#painting

See tagged statuses in the local bookrastinating.com community

This is part of the research and exploration phase of a new project. It's a portrait of Fannie Lou Hamer. For more about her and the project, check out this video: https://gwennseemel.com/blog/2025/0529-fannie-lou-hamer/

painted portrait of a black woman speaking

A Renaissance painting that's not religious or classical.

"The Librarian" by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1566(!)

It's hard to believe this was about 350 years before Surrealism or Abstract art were popular in Europe.

A pile of books and book-related objects are piled in a way that makes them resemble a bearded man in Renaissance-era clothing.

This protest poster is the top selling design in my print shop at the moment, and I'm grateful for that twice over: once for the sake of my income and once for what it says about Americans' desire to fight tyranny.

Find designs that make excellent protest poster and t-shirts here: https://www.redbubble.com/people/gwennpaints/shop?artistUserName=gwennpaints&asc=u&collections=720273&iaCode=all-departments&sortOrder=top%20selling

portrait of a frowning Trump with an X over his face

[EN] Twenty years ago, an Oscar-winning actor saw my art and decided to commission me to paint his portrait. For two decades, I didn't talk about this celebrity commission on the Internet. If you're curious about why and about the full story around this commission, check out this post on my blog: https://gwennseemel.com/blog/2025/0515-william-hurt/

painted portrait of William Hurt, the actor

Sometimes I get so frustrated with my brain and the ways it reacts to the world that I end up wishing I could rid myself entirely of my emotional anchors. But the truth is that my struggles are part of who I am.

Check out all my paintings about mental health: https://gwennseemel.com/everythingsfine

painting of a flying fish dragging an anchor

I worry at times that I’m the coyote with a black hole for a heart, sucking up all the other coyotes’ songs and keeping them from reaching anyone else. Mostly though, I recognize that I can also be the one who does the singing to fill others’ hearts.

Check out all my paintings about mental health: https://gwennseemel.com/everythingsfine

coyotes singing rainbows, one has a black hole for a heart

Hello, Mental Health Awareness Month! Mental health isn't just the elephant in the room: it's the pink woolly mammoth made to do circus tricks. It's been with us forever and it's been trying to play along with our whole silly game of pretending like nothing's up.

Check out all my paintings about mental health: https://gwennseemel.com/everythingsfine

painting of a pink woolly mammoth in a circus

[EN] A commissioned painting from 2008, which played an important role in this article about all the different brushes I use: https://gwennseemel.com/blog/2010/0104-brushes/

[FR] Une peinture commandée en 2008, qui a joué un rôle important dans cet article sur tous les différents pinceaux que j'utilise: https://gwennseemel.com/fr/blog/2011/0127-pinceaux/

painted portrait of a young blond child