Acrylic Paintings

Artists Describing Their Art:

Karin Neuvirth - Artist: Karin Lynn Neuvirth - Expressionistic Palette Knife Paintings I grew up on a farm in Southern Minnesota where the winters were always difficult for me. The cold grey days took a toll on my mood and definitely influenced my color palette. I have always been drawn to things with vibrant contrasting colors. These bright colors, (especially the warmer ones) always brighten my mood. I exaggerate the colors in my landscapes in attempt to simulate an oasis in a crazy world. I do most of my work with a palette knife. I begin my paintings with an abstract, colorful under-painting which will direct the entire piece. As I begin to work in the details of the painting, the subject will slowly emerge, leaving a certain level of abstraction which gives a sense of spontaneity. I try to paint a small painting every day and post them to my daily painting blog

Laurie Macmillan - Born in Greece, and having also lived in Israel and Nicaragua as a young child, I never felt as if I belonged in the Illinois of my childhood. I was irresistibly drawn to the West, where spaces were large and choices were expansive. To me, that landscape was exotic, and the geology was fascinating. I was also driven to explore the world. In 1973 I visited several third world nations and saw horribly overcrowded slums, realizing then that overpopulation was the world's worst problem. Travel was my focus for thirty years, along with hiking in the jagged, dramatic mountains of California's eastern Sierra. Now, painting has become my new travel, and an even more rewarding path to discovery. Although largely self-taught, I attended a weekly abstract painting workshop for several years, and have participated in numerous other workshops. Probably the artistic movement that has influenced me the most is abstract expressionism, and I love its depictions of pure energy. Tonalist paintings have always appealed to me; realism does not. I'm most interested in the play between color, texture and shape, and I paint with both ends of the brush, a palette knife, combs, sponges, seed pods ...

Linda Paul - Artists Statement" When asked 'What is your favorite painting', I always say, 'the next one I am going to paint!" Style: I don't paint in any one style, I let inspiration speak to me and I go with the flow. My work runs the gamut from chunky realism to abstract and impressionist painting. I use many different mediums to create my artworks. One of my favorites is egg tempera which I make by crushing stones and minerals and adding egg yolk. Blues come from crushed lapis lazuli, greens from malachite and natural green earth found around Verona Italy. I even use minerals found during hikes in the Rocky Mountains. I am captivated not only by the purity and naturalness of this medium, but by the science of it. Each pigment has its own set of properties and capabilities that must be explored. How better to express visions of the earth than with earth itself. This medium is luminous and lasts for centuries. also make my own acrylic paint in the same manner. By adding pure pigment to a acrylic polymer. I can add thing like crushed mica and pearlescents to make the painting come alive. Lately I have also ...

Linda Paul - Patrick Lynch - Inspired by the English Pre-Raphaelites and the writings of late Victorian Kentucky poets Madison J. Cawein and Robert Burns Wilson, my paintings are of the eternal human quest for love set in a lost Gothic world inhabited primarily by women who are caught in the contradictions of their dreams and how they have found their world to actually be. Many of the inhabitants are haunted, but not by supernatural forces. When ghosts appear, they are not always the spirits of lost loved ones, more often, they are the ghosts of an idea or dream-for example, the idea that one can find a lifelong and true love or of that one person who simply cannot be forgotten. The women who spread their wings are not angels in the expected sense; their wings are a manifestation of the forces that shape their lives. Men are sometimes present in my images, often in an embrace of acceptance and partnership as they share the immutable longing for love. At other times, men are found at that pivotal moment of undesired separation or are reaching out to comfort those in pain. But not every moment is one of tragic endings. There are moments ...

Elizabeth Bogard - My art is about life. I Paint Life When Life Is Art, expressing what I see around me aEUR" people, places, moments in time - subjects I connect with on some level aEUR" intellectual, spiritual, or emotional. I find it better to let the subject come to me rather than deliberately seeking it. I believe that an artist must experiment in order to grow. Lately I am creating stylish collages using torn and cut papers from vintage and antique sheet music. As Pablo Picasso said, I begin with an idea and then it becomes something else. When this happens to me, the results are exciting. E. K. Bogard ...