MelanieJoy

  Well, we have travelled far and wide. We have had life's ups and downs, suffering great losses and grief, and great happiness as well. And we have bought a little piece of a forest with a creek and many wild life friends. We have also built my studio!  I have been painting, quite a lot in comparison to our lifestyle over the last 6 years, but never as much as I want. Expect very soon that I will have some new paintings to show you, so sit tight!  And if you would like an update when I post new paintings, please feel free to email me and request to join the list at melaniejoyart@gmail.com

  When I started this one, we were living in Switzerland, in a small town in Basel-Landschaft. This was in 2020, the pandemic was already months in. I found it hard to bring myself to paint, I did not want to project all the negative thoughts and feelings I was having into it, so I would often wait until I felt a good place mentally to work on this one.  It was exciting for me, it was colours I normally don't use, and a process I was shifting into. Plus an attention to detail that I felt a drive to incorporate.   It took on many evolutions in my creative mind, but as usual, I let happen what was to happen - those ones tend to turn out the best.  It was completed back in Canada, having traversed the globe - farther than most people I know have or ever will get to go.  This was a long drawn out labour of love, many many hours of persistence, a testament that a stillness in the soul can be found and escaped to.  My own personal journey with this painting ...

  If you follow my art and read my thoughts on each piece of artwork, you are already familiar with the idea that I can get inspiration from videogames I play. And this one is no exception.  I recently changed the game I play (Final Fantasy xiv) and even though this barely resembles the zone I was inspired by, it was none the less.  

  When I was growing up, my grandparents lived far away. I did not get to see my Grandma very much, and sadly my paternal Grandma had passed before my birth, or conception to that matter. But my maternal Grandpa's sister lived about 2 km out of the town I grew up in. She was a short, 'plump' woman, and I am sure the phrase "She's a pistol!" was first used to describe her. We would visit her a lot, she loved to bake - or it seemed she did, there was always something lovely to eat at her house.  There was puzzles, lego, afternoons in a quiet sun filled room that made you sleepy in all the best ways, with only the soft chime of a cuckoo clock every hour. And these doll bottles that were made of pure magic!  You tipped them and the liquid disappeared!    Whaaaat? My Aunt Nellie was also married to the local mortician.  I used to think he was the ghost of Abraham Lincoln and that was why he was ok being around dead bodies all the time. I remember being scared to...

  Online Store - Left                         Online Store - Right  As is customary, I wanted to create something different than my usual dark moons, oceans and forests. I can't say that I have anything profound or deeply personal about this set, but I am very pleased with how they turned out, and sometimes that's worth more than a sad emotional connection that artist's tend to live within.

  *previously listed as 'Sold'. This is no longer the case. Evermore ;  always; continually; forever. at all future times; henceforth. This is my first completed painting, after being back from our adventure in Switzerland.  Sometimes our journey takes us so far from the land of painting that I worry.  I worry that I will lose what I can do with a brush, I worry I will lose what I want to do with a brush. I worry that the events of the world will stop me from finding the creativity within me, and that will be it for my art career.  But I sat down, and I did what I love - a Moon and Water in the night sky, banishing the voice in my head saying "another one?" And when I was done, I wept.  This painting was the witness to my private tears, my relief, my hope. It sat silently while I mourned losses, celebrated gains, never judging, just allowing me my artistic journey into the world where I will never doubt my abilities or creativity again.   Evermo...

Online Store "In this poem, Blake portrays the concepts of the return to innocence from experience."  This resonated with my very soul when I read the poem and the meaning behind it.   Something I never expected when I became an artist, is the journey.  There have been so many hills and valleys, so much learning, and unlearning.  And at every moment of revelation, I am always hope to find myself back to the innocence of beginning as an artist. This painting represents that dream to innocence, but I didn't know it at the time. It felt like a new adventure as I was painting it, just like when I picked up my first brush. A Dream by William Blake   Once a dream did weave a shade O'er my Angel-guarded bed, That an Emmet lost its way Where on grass methought I lay. Troubled, wildered, and forlorn, Dark, benighted, travel-worn, Over many a tangle spray, All heart-broke, I heard her say: "Oh my children! do they cry, Do they hear their father sigh? Now they lo...

Hold Me In The Dark oil on canvas I have many paintings on the go right now, ones I even started before this one.  But sometimes, you just have to sit down to some Enya, your favourite colours, and paint something. Whatever happens. And it felt so good to disappear into this one.  I will get a better photo in the future to replace that shine on the left side.

untitled oil on canvas board It's just a small painting, but it commemorates my first session of painting since the summer of 2019. We spent 3 months in Boston, USA and then a few near family over Christmas back in Canada.  Then mid January we went to Switzerland for 3 months, with plans to see so much on Europe.... So not a lot of painting got done, and not a lot of sight seeing either... Then a pandemic broke out and we realized we might be staying a bit. And we were right! I am posting this in August of 2020 from Switzerland - that's a heck of a lot longer than 3 months!  So we got to the business of ordering art supplies so that I may continue with my work (as if it ever feels like work!). And I painted this little nugget. It may not seem like anything fancy, but I enjoyed every moment of it's creation, and that love goes into future artwork.

(Written in 2021) I could never express how much I love this painting. I have spent many hours just staring at it, enjoying and appreciating the details, the lighting, the mood.  I painted this one during our travels around Canada with our RV. It is quite hard to do oils when you have to move your house regularly, but I felt such a drive to paint it. As I write this in 2021, I have come to recognize this one as the last painting I will ever do with pure imagination. Coming from a wellspring of childlike hope.  I do not mean to say that I will never create another painting full of magic, of awe and wonder. But I recognize that the events of the times have planted a seed in me that will always contain a grain of sand worth of sadness. And perhaps no one else will ever know, or see it, but I will know. And it breaks my heart. It's a strange process to grieve losing a part of yourself. So this painting has special significance to me, perhaps the same as my very first painting .

