LIFE AS A HUMAN

Golden Memories

Guest Artist — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 11:00:20 +0000

This artwork captures a serene memory at a golden sunrise. At anchor in Silva Bay I was overtaken by the tranquility with rippling reflections and the whisper of the morning sea breeze tickling the boughs of the coastal trees. The rocky shoreline with tall, slender trees that leaned in as if welcoming the morning sun. Indeed, a striking silhouette against the sky.

The multiple layers of distant mountain ranges presented in deep blue hues, contrasted with the golden skies. The sky is rich with textured golden and cream tones, depicting the warm glow of natural light. My mood was enhanced by the calm and quiet reflections.

At time of writing, this piece is available for purchase here.

Image Credits

All Images Are © Peter Van Giesen

Peter Van Giesen Artist Bio

Peter N. Van Giesen grew up in Ontario and completed university degrees in Psychology & Religion in British Columbia where he currently resides. Inspired by “The Eternal Aura of Nature”, for him, the act of creating art is “a mystical process, a spiritual work…”

Van Giesen describes his painting style as one that hovers between representation, impressionism with a dash of abstract. “I attempt to reach into the fabric of the world exploring the dynamics of tension and elasticity. I create images based on the interplay between darkness and light, the interconnected aura of the natural world.”

Peter was recently featured at Art Tour International

Blog / Website: Peter N Van Giesen Artist

Follow Peter Van Giesen on: Twitter | Facebook

Orca in Transit by Trial Island Lighthouse

Guest Artist — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 15:43:51 +0000

Trial Island Lighthouse is situated in the Strait of Juan de Fuca near Victoria, British Columbia. I love painting lighthouses as they necessarily stand out in the natural environment. As I sailed past in the light breeze, a pod of orcas transited past my boat.

This painting serves as a attempt to capture the majesty and tranquility of both the snow-covered peaks and the contrast between the vibrant greens on the rocky outcrop and the cool blues of the ocean. Harmony and interconnectedness were themes that guided my brush.

At time of writing, this piece is available for purchase here.

Image Credits

All Images Are © Peter Van Giesen

Peter Van Giesen Artist Bio

Peter was recently featured at Art Tour International

Blog / Website: Peter N Van Giesen Artist

Follow Peter Van Giesen on: Twitter | Facebook

Modern Art and Technology

Guest Author — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 14:40:38 +0000

Hello! What do you need to make art? The “aha” moment, when you know that, is pure joy.

When using tech to make art, the choices are many. You can pick your colors and effects on a display, or you can use a computer aided device to create those effects on canvas.

Whilst in college I used to teach art classes, and my students were visually challenged. One of my older kids came to class one day, and wanted to draw on paper. They took a sheet, and a marker, and drew a single point. I asked them what they had drawn. They had just hit their arm into a sharp corner, and “this” was what it felt like.

Next, we used a computer aided spray gun to make lots of those points on paper, and with a layering effect. This time, the kid could actually feel around the paper for those sharp points.

The next day, this kid came to class and we painted by hand, lots of sharp dots in a pattern using paint, glitter, glue, and let it dry. I asked them about their piece, and I learnt that they had tried to mimic a mother-board! They had been helping their dad with their home computer and had felt around the mother-board. “Lots of sharp points”, was what they wanted to draw.

In the first instance, tech was just a tool. The next day, however, it turned into inspiration- inspiration to know what you want to make art with!

So, what do you see tech as? A tool? Or inspiration? I’d love to know! And I’ll also see you soon.

G’Bye,
Gaurvi.

Photo Credits

First photo is from Pinterest
Second photo is from Pinterest

Guest Author Bio
Gaurvi Joshi

Gaurvi is a B2B Blogger with her own tech blog. She taught Art to visually challenged students while still at college. She observes artists and creators in her community while engaging in visual art once in a while.

Blog / Website: New Tech

Han Yuchen celebrated at the National Arts Museum in Beijing

Guest Author — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 21:01:16 +0000

During the long and rich artistic life of Han Yuchen, more changes will have happened in China than during a century in Europe. Not only is Han Yuchen a protagonist of these changes but he is also a keen observer who is definitely able, through his painting, to capture a real spirit of the times.

Opening of the Han Yuchen National Art Museum exhibition

Han Yuchen’s works are unique, because if the academic style of the artist achieves a pictorial realism such as it is similar to photography, it nevertheless leaves enough room, spontaneity and liberty in the gesture, so that the painting itself transcribes the emotions and what the artist depicts on his canvas.

