mid and background with increasing abstraction.

Abstraction leaves much to the imagination and gives the viewer a dreamy feel. I further used encaustic (wax) for the first time ever ~  mostly in the bottom (front) to encapsulate the dream quality throughout.