Gazebo (Acrylic on Canvas)

I’m not a fan of the color pallet (green and purple/pink? ugh!) but this is pretty good otherwise. Not great, just…good. 

Ocean Waves and Beach (Acrylic on Canvas)

Impressionist-y but with like almost zero effort I think? Really underwhelming. Sorry :/

Watermelon (Acrylic on Canvas)

 Tedious. Verrrry tedious.

Mountain Sun (Acrylic on Canvas)

I can’t think of anything nice to say about this. Except that, if you squint, it kind of looks like…a hamburger?

Particoloured Eye (Acrylic on Canvas)

Pretty uninteresting. Also there are the colors, awful black butterflies, and weird blue FASD corner eye droop to contend with. 

The coup de grâce? There’s too much white canvas left remaining. I hate that…

 

Something (Something on Something)

This thing was shrink-wrapped but appeared to be real amateur Art. It is far too weird to be a print or lithograph or anything done professionally by any stretch of the imagination. If someone has an idea of what the hell this is supposed to be, I’d love it if you clued me in.

Landscape and Building (Watercolor on Parchment)

I like it.

While Comparisons are Odious, the bold lines of that rope in the right foreground feel a bit Van Gogh-like. Nice moody colors, confident composition. I wish we could read the signature. Suedely? Smalley? Sally? Not really sure…

Turtle-Turkey-Peacock (Acrylic on Canvas)

Not sure what it is, but it’s not bad. It’s bold, confident and seemingly not trying too hard to be weird in a “look at me look at me” kind of way. The colors and lines are assertive. Cartoony. Despite how absurd this thing is, it came rather close to being a (Value) Village Art Gallery Favorite. Keep at it, Shel :)

Marbleized Art (Acrylic or Latex or Something on Canvas)

Today I have decided that, henceforth, I’m no longer going to install any of these marbleized thingies into the (V)VAG. You wanna know why? Because in my mind they are all starting to run together. No pun intended. Seriously. The second one (see above) was looking so familiar that I had to go back through a few hundred installations to make sure this hadn’t already been added a few months or years ago. It’s a problem. You might be surprised to hear it, but in regard to these little objets d’arte: “Sometimes They Come Back” (shudder!) It is true! There have been at least two occasions when I found the same painting at VV twice, months and months apart. When (apparently? I would assume?) someone bought it on a whim, then realized they made a terrible terrible mistake, and re-donated it right back to the Flying Dutchman of Art that is (Value) Village.

Anyway. 👀 Feast Your Eyes 👀 on the last oil-slick-looking paintings you will ever find here again. I promise!

Retrospective (Acrylic on Canvas and Canvas Board)

So. While I didn’t check for signatures on the backs of all of these, I did check most of them and I’m confident that these are all by the same person. I’m not blown away by them but I’m definitely not horrified by them either: what I see here is some generic and fairly low-effort / low-creativity art that honestly shows promise. If this person keeps at it, one day he or she will get to a point where they can look back on this stuff and say to themself “whew! I sure liked these back in the day but now that I’m a better artist I can see that they’re pretty weak.”

Keep up the good work, Chagall…

Flowers in Vase (Acrylic on Canvas)

I fully intended (like, fulllllly intended) to give this one a double-barrel of my usual snarky, Seinfeld-y and almost entirely mean-spirited reviews. But then I decided that this person just might’ve been trying his or her best. And since no gnomes, Northern Lights, Birch Trees or Mountain Scenes were involved, wellll I guess I just don’t feel like being mean. Or not very mean, at least.

Artist: moving forward, use less (much less) blue, pink and/or purple when painting. Even if you’re painting something that actually IS blue pink or purple. Those three colors are the Unholy Trinity of Bad Painting. Avoid them as you would a relative wanting to borrow money, or the alarm company salesman walking through your neighborhood with his aluminum clipboard.

Other than that, you’re on your own.