In 2022 I purchased this piece of art painted by Laurie Sucharda that I found on the DPW (Daily Paint Works) site. This site is unlike Etsy or Ebay in that it is only art from real artists and the site owners do not handle the sales, they only give the artists a place to display and sell their art themselves. It is set up to use credit cards or paypal or however you and the artist agree too. Once bought though, it is totally between you and the artist, although the site owners tell you that if there are issues, they would try to help, they still would not be responsible for the outcome.
There is all kinds of art there, a lot of it small to medium sized. There are really good artists and just folks that have hobbies in art like I do. Anyway, this is not about that site really, just a little background.
At the time I bought this painting, Laurie responded a little later that she was packing to make a big 300 mile move from a suburb of Milwaukee to a small town in northern Wisconsin. It took her a couple of extra days to get it shipped because at that time, she was in one place and the art was in the other. That was totally fine by me, I am never in a hurry about such things. She talked about it being a culture shock as the post office closes at 4 on weekdays (and is not open on Saturday either), had one grocery store and no fast food within 15 miles, but lots of cozy supper clubs and the great outdoors. She also shared that the leaves were just starting to change there that year and that they had been going there to camp in that area for 17 years and had finally decided to move there. She said they had found a great house there where she would finally have a dedicated studio room that was not in the basment! 😄 ...and she'd be in an area full of inspiration.
I love it when artists I buy from communicate in a fun way like that. It sounds like a lot of sharing, but it was really on a couple of different email responses.
When this painting caught my eye, the biggest attraction to me was how closely it resembled what my eyes really see in the mountains and other places when the leaves begin to change in a stand of trees of different kinds, the beauty of their colors mixed together in a way that my eyes don't want to stop looking at them. They are together, but still separate. I think it's hard to capture that really, but I thought she did and now I would have a painting in my house that I could look at as long as I liked in any season.
She had painted the trees on a wooden panel. You can see the wonderful details on the back. That made it more fun to me as well. I liked how she signed the piece in a way on the front that did not take away from the painting, but then again larger on the back.
Then she had framed it in wood as well, so that it was ready to hang immediately.
A painting of trees on real wood panel.
I really love this piece of art. I leave it hanging out all year. I always thought I'd one day own another piece of her art. It wasn't all like this, nor was it all painted on wood.
I noticed for a while that I didn't see new things listed and just attributed it to her big move and all the settling and setting up and life that happens around a big move. Slowly, I stopped watching for it. Once in a while, I would check back. Then last week, I thought about it again as before too long, autumn will slowly start coming in here. I decided to do searches in other places as now there was not only no new art, she seemed to be missing from DPW and I wanted to see if I could find her selling somewhere else online. What I found instead though was her obituary where she had passed away late spring last year. Wow! I certainly wasn't expecting that. It made me quiet for a while and introspective. Obviously I didn't know her and had only had that one small time of contact, so of course it wasn't like loosing someone I am close too, but ... but.... anyway.....
... isn't this close up awesome? Look at all the layers of colors. The little bits of purple and blue... and possibly lichen on the base of the tree trunk. What is also interesting to me is that, this painting was 10 years old when I bought it. She painted it in 2012 and it had hung around. I saw a photo of it in a picture on her FB page where it was hanging with many other pieces of her art at an art fair as it seemed she participated in a lot of those. That was kind of fun to see. I guess it was hanging around waiting for me.
That night I sat down at my art table and decided to do a small piece or two with her in mind. Not copying hers as I don't have the talent, so just doing something with fall trees and keeping her in mind as a sort of quiet tribute. I originally painted a blue background on the one after this as I was going to do a painting without collage, but it was taking a long time to dry for some reason, so I decided to do a collage in-between while I waiting.
This is how it turned out. I kind of loved what I did with the leaves. I had chosen collage papers with various warm fall colors and out of the blue, it came to me that I could take my various punches and randomly punch around on some oddly shaped pieces, which would make very random patterns. I never did that before, so I am claiming Laurie told me to do that. 😉 I liked the affect. It's a nice tool to add to my design bag of tricks.
That night, I never got back to the painted piece before it was bed time.
This is how it turned out the next night though. It's very simple and amateur, but I liked how the trunks of the red tree on the left and the yellow one in them middle peaked through the colorful leaves. From a little further distance, it actually looks decent I think, well, for me and my lack of experience. I don't know if I will try to develop further or just let the idea be left in tribute land.
So... obviously, unless I found someone else selling a previously owned piece of her art. The one above will be the only one for me... and that's ok.
I hope you are resting in peace Laura Sucharda. 💛
