New Blue

A new pigment of blue has been discovered by researchers at Oregon State University. YinMn Blue is a combination of Yttrium, Indium, Manganese, and Oxygen. I think it’s absolutely stunning. I’m trying to track down some acrylic made with it for a commission I’m working on.

YinMn Blue, discovered at Oregon State University.

New Comics

I have two new comics out, one in Shenandoah and one in Narrative Magazine. I’m grateful to the editors of both magazines for allowing me to share my work with a large audience!

From Anger Management, published in Shenandoah’s Fall 2020 issue.

Winter Show

I’ll be featured in Gallery 5004’s winter show. Gallery 5004 is in Minneapolis Minnesota (in a neighborhood called Birdtown). The show will be open four consecutive Saturdays: November 28, December 5, December 12 and December 19. You can see more information about the event here.

Growing Up

I’ve returned to watercolor painting after painting exclusively with acrylics for several months. Watercolor is much less precise. It does what it wants to. You have to work with what it gives you. This painting was created in my Seattle area studio over the course of an afternoon by adding layers, letting them dry, then adding more, until the direction of the painting became clear.

Color Psychology

Color has a profound impact on our psychology.

On how we think, feel and behave. There’s a whole field of study around the psychology of color. There are color psychologists out there, determining what colors make fast food tasty, hospital waiting rooms serene, and department of motor vehicles offices stressful.

Green Psychology, by Jennifer Lesser. A new acrylic painting that’s part of my series exploring plastic as a medium and the psychology of color.

I paint with bright colors.

I find that they have this impact on my psychology: I feel happy, energized. I smile, my heart beats faster. I think of possibility, of life.

Pink Psychology, by Jennifer Lesser. A new acrylic painting that’s part of my series exploring plastic as a medium and the psychology of color.

Prints Coming Soon

I’ve been working with a local art print shop called The Color Group in Seattle to produce giclee prints of my Plastics series. They used special giant scanners to take extraordinarily high resolution photos of the paintings. It was really neat to see the proofs. And also to learn about paper. They sell a paper that comes from a German paper mill that’s been around since the 1400s (approximately, I don’t totally remember ha). Prints should be available on my etsy within the next month. Excited to see how they turn out.

Studio Shoot

Earlier this month my talented friend Kristin Abigail took photos of me in my studio. Kristin likes photographing female artists where they create and reached out to me on instagram. She’s bright and positive and totally tolerant of how messy my studio was/is. We found out after talking for a while that we’re both from the Minneapolis area. Pretty cool.

Check out her blog post, where she talks about her process.

Photo by Kristin Abigail.

Acrylics

They’re immediate. They dry quickly. You can paint over them, again and again. I think I’m in love. Sorry watercolor! The most significant challenge so far has been that they’re difficult to photograph because they are reflective. Which will make creating prints of my acrylic paintings more expensive when I decide to do so.

Peonies

Completed this painting today. It's a large one. I set it upright against the window to see how it would look with some light shining through and my dog started hysterically barking. Not the critical reception I was hoping for. Listened to a mix of Philip Glass’s Music in Twelve Parts and a spotify surf rock playlist while painting it.