Art I Like - Emily Jeffords

Emily Jeffords Sunshine Meadow #2

Technically, I am not allowed to be looking at art.  My mom made me swear I wouldn't after we spent the better part of a week wrapping up all my frames, prints, paintings, etc. for the Big Move.  But this is purely for blogging purposes, 'K Mom? And maybe a little inspiration...

Just look at that happy sunny landscape above by Emily Jeffords.  It makes me so happy! She does it using so few brushstrokes, it amazes me as well.  I love the soft airy way Emily's landscapes feel, and the bright colour palette she uses in her works.

Emily Jeffords Mid-Summertime

Emily Jeffords Rise & Shine

I have always had a fascination with clouds and must have a few hundred in my iPhoto albums from various trips and sunsets.  Emily's landscapes almost always have a really low horizon line and lots and lots of sky.  I think that is part of what attracts me to her work.

Emily Jeffords After the Dew #3

Emily Jeffords (Commission Painting)

If you feel like her works might be familiar, it is probably because of the enormous amount of press she has received lately.  She is currently working with Minted, West Elm, Etsy, Shoppe, and Great.ly and has been featured in Domino Magazine, on Design*Sponge, Babble, Decor8 Blog, Huffington Post and many more.  Based out of South Carolina, Emily has two young daughters that spend a lot of time painting in the studio with her (which makes for some super-cute photos).

Photo by Paige French, who needs a whole other blog post!

I have been dabbling a bit in painting lately, and this past weekend I had a chance to go up to a camp near Edmonton and spend all day just playing with paint.  It was marvelous.  While I tried to do some paintings based off of photographs, and a pure abstract, most of the time I tried to copy Emily's Paintings in an effort to understand her style a bit more.  It is definitely easier said than done.

My copy, based on Emily's Driving to Greenville

My attempt at Emily's Sundown

This one was more of an attempt at copying Michelle Armas, but is nowhere near!

I have a whole Pinterest board dedicated to painting subjects and style that I would like to try here, if you want to take a peak.

You may wonder why I don't just paint my own thing, why I am trying to reproduce someone else's style - which is a fair question!  I feel that by trying to recreate an artist's work, I can get an idea of how it was made, how it was built from the darks to the lights, what values are where and how it all comes together.  I only wish I had a photo of the original landscape to see how they read it into the painting!  I love watching YouTube videos posted by artists that show them doing a painting in real time, or sped up, so you can see how it actually works.

As I was saying to my husband, who was seeing dollar signs floating in the air when I came home with these paintings, there is no way I would ever try to pass these off as 'mine'.  Some super-nice Facebook friends who were very supportive when I posted the fruits of my weekend away may get an early Christmas gift... as long as they don't claim it as an Emily Jeffers OR Lisa Mackay original!  It's all in the spirit of learning, and I am very inspired by Emily's paintings.  After enjoying myself so much this weekend, I have signed up for a painting course starting in January, so hopefully I will be moving on to my own originals soon enough!