Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Unlikely Tree (Acrylic on Canvas)


Technically proficient: it looks exactly like what it’s supposed to be, right? But dig: paradoxically, I’m gonna call a painting of a tree with purple leaves unimaginative. Here we’ve got gray, black and purple. Sure, it’s a night painting. But come on! Gaze at this thing for too long while thinking intently about it and you will find that some of your Joi de Vivre has been dissipated. That’s the opposite of what Art is supposed to do. Someone drive a stake through this thing quick. Damn.

Saturday, January 20, 2024

No idea whatsoever (Acrylic on Canvas)

No idea if this is facing the right way, or what this even is. If it’s Planet Earth, I can’t find any clearly-identifiable continents. This thing hurts my eyes. I’m glad it’s unsigned. I almost didn’t include it.
 

Saturday, January 13, 2024

Spare Change (Acrylic on Canvas)

Happy 100th exhibit, folks!

Honestly I don’t know what this is but as I was trying to come up with a clever name for it I realized it looks a bit like a quarter nickel dime and penny. 

Not my cup of tea: too modern for my taste and far too bland color-wise but eh: to each his (or her) own.

If this was done free hand, the artist made far better circles than I ever could have. I have shaky hands.

Anyway, it’s been a nice Centennial. Here’s looking forward to our Bicentennial. Onward and upward! I’ll randomly insert one of my own misconceived, ill-advised paintings sometime in the next year and we’ll see if anyone can figure out which one it is. 

By the way: I painted a tree (three actually) last night that didn’t make me want to kick the legs out from under my easel and throw my paints down an elevator shaft. Progress!

 

Ship and Islands (Acrylic on Canvas)


Not the worst we’ve seen. Far from it. Not the best, obviously. The artist put in some actual effort though, which is definitely appreciated. More time could’ve been spent on the ship perhaps. I like the clouds. The sky is the standard weak muddled sky I see on a lot of these amateur paintings but there’s enough here that’s fun, interesting and reasonably decent for me to say “Keep it up, JJ!” DY-NO-MITE!!!

Saturday, January 6, 2024

Gated Garden (Acrylic on Canvas)

(Value Village Art Gallery Favorite)

As mentioned earlier, this is the second painting in the same day that is…so good…that I wondered if it wasn’t from Wayfair dot com, or from some Chinese prisoner-staffed painting factory. But dig the signature: what Wayfair painting would have a signature that looks like the logo for Toys R Us? Unless this is the world’s best “paint by numbers” kit, it has 100% got to be what it seems to be: a really nice painting by a legit amateur human being person-type artist guy. BAteMAN: we salute you!

Beach Scene (Acrylic on Canvas)


(Value Village Art Gallery Favorite)

Two in a row today that are so interesting and of such quality that I found myself wondering if they might not be mass-produced. When in doubt, I go by the quality of canvas (poor) and what’s on the back (paint mess.) This, to me, I think is just a really nice, genuine amateur artwork. Barney, I’m here to tell you: you kick all SORTS of ass, mah brutha…