Day 21 - Rabbit ears

 Following the theme of yesterday's painting - a shameless visual idiom, I give you Rabbit Ears :)  Don't you just love that vintage TV?  The color of the glass tho... ♥♥♥

Is it nostalgia or has product design become less interesting?  The lines, shapes and colors of everyday, useful things from the 50's ad 60's, like tape dispensers tvs, cars and telephones attract me over and over. There is a solid and natural quality that felt good in your hands, and pleasing to the eyes. Or maybe it's just me.. :)

Regardless, a rabbit on a vintage TV speaks of time past when TV's needed big antennas and took up undeniable space <3

Rabbit Ears, oil on gessoboard, 11"x14", click here to purchase

Day 14 of t he 30 in 30 - How About a Nice Cup of Tea?

Ah, Alice In Wonderland.  A fantastical story, maybe about growing up... maybe just an escape into temporary madness...  The lure of this story to audiences all over the world may very well be the sheer insanity of it all.  None of it makes much sense, fear often plays a role and all of the characters are ludicrous in some way.  But now that the real world seems to take on these characteristics more often, I wonder how much of an escape this story is!  None the less, I have a thing for painting rabbits right now and the March Hare is likely one of the most famous rabbits there is (Peter Rabbit a close contender).  How I didn't yet think of painting a Hare in a Teacup yet is actually a bit surprising. :)  Well, now I did.... In this painting, my rendition of the famous March Hare sits expectantly in his Drink Me tea cup.. Perhaps he is waiting for his unbirthday to begin?  Perhaps we are late for a very important date?

Also, see below for a sneak peak at how this could look in your house... :)

How About a Nice Cup of Tea?, Oil, 11"x14", Click here to purchase

This painting is not yet framed, but could be framed just like this, which would show well in many different types of decor.  It is pictured here in a Farmhouse styled kitchen :)

If you want to know more about framing, please contact me at karenlyn1772@gmail.com

Day 9 of the 30 in 30 - Carrot Soup

 Had to kick off Monday, which is usually serious and somewhat daunting, with a light-hearted, whimsical concoction of seeming nonsense! :) As I mentioned in a recent post, I love to put together unrelated things to see what kind of story I can tell, and this was just exactly one of those kinds of paintings.  I absolutely love when paintings happen like this, and even more tickled when they somehow 'work'.  I'm not entirely sure how or why, but to me, this one works.  Why do roller skates on the bottom of a soup can with a tiny rabbit and carrot on top make sense?  I don't know but, they do, and now you have caught a glimpse inside of my brain. :)

I have taught art to children ages 6-18 and the biggest setback and difficulty I findis that most people tend to censor themselves when they are trying to come up with ideas for what they will next create.  People tell themselves "this is stupid", "its already been done", "I can't possibly do that", I don't know how, or that doesn't make sense.  And then they believe that B.S...  Here is the secret, most important piece of advice I can give you if you are an artist struggling with ideas.  Don't Censor Yourself.  If you are sitting in front of a blank canvas and have convinced yourself that you have no ideas, you most likely don't realize that you are actually censoring yourself unconsciously.  In reality, hundreds of ideas probably were bubbling up, but possibly before you barely caught sight of them, your mean old ego smacked them back down into the recesses of your imagination under the pretense of one of those lies I stated above.  

One of the most important gifts I have given myself as an artist was permission to let my ideas flow, no matter how strange, impossible or improbable they seem.  If my brain thought it, then it is a true expression of me, and who am I to censor it?  And even better, maybe the ideas that surface in my mind's eye are a true expression of a larger creative consciousness of which I am able to access, just because I listen and don't censor.  (wouldn't that be cool?)

Carrot Soup, 9"x12", oil, to purchase click here

So this post became a lot more personal than I thought it would.  I thought it was going to be silly and kind of funny. But I am very serious when I say that the best thing you can do for yourself as an artist is to believe in the ideas you have and allow them to come without censoring them.. follow them and explore where they take you. I promise you, you will never lack for ideas again!

Namaste and Carrot Soup.  

Please see below for a recipe for real Carrot Soup which  looks simply divine!

Day 4 of the 30 in 30

Good morning! I'll hop right to this one... :)  About a month ago, the image of 3 wolves came into my head and wouldn't leave me alone. I had to paint it... It was a painting of healing and strength, 2 things I was needing to contemplate.  After painting that painting, I immediately had the image of 3 hares come into my head, and like the wolves, they aren't leaving me alone either.  And that is how this painting came about. I'm not sure what these guys represent, or why some images just won't leave me alone, but the number 3 is very important in art.  For instance, if you have the choice of having 3 items in a still life or 4, which do you think most artists would choose? To read more about the ubiquitous number 3, check out this article.  

I have also been experimenting with mediums lately and in this painting, I used an oil based primer made by Zinsser and tinted it with my oil paints to do an under painting.  I know, this may sound outside of the box... but I am in the mood to play and have read a lot about artists' love for Zinsser.  I've experimented with it before and do agree, there is something about it worth exploring.  Plus I am looking to achieve a certain atmospheric effect that the zinsser underpainting seems to benefit.. 

Splitting Hares underpainting

But the Zinsser has a very matte finish, and I didn't quite want that.  So, after this dried (in about an hour - the zinsser dries fast!) I coated it with my medium (linseed oil, stand oil and gamsol) and finished it off. Now that I look back at this earlier stage of the painting, I wish I would have kept some of the looseness, but on the other hand, I wanted the rabbits faces to have more realism. Here is the finished painting :)  

Splitting Hares, 10"x10", oil, 

to purhase, please click here

Day 25 of the 30 in 30 - "A Good Attitude"

Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while you wait.  This golden Labrador retriever is definitely practicing patience... Just don't ask how I got her to pose long enough to paint this picture... All I can say is that some dogs have patience in spades...  :)
For purchasing details, please click on the link under the picture.

A Good Attitude, oil, 8"x8", to purchase click here