Susan Kennedy Art

Painting Landscapes with Light and Depth I'm so happy to be nearing the end of my new larger eBook on painting landscapes in oil and acrylic! It's a summation of more than 10 years as a fine art instructor and 40 years as an artist. The focus of the book is sharing my ideas about conveying realism through lighting and depicting spatial depth. I illustrate the book with hundreds of photos of paintings, as well as photos of materials, and a number of illustrations about perspective technique.  Here is an excerpt for my blog readers: If you would like to preorder this book which will be available on May 28, click here .  Excerpt  -  Chapter 5: Conveying Depth Creating a painting which inspires a viewer to remember the feeling of a place or a time in their memory is probably the unstated aim of many landscape painters. If the art is realistic in style, all sorts of unspoken rules are consulted in judging it: is there an impression of distance? Do the colors look real? Ar...

I've been working like crazy on my website. I'd love to have it all cool and inspirational, and there are lots of my goofy but dear-to-my-heart youtube videos on that left bar... but it's still in need of a lot of work. I hope to put together lots of video on painting, both mine and the work of others. I've found it to be such a source of personal fulfillment and have seen what it can do for others. The next book I'm working on is a short ebook on how to get inspired from your lackluster reference photos (NOT from photos on the internet!), and each of the sections is preceded by thoughts and stories from my own day-to-day life and how it intersects with art. Share your thoughts with me! Blessings, Susan you can see my items at my website!

This little photo never fails to make me laugh. When I was a teenager and was waiting on tables, some regular customer who used to pay me to do his mending (I'm too busy to mend these days : ) proudly brought me this masterpiece. I don't remember his name, wish I did...if you're out there, you with the holey shirts, send me a note, I'd like to give credit for one of the more bizarre landscape shot I've ever run across. I'll let you guys supply the imaginary events leading up to this remarkable scene. And yes, that is a pig charging the viewer with a pile of burning tires in the background. He escaped just in time, according to him (the photographer, not the pig). My brother-in-law Steve, also a photographer, titled this image "Apocalypse Sow."

Been a long time since I updated this, obviously. A lot of things going on, a lot of turmoil as well as creative growth...don't they usually go hand in hand? My latest thoughts are of God and heaven, fear and courage, and I'm often taking a break from my beloved realism to follow those themes in abstraction. I hope you'll indulge me and enjoy my more recent work, which is dear to my heart. These pieces tend to be ethereal abstracts. They often end up reminding one of earth from space, or of geological strata, or of distant mountains and the passes through them. They often remind me of places from books, like Rivendell or The Woods Between the Worlds, and the image I attached grew to be my idea of what Lewis' Land of Bism might seem like. Check back for more, I hope to continue! Yours artfully, Susan