Posts tagged ‘whimsical’
Sometimes objects will have a special meaning and inspire me to put them in a composition for a painting.
Last spring, my grandmother past away and left behind wonderful intangible things like love and spirit that will last forever. I hope I pass those along someday too.
Of course there are objects attached to her life and my memories of her that are here still too. When my mom gave me some of her jewelry I knew exactly what I would be painting next.
It was hard to set up a still life for very long because I kept wanting to wear the things on the table. There are no rings in this painting because the couple that I got are on my fingers most days. After I worked on the jewelry part for several days (weeks?) I felt a push to keep going and include more that reminds me of my grandmother’s sense of style. She was into accessories, she made things, and she was always put together in a colorful way. Maybe I over did it. Maybe I went too far. But in my opinion, I can’t say enough about how much the little things matter.
Giving Thanks - Original painting 8x10 by Lauren Alexander
With so much to be thankful for, it’s hard to know where to start. But I’ll try. Coffee, sunrises, puff pastry, sweatpants…the list goes on.
Along with wishing you a very merry Thanksgiving I want to share my newest painting. Sorry but it is a re-run! But only for the better. Musicians do it all the time….take old songs and make them new again. So why can’t I? Yesterday I took an old painting idea and made it new and true to how I like to paint today. Click here to see the old version.
I do hope you all are enjoying some good food and surviving your families with grace and pie. Happy Thanksgiving!
These are my latest little paintings added to my ACEO collection over at my Etsy shop. I really hope to use my time off over Thanksgiving Break to paint some more. This snail’s pace of work painting is really getting old. Time to crack the whip!
It’s been a work week for me. The kind when you have to go somewhere and punch a clock, get a million messy art supplies out, make things, wait forever to eat lunch, run around like a crazy person, and speak nonsensical jabber about the life and times of 5 year olds. So during a week of such nonsense it makes perfect sense that I would paint another picture of not really anything. It’s non-objective, I tell my husband. But there’s fish in it…he thinks…yes, there are fish in there…and that’s why I called it Tank. So maybe it’s abstract…I don’t know – not sure I want to get hung up on such grown up terminology. Look at the pretty colors…look at the diagonal composition….doesn’t it just excite your eyeballs to no end? Me too.
I lost my template that makes perfect trading card size paintings. I am not happy at that. My circle template is taking up some of the slack. Since I can’t paint super tiny (because I only will if the size is perfectly made with my template) then I have to go a bit larger…behold my 4″x6″ new watercolor paintings! What are they? Must you ask….um….well….I don’t know. They’re designs. They have circles and colors that are, if I do say so myself, arranged in dramatic and delightful compositions. There. I explained my art.
Now I will go clean my kitchen and the mess I made butchering my grandmother’s swedish pancake recipe.
Then I will paint some more. It’s my week OFF work after all.
What are you doing this week?
July is here. Time to beat the heat with a little simple pleasure; enjoying the beauty of art! Right now all my original paintings (the actual thing I painted with my hands!) are on sale for 20% off. You don’t need to enter a coupon or anything. It’s already done for you! Everything original – even ACEOs are on sale. Here’s a few things you might find just perfect for your collection:
Not One to Judge - Original ACEO painting on Sale
Storm Lotus - Original 5x7 painting On Sale
Brooch - Original Painting 3.5x5 framed On Sale
Worth the Wait - Original Matted ACEO painting On Sale
Prelude to a Civilization; 1954 Victor Brauner Metropolitan Museum of Art
While in New York, I visited 7 art museums. Each one impressive and interesting and full of surprises. One such surprise came to me at the Metropolitan Museum of Art while wandering their modern collection. In a pretty boring downstairs gallery surrounded by other paintings hangs the painting you see above – quite larger than the others and so bright and whimsical it’s hard to miss. They cleverly placed a bench right in front of it and I felt compelled (and exhausted) enough to sketch some of the little people/creatures I could see as I rested on the bench. I ended up spending a lot of time with this painting and kind of fell in love with it. All the funny little characters are quite adorable, no?
Well, if you don’t think so, you can just stop reading now. I took some notes, snapped some pictures that you see here and went off on my way. At home, I was going through my notebook and came upon my sketches. After a quick internet search I found that there isn’t a ton of info on my new art-love, artist Victor Brauner. His wikipedia page is pretty good – but not very helpful in terms of finding more artworks. Google images doesn’t do too much good either. I guess I will have to keep looking for my mystery man.
The title of this post, “Peindre, c’est la vie, la vraie vie, ma vie” is what is inscribed on Brauner’s tombstone and means, “Painting is life, the real life, my life.” Kind of a beautiful thing to say – he died after what they call “long illness” and that inscription was pulled from his notebook. I think he lived the typical artist’s life with not many great successes, plenty of criticism, not to mention the struggle for survival through two world wars in Europe. If painting is his life than lucky him that he lives forever on the walls of the Met.
Is painting my life? Shrug. It did occur to me that my paintings will live longer than me. Speaking of paintings – here’s one I made on my trip.
I painted this watercolor painting yesterday as a design experiment; no pencil, erasor, etc. I love to make designs, play with color, create random shapes and textures….or maybe it isn’t so random? I like this painting, especially the purple and yellow contrast. I thought to myself…hmmm…where have I seen that before recently? Where was I mentally drooling all over a certain something with those same colors?
It’s simple. Go to my store: www.laurenalexander.etsy.com, and add things to your cart (make an Etsy account if you have to – you won’t regret it) and then when you are checking out there is a place to put in a coupon code. Type in “3Days” and 33% of your total order will come right off! PayPal will take it from there or feel free to send me a check or money order. I am having this big sale before I leave town on Sunday. Everything will ship by Saturday, June 11th!
Little Runaway; 8"x10" original watercolor painting 4-22-11
Here’s a new painting I just finished. I know, it’s kind of weird. Cute bird, alien flower. It’s not for everyone. But I like it. What do you think?
