'smiling at everyone' original acrylic painting on canvas

once the post-paint clarity had hit, i thought: is this too much? for some people, yes. but not for me. i am a lot! being alive is a lot! and the muchness of being alive when it's summer could only be expressed with these colours in this combination. the air that vibrates with heat. watching the city fill with people and admire their fabulous summer outfits. inhaling possibility. exhaling the weight of winter.

this canvas used to be a different painting, an abstract with a few collage elements i made last year. but recently it came out of storage and i've looked at it every day for a while, and it became clear to me that it actually wasn't done. it needed more layers, more colours, more texture, more MORE. i started adding things entirely based on instinct.

the light pink marks were made with a big plastic lid, and i thought they looked like butterfly wings, so i doodled a butterfly. then i made a joke to myself about "the bugs of summer", as opposed to the boys of summer in the don henley hit from 1984. i scribbled that and some misremembered lyrics on the canvas. 

loosely related but apparently henley took the title from a nonfiction book about baseball, which in turn had taken its title from a dylan thomas poem. i didn't mean to be a poet about this one but i cannot escape! 

that's what i have to say about this one. it's pure joy, proof i was here and alive, and felt the summer intensely. also, bugs love me.

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collecting this painting also gives you:

• a couple small surprise goodies (like stickers or small prints from my archive)
• a handmade membership card for the pixie collector club, including information about a few perks
• probably a few cat hairs despite my best efforts 😅 the fluffy studio assistant is eating allergen-reducing food, and tends not to bother allergic people in my experience.
  

it will be packaged (very carefully) with reused materials because it's nonsensical to me to throw out the packaging materials i get, only to then go and buy new ones. waste not want not.

measurements: 46x38 cm

the canvas is 1.5 cm thick.

interested in a payment plan? go to my members hub and join one of the payment plan tiers — see more info there, and email me at pixie@pixiewithpens.com if you have additional questions!

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