Susan Kennedy Art

I had been teaching watercolor class and got talking with my students about monotypes. When I noticed that my palette of paints looked prettier than my painting, they challenged me to make a print of it and turn it into something. So after having lifted it off the palette and found that the colors had lost a lot of punch, I started adding a few layers. It begged for a bit of metallic paint, too, and ended up looking both like a dragon and like a chain of islands...so I named it "Dragon Archipelago and thought I'd show it to everyone. Thanks for looking! If you want to see it in my etsy store, you can click here. Have a wonderful arty weekend and thanks for looking!

This is an abstract I don't think I've mentioned before in my blog, it was, for me, a prototype, a way to get a bunch of ideas in my head onto canvas, coming together into a coherent whole. It sort of evolved into a question about heaven, more a question than a statement, anyway. I'm not even sure what the question is, either! I called it "Elijah's Door" because I think it was Elijah in the Old Testament who was taken up to heaven without passing through death. Anyway, I hope you enjoy looking, this sort of art is new to me and dear to me. My site, susankennedy.com has evolved into a blend of portfolio of original paintings (both oil paintings on canvas and watercolor originals) as well as a way for me to offer fine art instruction (oil painting lessons on youtube, watercolor painting instrucion and watercolor demonstration) as well as crochet patterns which reflect my hobby. I hope you'll visit and trade links with me, all of it is fun and a source of c...

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!

My husband of twenty-five years and I were off for the weekend celebrating our anniversary and decided to hike the trails of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We were headed back down from the top of Clingman's Dome when we saw this black bear twenty or thirty feet away from us and another couple, off the trail. He was browsing in the blackberries and stopped to stare at us. When he started coming toward the trail I dropped the camera and started backing away and noticing that I was the only one in flip flops... fortunately he was pretty young and didn't want to get in to a thing with a bunch of tender pink people. Yaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!

My new diet! Make a pot of soup and eat it all day instead of marshmallows!!Gonna lose those ugly 15 pounds. My version of making soup is putting a can of this and a can of that in a pot with dried onion and leftovers. How good the soup is depends on the leftovers. Now off to paint... you can see my items at my website!

Thought I'd put a link to this extremely cool online gallery. Lori is very inspiring, and her watercolors and drawings bridge the gaps between fantasy art, illustration, and realism. Her sense of color is surprising and invigorating, and I hope you enjoy checking it all out. Incidentally, you click on the title of this post to get to her site. Sorry to have grabbed your image, Lori, but I do love it so much.... click here, too

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."

This is one of my favorite photos of all time; maybe you've gotten it in your inbox, but it makes me laugh every time. Best wishes to all and send me your photos about art!

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