Roses by Moonlight

.Before I was an artist I was a writer.

As a young girl I loved to read, and my love of writing came soon after. If I had a superpower then, it was in my ability to paint vivid and stirring images with well-chosen words.

Now, I spend more time with a paintbrush in my hand, rather than a pen and paper. But I still want the same thing I wanted before. Words without emotion are utilitarian.  Paintings without emotion are flat and dull.  I want you to feel something.

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with roses.  I’ve been painting them over and over.  Roses are symbolic of so many things.  In my paintings. sometimes the focus stays on the rose and sometimes it goes beyond. 

What’s more, some of my new paintings seem like part of a story; maybe just a single scene from a larger narrative.

I happen to love stories. I’m going to tell you the story of my first rose painting.

I hope it makes you feel something.

I see the man in the moon, and his likeness, broken into thousands of tiny sparkling jewels on the water below.

I smell the rich heady scent of a wall of red, red roses.  It looms above me in the darkness, a few petals here and there catching the moonlight.

I taste the salt air on my lips and the ocean breeze whips my hair across my face. I hear the waves lapping at the shore.

I look left and right.  I turn around.  Where is he?  I am alone in the moonlight.  I wait for the one who sees what I see, feels what i feel.

It’s only me….and the man in the moon.

Sketches: Redefined

I always thought a sketch was done in pencil, a precursor to a finished piece.

I learned that’s a very limited way to look at it.

Some of my early sketches focused on mountain shapes and hovering moons.

Some of my early sketches focused on mountain shapes and hovering moons.

In September 2020, encouraged by my former teacher, I took an online class with Adriano Farinella. It was called Sky & Clouds & Land & Air. I had heard of Adriano as a painter of ethereal clouds, and a former teacher at the Baum School of Art in Allentown. The pandemic was raging and no one was going out, and on my own I wasn’t doing much painting at all. I was hoping the class would help me improve the subtlety and nuance of my skies, and that I would expand my ability to invent rather than just copy what I saw.

The first thing we did was sketches. We cut canvas paper into smaller pieces and taped them to foam boards and painted shapes that became something. I thought it was a little bit crazy, but I tried to do the right thing. I remember feeling so frustrated at week two. I was trying to paint these landscapes that looked like Adriano’s, and I couldn’t. I felt like a failure. We had an individual consult, and he said, “If it’s not working, THEN GO THE OTHER WAY.” He said it loudly and emphatically.

It was then that I realized the value of these sketches. On a small piece of paper, you can play with shapes and color. The commitment of time and the investment of dollars is much less than a regular canvas. I worked things out and found elements I liked. I figured out what worked and didn’t work. I began to move in new directions. My work started to look different. I felt a renewed energy about painting.

Over a year later, I continue to work with Adriano. He has an incredible way of helping me to find and follow my creative voice, and pushing me to the next level. But the sketches are where it began.

This sketch was painted quickly with watered down acrylics that look like watercolors.

This sketch was painted quickly with watered down acrylics that look like watercolors.

I don’t use them as often now as I did initially, but in thinking about writing this piece I decided I need to incorporate them again. They keep things open and fresh. They keep me moving in new directions. They keep me searching for and connecting to that inner voice.

For my friends and fans, sketches are a wonderful thing because they cost less than a painting on canvas. They make it more affordable to own a Lori Beneyton original. Take a look at the Sketch Gallery now. The store will open in a few weeks!

The beginning of a new page of sketxhes

The beginning of a new page of sketches.





On Chickens, and Becoming an Artist

pic with hat.jpg

Maybe I was an artist my whole life, but didn’t know it.  Yes, I took some basic art classes as an adolescent.  I liked to visit art museums and galleries.  I found myself tutoring poor-performing students in my college art history class. I was a supporter of the arts.  I was an appreciator of art.  Although I could sing and write, I didn’t count art among my talents. 

And then, in February 2019, I became what I thought I was not on a cold and dark day, brightened only by the appearance of a magic chicken.  It was the day I became an artist.

Read on.

One evening, I was in the guest room folding laundry.

The rhythmic, tactile act of folding was somehow soothing to me.

It was quiet.  There was no one yelling, no one staking a claim.

I saw, on the table, the bag from Michael’s that I had bought for the kids.  It held cheap acrylic paints and a couple of canvasses.  No one had used them at all.

I put the laundry aside.   I sat down and got out the paints. 

First, I found an image online that I liked.  It was a chicken in the grass, on the website of a chicken hatchery.  I sketched.

I started to paint.  All I thought about was the chicken, the colors, where the light and dark were, how to make it look like the picture.

I didn’t think about the cold, dark winter, or being stuck in this house, or the angry words and actions that flowed regularly, or our finances, or my lack of employment.  I didn’t think about getting smaller and smaller.  I thought about that chicken and I painted.  I tried to really see her, with an artist’s eye.

It took a couple days to finish.  I added gold metallic paint for fun.  I posted her on Facebook.

 I called her a Magic Chicken.

And so she was.