I painted this in the spring of 2019 with water soluble oil paint. We were living in an RV travelling around Western Canada at the time and it was hard to paint with oils. The room and storage is limited, and it takes a bit for oils to dry, so moving your house around can risk a wet painting. But this is one of two I completed while travelling.  Other Products

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If you have lived through a winter in mid/northern Alberta, Canada, then this painting will make sense to you. Usually the winters are very unpleasant, but I am n o stranger to this experience. Sometimes you can catch a glimpse of beauty when you see the sun sparkling on fresh, -40C snow. And I do love sparkles!

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Other Products * If you purchased this on my Redbubble site on other products, please note that the name had not been corrected to it's final name; from ' Blue October ' to ' October Blue ' (it just rolls off the tongue better) in May of 2019. A small area where I failed to realize I had not corrected it.   So congratulations, you have what might be a rare collector's item should my art become important after my death!

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In Awe of Wonders and Possibilities oil on canvas, gallery wrapped

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Anyone that is familiar with my posts know that many of my paintings are associated with music, often particular songs. This one is no different. There is a band from Australia that most of you might not realize you know - Icehouse. I listened to them during most of this creation. One song on repeat, hence the name. It was stuck in my head for days as I thought of doing this painting. I really hope that I have done Uluru justice. 

I painted this one specifically for my husband to hang in his office. <3

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The Night I Disappeared oil on canvas, gallery wrapped 14x18 inches / 35.5x46 cm Sold Online Store

Deep Within The Breath of Serenity oil on canvas, gallery wrapped 14x18 inches / 35.5x46 cm Sold Online Store

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There is a secret here and I am not telling!

In Search Of Alice oil on canvas, gallery wrapped 6x8 inches / 15.25x20.3 cm cdn +shipping Online Store The name of this one is reference to Alice in Wonderland. Lost in a dream state where everything seems not quite right and little off. It's a wee little gem that works great on a small wall. Most ideal with foliage nearby!

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Other products You're thinking to yourself, isn't it 'Don't Go Gentle Into that Good Night'?  You are correct, if you are talking about the poem by Dylan Thomas . But we are not talking about raging against the dying light. My painting was painted in sorrow, in pain and in memory.  In previous posts I have talked about the passing of my Aunt Anita. In May she passed away, quietly and swiftly. And very unexpected. It was a blow to many of us as she was so well loved and such a beautiful light, an extraordinary example of not only what the world hopes of a Christian, but as a human being. The loss of her is deep, it is constant. Every day I think of her and most days now I can smile. But some days, like today, I weep because she is not physically here anymore. Today would have been her 67th Birthday and I can not call her, email her or hug her to wish her a wonderful day full of happiness and love. But I can pay homage with what I made, in her memory. ...

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Online Store So we (and by that I mean my husband) took this painting and put it through a program to hear what it sounded like.  We slowed it down and the sound was similar to eerie crickets or aliens (according to movies), with a faint extra frequency in the background that sort of had an ethereal sound, hence the name. Have a listen for yourself...

Online Store This would be my 100th completed painting!! Hence the name of it. It has been a journey so far that I never actually expected. As a child you never realize that there is so much more to being an artist than just creating art. There is pain, anger, enlightenment, personal growth and so many more emotions that one never expects. I have had to come to terms with hating things I have created, while others have loved it. That is a weird feeling. I have been so excited by something I still can't believe it came from inside me. And then when you let that first artwork into the world, it's like letting a tiny a piece of yourself go, knowing that you may never ever see that painting again, so that when you look at pictures of your past work, you always wonder..... and then you have to let that go. I have many out in the world, and most I am aware of their locations and could see them anytime I want. But there are a few, they are out there, on some strangers wall, ho...

The Moon That Soothed The Siren oil on canvas, gallery wrapped 14x18 inches / 35.5x46 cm Sold Online Store

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I Cherish The Loneliness of Autumn oil on canvas, gallery wrapped 14x18 inches / 35.5x46 cm Sold Online Store I am an October Baby. I spent my birthdays jumping in piles of leaves. I love the smell of leaves fading, the look of them falling to the ground and the sound of their crunch. That day when the wind changes ever so slightly and you know it's the start....it makes me just as giddy and excited as when there is a thunder storm.  And I love halloween, not in the conventional/commercial sense, but in the mysterious, dark spooky magic that tingles in the air on a late October night sort of way.  But I have never liked the color orange, except when it is pertaining to Autumn and all that it entails. Then it is the most magnificent color in the world, so warm, so inviting, so special. It's as if the only color that exists in the month of October, is Orange. I cherish the loneliness of autumn....  I am forty, I have become mortal.  I have ...

Eve of a Lover's Moon oil on canvas, gallery wrapped 14x18 inches / 35.5x46 cm Sold Online Store

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Last Night of a Dying Sun oil on canvas 12x24 inches / 30.5x61 cm cdn +shipping $200.00 Online Store I really have no idea when I started it, I believe it was 2006 - like 95% sure. I remember where, just not what year. It has been following me around waiting for me to finish it.  I know that when I started it I wanted it to be a painting of Charn (yes another Narnia reference) but after I did the base work, I realized I did not have the skill set to complete it the way I wanted. Or perhaps I saw a great dying sun and that's as far as my mind took it.  I do have a few paintings waiting for completion from years ago but this one is the oldest. I have been staring at it, off and on for 10 years, pondering, thinking, waiting. Then one day it just felt right. And I am glad I waited because I am love with how it turned out!