Han Yuchen’s painting is very forged in Chinese academicism, which he learned alongside with masters such as Li Hua (李桦1907-1994), Su Gaoli (苏高丽) and Liang Yulong (梁玉龙1922-2011), and was also strongly influenced by the work of some of his peers like Dong Xiwen (董希文1914-1973), Chen Danqing (陈丹青) or Ai Xuan (艾轩). This style, which the artist has retained throughout his career, is at odds with the Chinese contemporary movement that obtained international recognition. In China, the National Art Museum in Beijing made a full retrospective of his work in 2022, and he has been internationally acclaimed.

Han Yuchen at the National Art Museum exhibition

He has been a professor at the Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in Saint Petersburg. Amongst other solo exhibitions of Han Yuchen, mention should be made of those held at the Decorative Arts Museum in Paris, Repin Academic Institute in Saint Petersburg, Brussels, and Lahasa. Following his accomplishment in Tibet’s sacred capital was Han Yuchen’s first solo exhibition in Italy, “The Realm of Purity”, held at Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Florence.

Photo Credits

Guest Author Bio
Miranda Coppeland

Miranda Coppeland is an international art critic based in Los Angeles.

Painting a Life Outside of Work

Guest Artist — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 11:00:41 +0000

It’s 10:20 AM. I’m slumping into the office, which is a room in my home. I have the privilege of working from home. No commute. No dangerous drivers. It should be a dream!

Yet… my eyelids are hanging. I’m yawning. I’m filled to the brim with dread and misery. I had a full night’s rest. Slept a peaceful 9 hours. What’s going on? Why do I feel so empty?

Simple.

I had just come back from the greatest Christmas vacation I ever had. Went to the movies with my family. Enjoyed a hearty Christmas dinner. I devoured a turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, almost like the Thanksgiving dinner that we had just a month ago. Sugar cookies, my favorite sweets ever, were dessert.

But, just 3 weeks later, I was about to clock in and take more back-to-back phone calls from pissed customers. You see, I was working a call center job for a large financial services company. You have to know just how emotional people can get about their money. I had just 5 more minutes before a flood of phone calls came ringing in. As someone who’d done call center work for 2 years, I felt less and less like a human being.

“I’ve gotta get out of here. Only reason I’m here is for the cash anyway”, I thought. But, no sense complaining. If you have a problem, then find a solution. I shifted from “I’m miserable” to “what could I do to escape call center work?”.

It was this very moment that I recalled a commission that I finished in college. Montreal, Canada. Yes, that name was familiar because I made a painting for a school staff member who visited this city and wanted a way to memorialize it. This man loved it so much that he bought a print and hung it in his apartment.

I wondered, “Obviously, other people hate their jobs. There’s no way that school staffer was the only person who visited a cool city and wanted a painting of it. What about painting glow-in-the-dark paintings of city skylines?”. Yes, I loved this idea.

I always have random ideas for artworks. I’m the kind of person who’d paint an Ice Age landscape of a woolly mammoth enjoying a waterfall, a port at the Aegean Sea in Greece, or something as surreal as a teacup solar system. As an artist, it’s always been my aim to transport viewers to an almost mythical or surrealist location that they’ll never see in their daily lives so that they can forget about the endless rat race for a moment. I sat on this idea for several months. But, finally, I decided to start working on this painting series.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Belinda Tagoe (@marmaladepop88)

I cherish the work that I make, and I’m happy to have earned a few awards as a new artist, such as the Finalist Award for Art Show International’s 2022 International Juried Art Competition for my detailed landscapes. I don’t make art just to show how great of an artist I am. I make art to help people see that there’s more to life than mindless jobs. There’s plenty that this world has to offer beyond the 9-5 grind. If I can make someone realize that through a glow-in-the-dark painting of a city that they love, then I’m good to go.

Photo Credits

Guest Artist Bio
Belinda Tagoe

Born in January 1996, Belinda Tagoe is a painter and an illustrator. She’s been making art since 1999 (early starter). Belinda’s not the type to ponder about the deeper meaning or the socioeconomic implications of every painting that she makes. Instead, she sees everyday objects like a car, an elephant, a piece of broccoli, or a teapot and thinks, “hey, what would this look like in a different setting?”. The end result? Some of the surrealist and idyllic pieces that you see before you. Her artworks are an escape from reality. Her main goal is to make sure that, for 10 minutes a day, you aren’t thinking about mindless 9-5 busy work or rent.

When she’s not painting, she’s reading about meteorology. She’s a heck of a weather geek! Also, her favorite surrealist painter is Salvador Dali.

Website: belleroseart.com
Instagram: @marmaladepop88
TikTok: @marmaladepop88

If Not Now, When?

Carol Good — Tue, 23 Aug 2022 16:21:07 +0000

Ever since I was a kid I’ve been making my own greeting cards. I loved drawing on the front with pencil crayons and enjoyed coming up with a heartfelt sentiment for the inside. I don’t want to brag, but I had a knack for putting words together. I think my parents thought I had a gift too, as they kept almost every card I ever gave them.

