The World’s Least Safe Tree Swings

Thing One and Thing Two. Ala some ill-advised Cracker Barrel Paint Night maybe? All I know is that in the world of Real Gravity, rope doesn’t behave like we see it doing in Painting #2. And if you try swinging on either of these swings, you are without a doubt gonna fall and break your coccyx. Who could have even climbed out far enough onto those spindly branches to tie ropes onto them in the first place?

Green. Gray. Pink. Black. Whew. 

(Untitled)

I don’t even think this is paint. Colored pens or markers perhaps?

Whatever it is, it’s not entirely without merit. Just mostly so.

Dendrite Tree and Moon Doing Something

This is why the Value Village Art Gallery exists: not enough skill to be a good painting, not enough lack of skill to be a bad painting. This painting is just…there. But: it is cartoony in a cool kind of way. If this was something else I’d like it more.

Onion Colander

(Value Village Art Gallery Favorite)

Two things: 1) I learned how to spell “colander” today (it only has one “L”) and 2) these onions look more like onions than Van Gogh’s apples in “Still Life with Basket of Apples” look like apples. Marie: we salute you. Hopefully you’re still alive :)

Eyeball Fire Plant

 

I think this is facing the right way but I won’t swear to it.

Eagle and Transmission Fluid” (something on Canvas)

Lose the eagle and we’ve got something here. I’m not sure exactly what that something is, but we’ve got it. The eagle is like an afterthought. I don’t know what that’s all about. “Caw CAW!!!”

“Ocean and Boulders” (acrylic on canvas)

The boulders are really not good. But I actually like some of this. You can tell exactly what it’s supposed to be. That’s half the battle I think. The poop boulders are a problem for sure though.

“Fur Tree and Weird Trails” (acrylic on canvas)

My first comment was “The sky isn’t awful…” But it is, isn’t it? I guess what I meant was that the sky looks more like what it’s supposed to be than anything else here does. It’s a toss up between the sky and the tree on the left (which is a better tree than I could paint): it’s recognizably a tree, just not a very happy one. It’s a middle-aged, balding, paunchy tree; a tree that is contemplating its wasted life; a life cluttered with infidelities, capitulations, cowardice, prevarications and lies to oneself. No, this is not a happy tree at all.

“Mushrooms and Furry Tree” (acrylic on canvas)

I just don’t know…

Addendum, postscript, whatever: Blue and Purple, man: get used to seeing it. Blue and Purple is the Universal Language of bad paintings in my book. But consider these disheartening growths in the foreground…these…nightmarish toadstools…that have poisoned my eyeball holes. Brown and white. Brown. And white. What. The. Fuck. 

“Ocean View” (acrylic on canvas)

(Value Village Art Gallery Favorite)

I liked this one so much I bought it. Nothing to make fun of here. I’d be interested in seeing more from this person.

“Horses Amid a Conflicted Sky” (acrylic on canvas)

The starless section of sky isn’t totally awful. And I like what the trees are doing: I just don’t like how they look while they’re doing it.

“Aurora Whale” (acrylic on canvas)

No comment.

Sorry, I’ve changed my mind: burn this immediately.