Mickey Cunningham

Illuminating, Oil Painting

2021

Artist Comments
Inspired by the lush vineyards of France in the fall, artist Lisa Elley paints an impression of the scene. Light caresses the quaint village during the breathtaking summer. The vineyard flourishes in the foreground, creating a dramatic and colorful effect. She achieves a rich, buttery texture through thick impasto application.

About the Artist
Working almost exclusively with a palette knife, Lisa Elley maneuvers her artistic blade with an uncanny fluidity. Why paint only with the knife? She says, "when I paint with a brush, which I do occasionally, I tend to focus on the detail. With a palette knife I can't focus on the detail too much, so my paintings are looser, and more gestural, with bigger sweeps and strokes." This technique is called wet-on-wet. And it seems to be quite popular, as she has been bestowed the title "Knife Queen" by her facebook fans. Fun fact: Lisa's high school art teacher told her to study harder at math, as a career in art was "impossible."

Words that describe this painting: fall, autumn, season, France, Provence, village, vineyard, grapevines, winery, Europe, travel, buildings, architecture, farm, oilpaint, texture, palette knife, impressionism, landscape, impressionism, landscape, travel, oil painting, green

Autumn in Provence...

Artist Comments
Artist Valerie Berkely presents a fiery sunset above thick silhouetted trees. The warm rays of the sun brighten the landscape with cooling hues of violet spreading across the forest floor. With her finger painting technique, Valerie uses transparent oils on top of gold iridescent acrylic textures creating a luminescent glow. It results in a captivating image with a gentle flow of movement.

About the Artist
Valerie Berkely uses her finger tips as brushes to create her abstract paintings. For Valerie, the art is all about the process, the paint, her mood, and the moment. She admires the artist Wolf Kahn, who once said, “the picture is the conclusion of an experiment in which the hint of an image becomes actuality." Like Kahn, Valerie’s paintings combine pictorial landscapes with painterly abstraction. The vibrant primary colors capture the hues of the sun rising and setting, and the texture of her fingers across the surface divides sea, land, and sky. There is something very dreamy about these works, exemplified by their color, texture, and atmospheric quality. Valerie’s first “art epiphany” was seeing Seurat's La Grande Jatte at the Art Institute of Chicago. “Bowled me over! I actually fell down. And I knew I was to become a painter.”

Words that describe this painting: small, trees, sunlight, sun, sunset, oilpaint, nature, forest, impressionism, etching, impressionism, nature, oil painting, purple

Golden Glow...

Artist Comments
Artist Elizabeth Garat presents an impressionist landscape of lavender fields. The piece recalls a warm day in July during the height of summer. Billowy clouds in pink and blue hues stretch the horizon in a beautiful display of reflected sunlight. She paints on location in the countryside of Provence, France.

About the Artist
Growing up in California and Colorado, Elizabeth spent much of her formative years outdoors. “Exposure to nature early on planted the seed of landscape painting in me,” she says. She enjoyed spending time on her grandfather’s sunny sheep ranch and going to the beach with her grandmother. Her grandmother also would bring her to art galleries in Laguna Beach, where she was first introduced to California Impressionism...

Artist Comments
Artist Elizabeth Garat paints a dramatic view of the sky above the vast ocean's choppy waters and distant coastal islands. The brilliant rays of the sun illum...