Large Poppy paintings

Poppy Paintings by Lena Rasmussen ©

Here are two of my original poppy paintings and my darling princess fat cat, Miss Miso. The smaller painting is almost finished. The larger one 30" x 40" is far from complete. And I mean far. I have been reworking and painting out with white paint and adding in glazes of either cadmium yellow medium, cadmium orange and cadmium red medium. I drive myself crazy...

Nanaimo artist finds beauty in the sea creatures

I see gold in jellyfish creatures ©

My first solo art show!
Yeah, I had the show several years ago, but I never figured out how to add it into my blog. Now I have and so here it is.

"I see gold" solo art show. Here are some paintings of the beautiful jelly fish I painted.

From left to right: Looking through the jellyfish painting, Looking through the jellyfish and visualizing sea shells and bits of gold, and rocks by the sea shore. Photos I took of the beautiful sea creature laying on the rocks. The last on the right is an abstract of anything you want it to be...

Click to view more

Large Original Sunflower and Wine Painting

Sunflower and Wine Painting ©

Title: Sunflowers and Wine ©

36" x 36" x 3/4" Acrylic Painting
Original Artwork by Lena Rasmussen 

This sunflower painting is one I completed in 2008 for a Nanaimo members only Art show. My favorite paints are Liquitex acrylic paints. I will be putting it up for sale sometime soon.

Fixing errors in my blog

I tried the google webmasters tool to check my other 'Paintings by Lena' blog for errors. There were so many errors and I tried to find a solution but wasn't successful and the only way I could think of fixing all the errors was to go back to my first blog and start fresh from there. If there are no errors, then I will continue using this blog from now on. I'm crossing my fingers that I will be error free from now on in.

Artists Self Destruction

Well, I did put a painting up for sale on etsy, and then guess what I did? Silly little me, I thought it wasn't good enough. So I started painting over the background, and sort of wrecked it, but luckily I know how to fix it back to the way it was...

So, big chicken me, I took the listing down from etsy (I did save it, I had done a lot of work on the info and the etsy shop) and then I started reverting back to my critical scared self. Why is it so hard for me to get over my fear and just do it? I know people do not always like the same things and there will be criticism, but that is something I constantly do to myself anyways, so I should be used to it...

Making a Logo for my etsy shop

I cannot believe how complicated I make supposedly easy things to do. Like making a Logo. I have been using publisher, word, and paint with Windows 8.1. But, I cannot design or change the one I beautifully designed taking me over 2 days to complete using Publisher.

So, first I designed it using the tools in publisher, because it had all these really cool features, right? Then, when I tried uploading it to the etsy.com website, it gave me that dreaded upload error.This is a photo that I edited using Publisher of a recent painting "End of Summer Sunflowers and Pears" that I painted for a members only September Art show called "Remembering Summer" at the Arts Council gallery. I've been a member of the Nanaimo Arts Council for over 10 years now. I've been really shy about showing my artwork, but have had some people encourage me to try and sell my artwork. So, here I go!

I hope you might like my sunflowers! And, isn't it so cool how the reflection looks! I impressed myself! *The 'Logo' that I completed is shown at the top of my blog! So, when this happened, I ended up spending even more hours, trying to maneuver in between publisher, saving as a picture I edited with reflections, before using in word, then designing it all again in word, just like I did in publisher, and find out that I cannot use this one either!!! Because it does not work in Paint! I tried stupidly over and over and googling for info in case some one out there had figured out how to fix this problem, but nope!

I've had a really hard time learning Windows 8.1 Pro applications, because I just haven't had the need to over all these years. So my mind has become a bit mushy learning all these new things, which of course, makes me feel so stupid! I'm giving it up tonight, and will give it a go again soon, when the muscles in my shoulders stop screaming in pain!I totally met my challenge yesterday, by actually uploading, it was so easy, a photo I edited with Photoshop Express online, also such a breeze to use...So I can't be that dumb. Anyways, I uploaded the photo and made a listing with all the required info that I have been gathering over the last few months. I actually listed it! No one has looked yet, but I did it! I did it! I have been putting this off for nearly 6 or 7 years now! Time goes by so very fast... I have been selling products on ebay.com for over 10 years. I am now trying to sell my artwork on etsy.com and hope to list some paintings on soon...

Well, I guess I'm not much of a blogger. Almost more than a year has gone by since I first started this blog. I was very much inspired to be a daily painter, but that hasn't quite worked out for me. I am still painting, several times per week, but not daily. In my quite busy daily life I make the time to paint.

Three Pears painting

Three Pears
Artist: Lena Rasmussen

round canvas
acrylics

Here is my painting of three pears from the supermarket. I'm not quite finished yet. I did this much in one short sitting, which is pretty good for me. I hope to complete this acrylic painting before the pears are completely ripened. The changes I can see now that I need to make are: some of the brush strokes on the plate in the front need to be blended more. Then I need to play around with the pears to better position them. It is a new way that I have been painting, using much more acrylic paint on my brush. I guess I am trying to achieve the look of oils without the smell. I have been working on my other series of paintings of red poppies from my yard. I hope to add these all soon.

My series of Red Poppies - soon to be added, really !

Well, so much for adding new stuff daily. I've already fallen behind. This will have to be a new daily habit for me, and it will take me some time to get used to doing it. I was working on one of my paintings part of today and will add the photo of it shortly. I started a series of paintings a while back and I have started working on finishing them, and gulp, maybe even put them up for sale. All of these paintings have red poppies in them. These acrylic paintings are also smaller paintings. I will add more information as soon as I take some photos. I'm not so sure how to do a blog really, but I think this is how ?

My Sea Red Painting

"Sea Red"
36"x36"
Acrylic

I painted this painting for an Art Show this past February at the Local Art Gallery with the theme of red. I had some photographs I had taken last summer when I visited Parksville, British Columbia.

Sunflowers Painting & Wine Large acrylic painting

"Sunflowers & Wine"

I barely finished this painting in April 2008 for a Arts Council Group Show being held at the Nanaimo Lighthouse Bistro Restaurant. I was given a few days notice and then I asked for an extension, and luckily I was given more time, but then I ran out of time again, and was not given any extra time to complete this painting. Like I have said before, I am not very good at keeping track of time. I'm not sure if I will ever be finished with this painting. I keep finding things in it that I would have like to have changed, but seeings now that it is hanging up I will try and not change anything for the time being. All in all, I had a lot of fun doing it ! It took me about 4 full days to complete. This is one of my more whimsical type of paintings. I took this photo in my studio, which has a really nice fish tank to listen to. I will add a short video on the process and all of the changes I made to this painting from beginning to end.

This was a real challenge for me to start up this blog

Hi, my name is Lena Rasmussen and I am an artist. I have been admiring the art of many daily painters for about two years now. Ever since I read all about Duane Keiser in my monthly Artist's magazine nearly two years ago. I was fascinated with his works ! I truly admired what he was doing and I wanted to do what he was doing... so much ! I just can't believe that it has taken me almost two years to go for it !

I am a great procrastinator I will admit. And I am nearly always late for all my deadlines and appointments. I have read it is because the artist's mind is just so busy with too many pictures and thoughts that we actually lose track of time.

Just tonight I have gotten over my procrastination and silly shyness to post some of my daily paintings and my daily words. I just have to get on with it.

I have been showing my artworks locally here on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada -- just to finally try and move forward ! Have you ever gotten stuck in the everyday cycle of not having enough time or energy to move forward ? I had to keep reminding myself what have I got to lose ? I lose more if I don't take these chances...

I plan to also post some of my other paintings that have taken me from a few hours to many many days to almost complete.