Category: painting

The Sweetness of Winter

Posted in original art, painting, Uncategorized4 Comments

When I was a child and our family was still intact, we always got tangerines in our Christmas stockings. Tangerines and oranges are ingrained in my subconscious as the taste of winter. They are also my favorite fruit year around. I tend to go for mandarins these days, though navel oranges are my favorite. I get them in those red mesh bags and I eat one or two everyday with breakfast.

I have a photographer friend who has made some wonderful photographs of that red mesh, abstracting and adding mystery to it. I decided to try to do that with a painting, embedding it in different colors, painting over it, snipping it up into collage pieces, but all I ever made was a mess. Finally, I decided just to paint some mandarins and apply the mesh on top. Closer to realism and fun to create. This the result:

The Sweetness of Winter by Joy Murray, 8×10″, mixed media

It was fun to create a painting that made me smile, after so many that didn’t. And delicious image to start the new year.

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This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

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She Came Back As A Tree

Posted in afterlife, Art, painting4 Comments

Sometimes, I think about reincarnation and fantasize about what I’d like to be in my next life, if I have one. I’m perfectly happy becoming soil, dust, a ghost, a distant memory, or whatever it is you become when you’re released from this strange, beautiful life. As I worked on my latest painting, I indulged in the idea that I would enjoy being a tree — a rooted being with it’s limbs reaching toward the sky. It’s not a new fantasy, but one I’ve had in my heart even before I knew there were ideas about reincarnation. And while I don’t really know much more than the basic ideas of reincarnation, it’s fun to dream of such things.

I like painting trees from my imagination, from a spontaneous place inside me, where I can play with the form and color. Just following brushstrokes, building on what starts as a vague image with whatever comes to mind.

In my last post, I showed the beginning of this painting. I had such a good time working on it, that I almost didn’t want to stop, but the painting finally told me it was finished.

She Came Back as a Tree by Joy Murray, 20×24″, acylic on stretched canvas
She Came Back as a Tree detail
She Came back as a tree, detail

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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.

This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal

Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.  

You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.

How The Earth and Sky Conversed

Posted in paintingLeave a comment

I started a new painting as a relatively realistic one inspired by my elephant ear garden, like the one I did a few weeks ago:

Elephant Ears by Joy Murray, acrylic on paper

For the painting on canvas, I decided to add the purple hearts and marigolds that are also growing in the garden but stick to the heavy outline and washy color style. But it didn’t seem dynamic enough. I didn’t take process photos, but I added many many layers.

I think the more I paint, the slower I get at completing pieces. I had hoped that I’d get faster but that’s not happening. (I do believe one of the lessons of any art is learning patience — with the medium, with yourself, with the world.) It’s become more important to me to add layers then set the painting aside for a while. It feels like the painting tells me what to do. Sometimes that means painting it over in white and starting again. But this one was a matter of adding one layer to another, and experimenting — blurring the lines and deepening the colors.

I hope this new painting captures the feeling of delight and uplift I get when I go out in the evening, after the day has cooled off a little and the sun is going down; and I know some magic will happen in the garden during the night that will greet me in the morning.

How the Earth and Stars Conversed by Joy Murray, 8×10″, acrylic paint and ink on canvas

What do you think?

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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.

This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at pay pal

Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.  

You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.

Always on My Mind

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I painted this small 5×7″ abstract while working on another painting. The other painting isn’t finished, but this one is.

You Were Always On my Mind, by Joy Murray, 5×7″ acrylic paint on stretched canvas

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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.

This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at pay pal

Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.  

You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.