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 am 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 he/she can look back on this stuff and say to himself/herself “whew! I sure liked these back in the day but now that I’m a better artist I can see that they are 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 a home security monitoring system salesman walking through your neighborhood with his aluminum clipboard and weed vape.

Other than that, you’re on your own.

Couple and Dog (Acrylic on Canvas)

Real Art! It’s not great, but it’s REAL ART! Done by someone trying hard to portray something worth portraying, with a reasonable degree of effort expended. No non-Euclidean geometries, no unwanted blue purple or black, no unpainted canvas left remaining. Compared to the majority of the paintings we see here on a daily basis, the artist is a freaking Rembrandt in the making.

Keep it up, artistic-type person.

Purple / Pink Tree (Acrylic on Canvas)

The Top Three Most Over-Used Colors by Amateur Artists: Blue Purple and Black. Followed closely by Pink, Grey and “Left- Unpainted Canvas White.” Here we have two of the Offending Shades. Sorry but who in their right mind thinks that anything found on Planet Earth looks like this? Holy Smokes!

Forest and Cabin (Acrylic on Canvas)

Grayest patch of woods ever. No redeeming value. This forest needs to catch on fire immediately. Smoky the Bear himself would want to light this sucker up…

Heart Tree (Acrylic on Canvas)

Weak. Strange. Abnormal. Are the leaves falling in this shape? Or are they suspended in mid-air somehow? Cuz there ain’t no branches holding most of them up. I just don’t get it. Nor do I want to…

Two Moose (Acrylic on Canvas)

Who would do such a thing? Why did someone feel that two of these atrocities were needed? This is like…I dunno…cloning Hitler or something. Dang…

By the way: Moose Number One is the 800th painting installed in our little Dante’s Inferno (er um Gallery) of Haphazardly-Painted Canvases (Marvelous Works of Art.) 🎉🥳🎉

Trees and Uplifting Quotation (Acrylic on Canvas)

Too much unpainted canvas, not enough originality. Art is not a billboard.

The tree trunks and branches aren’t bad, I suppose. 

The foliage is though.

Cats in Progress (Acrylic on Canvas)

This is pretty well-executed despite its being incomplete. I sure wish these cats had their eyes though. Creepy!

Young Woman (Acrylic on Canvas)

At first glance this seems kind of…okay. But on closer examination, there’s maaaaybe something up with the profile, specifically the area of it hidden by the lock of hair. I could be wrong. But the idea of it is messing with me a bit. Apart from that, I like it. As usual, I find myself wondering what the story is here. Is this a painting of a real person? Who was she? What was her relationship with the artist? Was there a relationship? Why does she look so upset?

We may never know.

Mermaid (Acrylic on Canvas)

Two mermaid paintings on the same day, but not by the same artist: what are the odds? This one is not so great. Like, realllllly not so great.

C’est la vie…

Mermaids (Acrylic on Canvas)

The underwater flora are…really not bad at all. The mermaids though…whew! They’re pretty rough. Scary even. Me no like…

Still Life (Oil on Canvas)

(Value Village Art Gallery Favorite)

Pretty wonderful: we don’t see nearly enough of these anymore. Workmanly Still Lifes such as this have gone the way of the Dodo, the Phone Booth and the Personal Web Page.

Man but do I love these colors! The table! The background! The banana! The apple! The plum! That freaking plum is the plumest plum that ever plummed a painting.

This was quite old by the way, judging by the state of the back of the canvas and the frame.

The colors, man. The colors!

Flower (Acrylic on Canvas)

Despite the fact that this flower appears to be inexplicably floating in mid-air, I like it! Good job, artiste…

Seattle (Acrylic on Canvas)

I actually really like the cityscape, the tops of the skyscrapers on the horizon with the orange sky behind them really pop. But the water and reflections are pretty awful. Pity…

Tactile Textures (Acrylic on Canvas)

If there’s an identifiable object in either of these paintings, I can’t find it. I think this is just some visible textures on a field consisting of various shades of blue-green. Nondescript, safe, inoffensive, palatable. Will not cause a state of thoughtfulness, introspection or indigestion to occur. (Use only as directed.)

Vivisected Bear (Acrylic on Canvas)

Gimmicky and poorly executed. This much blue, combined with an object in silhouette, is usually the tell-take sign of an amateur artist. I won’t go so far as to call this unimaginative. Instead, I’ll call it ersatz, banal, cloying, feeble, tired, and irksome.

Irksome!

Fireweed? I think? (Acrylic on Canvas)

Horrid. Simply horrid.

I need a vacation…

Tree Ocean Cliff (Acrylic on Canvas)

Why bother?

Seriously: what is the point of this?!?