Some of my finest work:

I love you Mom, I want you to know that
I know you are something
than just an old doormat.

You are my dad, I am your daughter
I love you more
than a swim in the water.

Around the same time, I started writing letters, thanks to my mom. She’s no longer with us, but if you filled a room with family and friends and asked them what they remember most about her, it would be her letters (her laugh would be a close second.) I’m honored to carry the torch.

Whispering Seaweed

Now I’m all grown up. I’m still making my own cards, with original art along with my original photos, but now I have them printed, which makes them look a tad more professional. I’m leaving them blank on the inside in the interest of versatility (for now; you never know when a good rhyme will strike.) You can see them here at Good Wares. And I still write letters, but I’ve upped the ante and am now making my own envelopes too.

Running in a Sundress

Here’s the thing. I woke up one day and realized it’s what I want to do. For serious. As a day job. Age has changed the way I look at things. For years, I never thought I was good enough at anything to go all in, to really chase it. Today, being good enough doesn’t even enter into it. Passion, fulfillment and pure joy are my guides. And even though the line between exciting and scary is extremely thin, I’m going for it, propelled by one very thought-provoking question:

If not now, when?

Image Credits

Visit Carol’s Website: carol anne good

“Dear Dinos”

Guest Artist — Sat, 14 May 2022 16:00:03 +0000

Through a series of somewhat delicate questions for something said or heard in meaningful situations was searched: The first was for a word spoken from somebody missed or gone when then the phone suddenly rang and we heard their voice again, another was a single one from a stranger that could lift us up from a bad spot to make us smile, and the last was what one would shout to the most important person in our life upon having realized a great dream. There was no answer and that response told me more than I expected precisely because words matter. It’s quite an interesting parallel between the tangible and the digital. I think we’ve all received notes, maybe in the classroom or in a letter sent to through the mail, and I bet most of us treasured it in that time going as far as re-reading every sentence prizing the thought behind every single word and the strokes from the person that made it. In that moment we could feel the other person knowing the care it takes to put something on paper by hand conscious of it being permanent and of weight. The aim is to cross this bridge, not only with their relevant hand painted nature, but because as we choose an image as a profile picture we expect it to carry a representation of our traits and personality hoping as well to convey the sincerity and contemplation behind what we write on the platforms we use them in. Because of what I learned from the lack of response I got from the questions posed at the start of the project I understood It’s not easy to express ourselves more so when it makes a difference. We start our correspondence with “Dear” for a reason and I wish we never lose it. Let’s put it back there.

Image Credits

Guest Artist Bio
Mafloku

Mafloku is a Mexican artist that works and resides in Tampico, Mexico. Financial Public Accountant who despite no formal training and a seemingly unrelated diverse background in prestigious financial, governmental, public and private institutions, and having started a very short time ago, has accidentally discovered ease of expression in boarding profound insights through color and innocence with an overwhelming positive reception with exhibitions in his home country as well as overseas, acknowledgments, and various national and international publications.

Blog / Website: mafloku

Follow Mafloku on: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

New Wave

Guest Artist — Mon, 21 Mar 2022 11:00:14 +0000

The following digital artworks were created by Austin Sessler, otherwise known as “youngdumnumb” online. Using the free open source program GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). His works depict the creativity, passion, and expression of the new generation.

Noisy distortion with a blast of color.

Attempting to escape from the dream world.

Degraded edit, with plenty of noise and grain for a creative vintage feel.

Image Credits

Guest Artist Bio
Austin Sessler

I am a 19 year old digital artist from Arizona. I focus on trying to inspire others to chase their creative ideas, and show people that there is no limit to our creativity, which is why I find myself in many different fields of art. My works can be found on Instagram @youngdumnumb

Follow Austin Sessler on: Facebook | Instagram

Unload

Shannon Grissom — Sat, 05 Mar 2022 12:00:29 +0000

My friend Dave says he has an invisible post-it on his head that says, “Tell me all about it.” I’m thinking Dave is right, but the note is not so invisible. Hey, there is always a line of folks waiting to talk to him.

“Unload” is part of my Sock Monkey Oracle Series. Each piece of artwork in this series depicts a state of being that encourages reflection. As I worked on this painting, I thought about Dave’s patience and his kind demeanor. May you all have such a friend to help lighten your load.

Image Credits

Valentine

Shannon Grissom — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 12:00:47 +0000

I have painted close to 50 paintings with a sock monkey as the subject. Why so many?

They make me smile!

They were all created to share a specific state of being. This piece, “Valentine,” conveys a grounded and radiant love.

Life lesson from this sock monkey: Love is meant to be shared.

Image Credits