Luz Marina Ruiz "Flotando" Watercolor and Gouache, Small Abstract Crescent Painting in Rust, Carmel California Art, Original 6 X 8 Inches, 2025

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Across the left of this small vertical sheet, a pale blue crescent, banded in white and sprinkled with tiny moons … Read more Across the left of this small vertical sheet, a pale blue crescent, banded in white and sprinkled with tiny moons and arrow marks, sweeps like a boat afloat on warm air. Rust and burnt orange surround it, a golden field of zigzag lines fills the center, and a blue disc with a bright core sits to the right of a dotted, blue striped path. A pointed teal and cream form slips in at the bottom. Flotando means floating, and the whole image seems to hover. Water and boats are Luz Marina Ruiz's images for life's journeys, and this one drifts weightless.

Small and vertical, it suits narrow shelves, a bedside wall, a desk or a corner of a gallery arrangement. The rust, gold and blue combination warms white and cream walls, and it complements wood, leather and indigo textiles. Try it in a study or a bedroom, where its quiet, floating mood sets a calm tone, or lean it against a wall on a mantel.

Watercolor and gouache, 6 x 8 in (15.2 x 20.3 cm).

This work is painted in watercolor and gouache, combining the transparent washes of one with the opaque, matte color of the other. Layering the two lets Luz Marina Ruiz build soft, glowing grounds, then define shapes with crisp edges, fine drawn lines and small areas of pattern. The grain of the paper shows through the pigment, giving the small format a tactile, hand-worked surface.

Luz Marina Ruiz was born in Cali, Colombia, and raised in New York. She earned her BA, MA and MFA at the University of California, Berkeley, and is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she teaches printmaking at the California College of the Arts.

Her practice moves between painting, drawing, printmaking and book arts, with linocut, collagraph, monotype and woodcut often turned into sculptural tunnel books and carousel books. Inspired by dreams and nature, she returns to water and boats as images of life's journeys. Her work is held in public collections including the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, UC Berkeley's Environmental Design Library and Mills College Special Collections. See less