A Digital Painting about Mental Illness

We've been going through a lot of learning about mental illness in our family, and it's certainly not pleasant. I hope that as more light is shined on various forms of mental illness, that it will become a condition which is treated with the care and dignity of other illnesses.

This painting is a digital collage of many images: a digital version of a watercolor of mine, and photos of various places which have been important in a loved one's life. I hope that it shows both the tragedy of schizophrenia when it destroys families, and hope for the future. Maybe some day a diagnosis of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or depression will not be the horrible sentence that it is these days.

www.susankennedy.com
www.sketchroom.etsy.com

McConnell's Mill Equipment and Interior, Digitally Painted Historical Photographs

This is one of my "painted" photos of my treasured places of Pennsylvania and South Carolina.

Interior of McConnell's Mill, Pennsylvania

You can see the posterized art photograph here on Etsy, and I have it cropped to various aspect ratios, should you be interested in purchasing the photo (of course, the copyright info does not appear on purchased .jpg files).

I'm sorting through a decade of photos, and some of them stand out as shimmering and otherworldly. I love the ones which include old wood, statues, buildings, windows, ruins, brick...anything which speaks to the viewer about the hopes and dreams of the people who built these things.

Particularly dear to my heart are places which house old machines. You can almost hear shouts and the grind of belts and gears as ghosts from the past reenact the life this place once had.

Thanks for looking, and for joining me as I figure out what my art means to me, and what I want to say.

www.sketchroom.etsy.com
www.susankennedy.com

Abstraction and the Joy of Paint

This is a painting which was very hard to paint...heck, all of my paintings are hard to paint these days.

"The Very Old Steps" acrylic on canvas, 24" x 18" SOLD

It was bought by my oldest and dearest art supporters, the people of Cumming First United Methodist Church.

I can't seem to be inspired by realism in the past couple of years, but abstracted and allegorical landscapes most definitely inspire me. I'm sure they appeal to fewer people, but they mean a lot more to me. Mostly these paintings of mine are about the painfully wistful longing that we all have for heaven and peace.

Usually these knife paintings have a faint distant area which suggests the tantalizing landscape of heaven, and the foreground is often blocky obstacles which are the viewer's/traveler's journey as she struggles to keep peace and heaven in view. This painting is definitely in that group and has that theme. It also attempts to capture, typically for me, a struggle against anxiety and depression as I travel along the paths and steps that all of us take.

I so appreciate the support of my patrons and appreciators as I seemingly paint endless paintings which ALL LOOK ALIKE! To me they are different, and to me they attempt to tell differing stories.