GALLERY
On View In The Islands

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM "E Komo Mai" offers a complete view of Hanauma Bay. Each part of the four-paneled piece alternates with text to create a dynamic, informative design.

Bay art

Bill Braden’s work offers
the public an artistic
appreciation of isle landscapes

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Star-Bulletin Staff

Isle artist Bill Braden's studies took him to the East Coast, Rome, Italy, and The Royal Academy of Art in London.Yet with all that education, the artist has found that "painting on location has been my biggest teacher.

"The colors in Hawaii are vastly different from those in Europe and the East Coast," he says. "Painting Hawaii landscapes is a specialty."

Braden's latest work, a four-paneled painting of Hanauma Bay titled "E Komo Mai," graces the site's new education center. It was commissioned to him by the City and County of Honolulu.

"The turquoise of the lagoon is hard to achieve," Braden says. "You have to use the white of the canvas, get it to show through the blue paint, to create that color."

City commissions and isle landscapes, especially Hanauma Bay, are old hat to Braden. He painted "The Best Beaches of Hawaii" for the city in 1990. Featured in that work was Braden's first rendition of Hanauma Bay. His second was in a series of note cards for Island Heritage Publishing.

Part of what makes this, his third version of the bay, unique is his inclusion of the surrounding environment.

"The foreground shows the red dirt, hale koa, kiawe and California grass that grows around there. I wanted to show how dry the context of Hanauma Bay is. The turquoise of the bay contrasts with the red of the dirt and the scruffy weeds. It looks like an oasis."

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