Four Pin Friday ~ OMG!!!

Just discovered a contemporary artist I have fallen in love with.  Where have I been!?

Here are a few of many paintings from Kelly Reemtsen.

 

She is best known for her bright and bold paintings of women carrying household tools such as chainsaws or axes. Her work often investigates the role of the modern woman, deconstructing societal perceptions of gender, power and femininity. Reemtsen's paintings are characterized by their thick impasto, stark white backgrounds and anonymous figures. Her most recent body of work explores the idea of breaking the metaphorical glass ceiling, often featuring female figures climbing on objects like chairs or ladders. 

Olga Suvorova ~ Russian Artist Extraordinaire

 

Olga Suvorova/ Ольга Суворова is an acclaimed Russian Master. She was born in 1966 in St. Petersburg. Olga Suvorova has created her own style of painting – lifestyle portraits of costumed characters in the interiors of different epochs. Her work is a nostalgia for the St. Petersburg “World of Art” movement with its retrospective and love of the 18th century. Olga is the daughter of the Honored Artist of the RSFSR Igor Suvorov. She graduated from the Academy of Arts of Ilya Repin in 1988. . Her paintings of the players in "Comedia de arte" have a haunting quality that sets her apart from the many young talented artists emerging from the Institute. Recently she has produced a series of magnificently detailed screens which have been widely praised and collected. She also paints portraits and landscapes. Olga has exhibited in Italy, Germany, Sweden, Finland, France, Britain, Ireland, China, and the USA where her work is in many collections.

I do love her style . . . filling the canvas with the intricacies that can take some time to view and appreciate every stroke of her brush.

I didn't even know this was a thing

 Apparently this has been going on for a long time.  

Mona Lisa Reimagined

and then there is Mona and Friends

I cracked up when this came up on Pinterest. There are hundreds of images of Mona Lisa reliving her everyday life on the pages of my favorite go to internet time waster! 

Cecelia Beaux ~ Impressionist

 From humble beginnings painting on fine China and drawing fossils for a geological survey, Philadelphian artist Cecilia Beaux became a prominent portraitist. Her personal style, which combined solid academic training with an experimental streak, was sought after by prominent figures such as American president Theodore Roosevelt and French prime minister Georges Clemenceau. Beaux’s portraits are appropriately stately and serious, but also capture the sitter’s individuality.

Beaux was wildly successful during her day, despite early struggles during her studies at the Académie Julian in Paris. “You know how I hate to fail,” she wrote in a letter at the time. “My grip is pretty hard as a rule.” Beaux made eight trips to France, beginning at the height of the Impressionist movement, and there, she developed the habit of painting en plein air, using loose brushwork and dramatically cropping paintings. 

Another in my series of great female artists that haven't gotten the recognition they deserve.

Cecelia Beaux 1855~1942

 

Four Pin Friday Artwork I Love

 On a snowy April day, Pinterest is getting a workout on my computer!  Looking for inspiration, I found these gorgeous paintings on wood panels

They look as if they were broken off an old weathered fence.  The colors are so rich over the wood grain.

Love it ♥!

Collage Artist Extrordinaire!

The last few years, I have been dabbling with paper collaging and love this form of art. Pinterest has exposed me to a truly great artist in this form of creativity.  Usually when I post unknown and unrecognized women artists, they are from the distant past. Kanchan is working today and putting out these gorgeous pieces . . . 

Kanchan Mahon is a self-taught artist using the medium of hand-cut paper collage.

Her art is quixotic, vibrant and otherworldly. Images are combined with intricate pattern, rich texture.

The qualities and concepts embodied by butterflies, flowers and birds infuse these pieces with the rich symbolism of the natural world. These women dream of flight, like the birds they see, They long for change and to transform themselves, as do moths and butterflies. There is a flowering of self.

In these couplings of myth and psyche, her art celebrates the loveliness and liveliness of women. She calls these images of vivid color and intricate detailed patterns “Dream Images.”

Struggles

Some may call it a waste of time, but when time is all you have, you fill it with the most mundane of inessential goofing off.  Over the years I have admired the works in "Galloping Pony Studio" (check it out on Pinterest) and the way Virginia Cole adds bits of quilt pieces, buttons, quotes, sayings, etc to her collages. I especially like the little Dresden plate pieces and wanted to replicate them in miniature as she does.

At first I tried making paper patterns of what I thought would work for the pieces it takes to build the plates . . . big mistake!  After spending nearly a day trying to figure that out (with the help of the internet), I gave up and ordered Marti Michell PERFECT PATCHWORK TEMPLATES.  Just exactly what I wanted to make a 3.5" plate.

The first one I struggled through didn't turn out the way I really wanted . . .

 I ended up having to glue the center down over the wonky petals.  Not at all happy.  But I have plenty of time as I said.

As always happens, you learn from the first try and, if you are as stubborn as this blogger, you try again.

Better . . . much better.  This time I made a little yo yo, turned it upside down and glued it in place.

Then I looked closer at the Pinterest offerings from Virginia's site and saw that she made another Dresden plate pattern than the one I had been struggling with.

What a difference the pointed petal made to save time (although I have plenty of that) and picky picky work forming the curves.  This one went together so quickly, I feel like I have to make more of them.

Although there were more petals in this version it was so much easier to turn each one. The next one will look even better!!

These were made from the tiny pieces of vintage fabric I have been collecting for years. It's a small thing, but I feel I have accomplished something new for myself.  

I 

Four Pin Friday ~ Olga Boznanska Impressionest

 Polish painter Olga Boznańska (April 15, 1865 - October 26, 1940) was a notable female painter in Poland and Europe and was stylistically associated with the French impressionism. Boznańska was born in Kraków during foreign partitions of Poland. She was the daughter of a railway engineer, Adam Nowina Boznański, and Eugenia née Mondan. Boznańska learned drawing first with Józef Siedlecki and Kazimierz Pochwalski locally.

Another in the series of female artists we should know and give attention to.

Seed Packet Art

Years ago I posted seed packet art to "My Pictures".  Back then I didn't know how to make folders or had the sense to name each posting.  Having time on my hands now, I've gone through my photos and pictures to label them and make some sense of organization.

I believe these wonderful vintage seed packets were found originally on the Smithsonian website.  Here are a smattering of the ones that drew my attention . . .

I've used some in my collages, ATCs, greeting cards and glue book, and just enjoy looking at the art work going back into the 1800s and early 1900s.

Sally Rosenbaum Artist

Sally Rosenbaum is a resident of northern California in the beautiful Napa Valley Wine Country. Her work portrays the moments in time that we treasure and enjoy most.

'One of my greatest joys regarding my work is to know that it finds a home and it becomes a part of a family or an individual's visual memory. If it can cause you to pause and reflect on the richness of life, then I am thrilled.'

Sally Rosenbaum studied fine art at UC BERKELEY where she received a BA in fine art. She went on to receive a masters in Art education and elementary education.

I love her looseness of brush and color pallet.  The subjects talk to me and remind me that summer is coming, flowers will be blooming, and I will be able to sit outside with a glass of wine and a good book again