Faces (Acrylic on Canvas Board)

 (Value) Village Art Gallery Favorite

Holy Smokes!!! What in the world have I happened upon here? These four paintings were at Value Village yesterday and I was just THUNDERSTRUCK by how cool they are and by the degree of talent being exemplified. Dig it: do you have any freaking idea how easy it would have been for your typical artist to have done something like these things badly? Do you? Either too cutesy or too scary or too ineptly? Because I can tell you that I see bad art reminiscent of this vibe quite a lot: semi Keene-like, semi Bratz doll / Blythe doll / Monster High doll-like, semi Mark Ryden-ish. But to have done it well, really well, as these things are? And as (apparently? possibly? maybe?) actual portraits of real people? Whew…

DRS: what a pleasure it was for me to have found these paintings of yours before they were snapped up. The (V)VAG is honored to have your paintings on display here. Keep up the good work :)

Castle (Acrylic on Canvas)

It’s certainly colorful, I’ll give it that much. And while it’s just not very important or profound or umm very encouraging that the viewer reflect on the sublime, for what it IS, it is actually reasonably well done. It almost certainly looks like what the artist wanted it to look like.

The end.

Posing Nudes (Acrylic on Canvas)

(Value) Village Art Gallery Favorite

Hayden! My dude/dudette! You and a certain other artist whose work I am about to install have MADE MY DAY. Good work my friend! It is a pleasure to include your work here at the illustrious (Value) Village Art Gallery. Why these wonderful paintings of yours wound up at Value Village is a real head scratcher…

Woods Road (Acrylic on Canvas)

Weird grey road, weird grey trees and treeline. But: the sky is actually kind of nice. 

I wonder why the artist’s name was removed? The painting isn’t THAT bad…

Cacti (Acrylic on Canvas)

As previously (and oft!) mentioned, I am not a fan of left-unpainted canvas. Otherwise this is a fairly decent looking cactus. I had to do a double-take though since I installed another cactus earlier today and was worried that I was posting it a second time. This one is much better though.

Marbleized Canvas (Latex Paint on Canvas)

Another one of the furshlugginer things?!? Potrzebie!

Cattle (Acrylic on Canvas)

We’ve got a very weird choice of colors here: pale green and pale pink. Along with an anti-silhouette (white instead of black) which is something we don’t often see. Some of the pink blobs look like hearts, but some don’t.

This thing is inscrutable.

Landscape (Acrylic on Canvas)

Weird spirally trees. Like those spiral cut potatoes on sticks you can buy at the Fair. But: there’s no blue purple black grey or white involved. So that’s something. This is a nice solid 3 on my “Artistic Merit One to Ten” Scale. 

Birch Trees (Acrylic on Canvas)

Soooo many birch trees in our gallery. Like so so so many. And so much blue. It’s exhausting. 

Hockey (Acrylic on Canvas)

I’m betting this actually looks like what the artist wanted it to look like. It’s not bad. It just has the feel of a selfie, like so many Amateur Artist paintings do nowadays. Nothing to really complain about here. It’s a painting.

Flowers (Watercolor on Paper)

It’s rather nice.

Seriously!

Birch Trees (Acrylic on Canvas)

(It’s a bad sign when you can’t tell if a painting of trees is upside-down or not. Pretty sure this is facing the right way but 🤷‍♂️)

Also: we have waaaay too many paintings of birch trees in this here dang ol’ dang ol’ gallery.

Camera (Pen and Ink on Parchment)

Ginormous hands on tiny wrists. And the camera aperture looks like a sphincter.

I’m assuming the index finger is done like that in order to convey a sense of motion? The only other explanation is that we have a hand with six or seven fingers on it. Egad!

Sunset Dance (Acrylic on Canvas)

Only one of my “Tell-Tale Signs of an Amateur Artist” is present here, which is Things in Silhouette. Apart from that (and these people’s rather wonky legs), this isn’t bad. It’s kind of appealing, actually.

Octopus (Acrylic on Canvas)

This is really pretty good. These are some confident brush strokes and these are some fairly good colors in the water. The octopus itself looks natural. I would have preferred for the water to go all the way to the edge of the canvas though: unpainted canvas bugs me.

Still, nice work!

Dog (Acrylic on Canvas)

This is so amateurish and rough that it’s actually sort of interesting. Not sure how that works: it’s just the way I see it. This could’ve been much better though…

Swan (Oil on Canvas)

The neck reflection in the water isn't so great. And the water itself is kind of low effort. But this all somehow manages to come together and make for a fairly decent painting. It feels…real. Legitimate. Authentic. It’s not great, but it’s definitely pretty good 👍 

Flower and Ladybug (Acrylic on Canvas)

I swear I think I’ve seen this painting, or one very much like it, here before.

If this winds up being an identical duplicate (like when the same exact painting winds up at Value Village more than once, months or years later) I’ll have it removed.

But if this is just another version of the exact same scene, it stays.

Postscript: Son of a Bitch!!! I was right!!!: https://valuevillageartgallery.blogspot.com/2025/01/ladybug-acrylic-on-canvas.html?m=1

Marbleized Canvas (Latex Paint on Canvas)

Boy I’m really kinda tired of these things.

This is a nice one, but I’m still just not a fan…

Christmas Snoopy (Acrylic on Canvas)

I eventually figured out what this was supposed to be but honest to God for about a week I thought Snoopy’s snoot was bandaged for some reason.

There is a lot to dislike here. We have one of the most recognizable comic and cartoon characters of the 21st Century and he’s…all wrong. Check out his ear. It looks like a tie! His eye! It’s all wrong. His body is wrong: his stomach and legs/feet are without any depth or detail. And the roof of his doghouse has no slats!

Otherwise, it’s perfect!