Cityscape (Oil on Canvas)

 (Value Village Art Gallery Favorite)

This is an oldie I think, judging by the condition of the canvas, the back, and the frame itself. Guessing 1970s or older? Maybe? I could be wrong though. It’s not like a Carbon-14 dated it or anything.

Regardless, this is really really great work. It feels…unconventional and vaguely 1920s Mexican to me. Cluttered. Like a Diego Rivera. But what the hell do I know? I just work here.

We are proud to have you here with us Bobby.

Love (Acrylic on Wood Plank)

River: you did so great! This looks wonderful 🙂

(I don’t give kids the usual treatment.) 

Black Plant (Acrylic on Canvas)

Weird black plant or tree with weird black leaves. No idea what that is all about or why it even exists. Which is probably why it wound up at Value Village: someone else felt the same way I bet…

Flowers (Acrylic on Canvas)

We seem to have a lot of really not very good flower paintings lately. It’s puzzling. I kind of like flower paintings myself. But this shit seriously tests my patience.

Do better, flower painters!

Birds and Branch (Acrylic on Canvas)

I see so many paintings like this. I mean sooooo many. They all generally look like what the artist wanted them to look like, I guess, so you could call them good paintings in that respect. But…you look at them and all the other paintings so very like them and you wonder…why. Like why?

Just…why? 

Paint Spatters (Acrylic on Canvas)

As these things go, this one isn’t bad.

Seriously: it really is kind of difficult to make intentional/deliberate paint spatters/splatters appear to be convincingly-randomly spaced/colored/sized/shaped etc.

Not that I like this. Nope nope nope. I am not a fan of this Pollack-y stuff. Way too Modern for me.

The world started going downhill sometime around 1913.  

Water Lily (Acrylic on Canvas)

The Water Lily itself is actually pretty good, considering. As is the semi-Impressionist reflection of it in the water.

The rest of this (i.e. the background, those strange branches, etc)? 

Not so much.

However: you have my permission to keep painting, my friend 🤨

Sunflower (Acrylic on Canvas)

I like well-done paintings of flowers. I even sometimes like extreme amateur flower paintings, if they show some grit and spunk and guts. I very seldom give a flower painting a bad review.

This one is slightly better than the very worst one in this gallery. Slightly. The one thing it has going for it is that there are some reasonably-conscientious Sunflower details here.

Soooo…keep trying my friend. “It Gets Better.”

Cherry Blossoms and Lanterns (Acrylic on Canvas)

One of the better ones. I guess…

I’m installing 14 paintings today and this is in the top three or so. 

There are two others that are arguably as good as (or possibly better than) this one, and one that obviously blows everyone else away. See if you can can figure out which three I’m talking about 😬

(Postscript: my reviews will give it away. I’m so dumb…)

Sunset on Water (Acrylic on Canvas)

On my “one to ten” scale, with one being “please throw acid in my eyes” and ten being “I want to have this painting’s baby”, this is a solid number two.

Get it?

Patio Lights (Acrylic on Canvas)

The lights themselves and the cord they are attached to are actually pretty good. Except that, towards the middle and then further back, they seem (?) to be defying the Law of Gravity.

The rest of this? Feh! Too much purple and pink. Static and dimensionless railing. Are those mountains or clouds in the background? Those purple things I mean. If they’re mountains, they don’t seem to be attached to the ground. If they’re clouds, they are way too uniform. Whew!

I think it was Rembrandt who said “Decent LED lighting does not a good painting make”

Mountain Range (Acrylic on Canvas)

Remarkably uninteresting…

do what YOU LOVE (Acrylic on Canvas)

Not very good: trite sentiments, strange black flowers, inconsistent text (cursive and print, lower case and upper case) and too much blue, purple and pink. 

(For more information on the “Six ‘No-Nos’ for Amateur Artists”, see literally every eighth or ninth review here. Gadzooks!

Me? I love writing mean reviews of demonstrably-bad paintings. So we’re good, right?

Bore Tide (Acrylic on Canvas)

Well. You learn something now every day. I’d never heard of a bore tide until today and one of the most impressive ones in the world is right here in Alaska. Very interesting!

This painting, on the other hand, is not…

 

Landscape (Oil on Canvas)

(Value Village Art Gallery Favorite)

Sorry about the frame shadow along the top 😬

I love this! Also, I am almost certain that there is another of Mae Krum’s works installed here in our gallery somewhere. We are proud to have her. She is what I believe Amateur Art should be about: people doing their best and painting things that matter, whether the mattering is subtle or profound, simple or complex, quiet or loud. 

Is the worst real Landscape ever painted more important than the best Pokémon or Troll or Olaf ever painted? You bet your ASS it is!

Going by the condition of the canvas I’d say this is an old one, 1970s or 1980s I’m guessing? Also the signature: people don’t sign their paintings this beautifully anymore. Often a “signature” nowadays amounts to a series of initials, a two-digit year and a symbol of some kind. More like a serial number or product ID than a signature. Pfft. Anyway…

Here’s hoping that Mae is still with us and fighting the good fight. It’s pretty doubtful though, honestly. I can find no reference to her online. Which isn’t a good sign. I’m thinking she’s Pre-Internet.

Wherever you are Mae: we are proud to have your work on display here…

A Smurf or Skeletor of Some Kind (Arylic on Glass)

If you’re going to paint a cartoon character and you don’t want a snarky review of your work, do something to ensure that it will never ever ever eventually wind up at Value Village. Okay? Maybe just burn it after you’re done with it? Or (in this case) dash it into a few hundred pieces, sweep it into a dustpan, and dispose of it safely in a small box or bag that is clearly marked “BROKEN GLASS!!!” at the transfer site. Cuz pally if you don’t, then your artwork is fair game up in here. Capische?

Now on to the review:

This sucks…

Dragonflies (Acrylic on Canvas)

Three of the six usual tell-tale signs of the Amateur Artist are present here: blue, purple and pink. I suppose this could be considered as being practice but honestly I see so much of this stuff that it is sometimes just plain disheartening.

Folks. Please: paint something worth painting. Even if you do it badly, it’ll mean so more than this…heartless, harmless, soulless, gutless, pointless, thoughtless extruded slurry of cloned jive.

Northern Lights (Acrylic on Canvas)

I think the ratio of bad Northern Lights paintings to good Northern Lights paintings here is probably something like 12 to 1. Possibly 15 to 1.

Care to take a guess where this one falls?

Lake Scene (Acrylic on Canvas)

There was a time when this painting would have been granted immediate “Value Village Art Gallery Favorite” status. But that time is long past. While this painting is very good and is certainly in the top ten percent of the paintings here when it comes to talent and effort displayed, it isn’t a “favorite.” The style of it is that which I have come to think of as being…well…there’s no nice way to say this…SLIMY. It just feels slimy, gelatinous, and oily. Viscous. Unpleasantly so. The colors are too rich somehow. I can’t explain it. Anyway, this is a really nicely-done painting that I would not want hanging on any wall in my home. Sorry.

Dog (Acrylic on Canvas)

This is one of those canvas painting boards with a picture already drawn on it. Kind of like a “paint by numbers” kit but for little kids. If we couldn’t see the lines, this one would be marginally interesting in a Primitive / Outsider Art kind of way. But…