Holy smokes. Paint something that matters, folks. Something Real and from the Gut. Something! Anything but this…jive…

Jellyfish and Words (Acrylic on Canvas)

It’s been such a long, tough day for Art that I am again going to say that, considering our other installations of late, THIS one isn’t all that bad…

Overly-Colorful Forest (Acrylic on Canvas)

I don’t even know what this is. A skyline made of balloons? Also, we have awful, low-effort birds. The trees look like vines.

I just don’t know anymore man…

“Who Says You Can’t Explore?” (Acrylic on Canvas)

Literally no one says that.

Now “Who says you can’t paint?” Some folks do say that. I happen to be one of them. And I’m saying it right now.

Autumnal Trees (Acrylic on Canvas)

 MY EYES!!! MY EYES!!!

Winter Scene (Acrylic on Canvas)

I’m giving this my best Ignatius J Reilly “Ho hum…”

You’re welcome.

Patterns (Acrylic on Canvas)

Both the same size, sitting right next to one another, and they arrived at VV on the same day. So I’m assuming they’re by the same artist? Our other installations here today are so awful I’m going to say that I like these. No mean review will be forthcoming.

Woman in the Rain in the City x3 (Acrylic on Canvas)

There is no way I am going to waste three reviews on this drivel when one will suffice. Because, believe it or not, I think there’s a chance that these were done by three different people. Maybe? Check it: the buildings are different, the brush strokes are different, etc. I’m thinking (?) that maybe various Paint Night organizers sometimes get stuck with X amount of paintings at the end of a get-together when the perpetrators bail/escape/abscond without their various Objets d’Arte, and they subsequently, periodically ditch them, en mass, at good ol’ VV. Perhaps? Regardless, these are just a few more examples of soulless, heartless, gutless, zipless, pre-fab modular plastic faux-creativity. Pastafazoola!

Flowers (Acrylic on Canvas)

(Take Two): I very seldom give even the worst flower paintings a 100% bad review. But this one managed it: inorganic, unrealistic and borderline demoralizing.

Sorry, I call ‘em the way I see ‘em…

Flowers (Acrylic on Canvas)

 I very seldom give even the worst flower paintings a 100% bad review. But this one managed it: inorganic, unrealistic and borderline demoralizing.

Sorry, I call ‘em the way I see ‘em…

Scooby (Acrylic on Canvas)

If I hadn’t been slacking in such a big way lately and allowing multiple day’s worth of paintings to accumulate for about a week before getting around to installing them, I would say that this is arguably the best painting of the day. If nothing else, it’s the best painting of the next seventeen.

Seine Bridge at Asnieres (Oil on Canvas)

 (Value Village Art Gallery Favorite)

This one made my day. Especially since we’ve gotten so many stinkers lately.

Yes, it’s a copy of Van Gogh’s famous painting. But it isn’t a replica: it’s a “take” on it, a version of it by a real artist, maybe as practice or as tribute or something. And it’s nice I think. Superficial Visual-Appeal-wise, I personally think it’s better than the original. But that’s just me. Since this did not feel like Mass Produced or Chinese-Art-Prison-Factory-type work to me I am including it here as a lovely example of legit Human Personoid Artistic Creativity. And it stays unless or until someone can prove to me that it was mass produced.

Mountain Scene (Paint inside Glass)

This thing is like…hand made / hand painted glass that was fired in a kiln? So there’s paint inside the glass. The purpose? A glass wall hanging maybe? Except there’s no way to hang it. The back had little risers so it could maybe be either a really big coaster or a fairly small trivet. Not sure. Almost no genuine talent was involved here, painting-wise. Sorry. It’s just very very average.

If this was a canvas, I’d be making far more of my usual snide, snarky, unkind comments, trust me.

Gorton’s Fish Sticks Santa (Acrylic on Canvas)

Really really weird. Not simply bad from a painter/artist talent standpoint, but also just really…weird. I don’t know what to make of it. I’m simply flummoxed!

Abstract (Acrylic on Canvas)

They’re okay. A little washed-out looking. But maybe that was the intent.

I don’t absolutely hate these. So…nice work!

Mountain Scene (Acrylic on Canvas)

Very very ordinary. This is yet another trite, dull, heartless, soulless, spiritless, gutless painting of the type that so frequently gets deposited in the VV donation bin. Does that sound mean? Sorry. Stuff like this is just…a waste of good paint in my opinion. Paint something Real. From the Gut next time.

The mountain? It’s really abrupt. Unnaturally stark. And the trees? They feel rather like…umm…what was the name of that chill 70s dude with the perm? The guy who painted Happy Trees. Ron Popeil? These trees feel like they were done after watching a bunch of his programs. They’re not awful. They’re just…there.

Some Kinda Furshlugginer Cartoon Strip (Acrylic on Canvas)

No snark will be forthcoming. And to the little dude or little dudette (or mentally challenged person) responsible for this: you just keep onnnnn painting my friend :)