Suzanne Lanoue: Paintings by Suzanne

MY PAINTING WORK THUS FAR (IN ORDER OF MY OPINION)

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This is a landscape panting of a photo I took in 2025 in upstate New York. I worked very hard on this oil painting in Painting II. Professor Fred Fleischer (SUNY) guided me through the process. It wouldn't have come out so well without his guidance.

This is an abstract I did at home, June 2026. It's titled "Swirlies." I made it with only a palette knife. It was a lot of fun to make, but it didn't come out exactly as I was picturing it. It's OK.

When I was learning how to mix paint, I noticed that the swirling paint looked really pretty (and reminded me of ice cream, among other things).

I made "Swirlies 2," (below) which came out much more as I'd envisioned.

I tried to make each of the swirlies in this one look like some kind of flower or plant, while I was at it. It came out pretty well, I think. I'm pleased with it.

On a side note: I came up with the idea to use the palette knife on my own. Then I Googled "palette knife art" and was quite amazed at all the art I found! There are many wonderful artists that paint much better than I do, using a palette knife. That's pretty cool. In fact, Van Gogh's Starry Starry Night was created with the palette knife. Many great artists, such as Chagall, Matisse and Cezanne used this technique.

Back in high school (1978-1979), I did this mural for my art class. It took me a lot longer than I'd planned because there were a lot of details to paint. The teacher was nice to let me finish it without having to do the other assignments instead.

My foster parents had taken me to the King Tut exhibit in L.A., and the teacher had a book full of photos from the exhibit. I really enjoyed the exhibit, and the book, so that's why I made this mural. It's almost 50 years old now.

This was an abstract painting that I did for Christmas (at the end of the semester 2025, for Painting I at SUNY). It represents what I feel about the holiday. I love it, but it stresses me out.

This is acrylic paint, with glitter. I've never worked with glitter before!

At the time, I could only think of extremely negative ideas for this assignment. This was the most cheerful one I could manage at that point.

I screwed up this self-portrait painting (you can see the initial drawing I made on my drawing page). My eyes are too far apart,
and I messed up my teeth. Consider this a work in progress because I do intend to go back and fix it. I hope I can find some time to do that
because I don't think it will take TOO much timet. It's a bit like when I try to record myself singing - sometimes it works better if you step back from it for a while and then go back to it with a fresh perspective.

For another Painting II project, we had to paint two paintings (in oil or acrylic), and they had to be related somehow. I chose Fall/Halloween and Christmas. I'm still working on fixing up the faces in the Christmas one.

For Painting I (SUNY), we had to paint two still life paintings with acrylic paint. These were both depicting objects that Professor Fleisher put up for us. The second painting was MUCH harder to paint because it had more small details, i.e., imperfections. This was the first we painted, aside from a color wheel. I was still figuring out how to use the paint and brushes.

The second one for that class (to the right) came out OK. I think it was too hard for some of the other students. Some of them really did it really well, though.

These 2 paintings below were actually just test sheets for trying out oil paint for the first time. It's a very different thing to paint with (from acrylic), and cleaning the brushes is very different as well.

We did two of these still life paintings (at right). One is in acrylic and one is in oil. I believe this is the one in oil, but I'm not sure.

I drew this watercolor in the 80's (I don't remember why). I guess the mood just struck me.

We moved to Hawaii in 2013, and I wanted to find some nice pictures to put on the wall. Everything is very expensive there, so I just decided to buy some watercolor paints, some paper and brushes, to make my own. I learned one thing: I don't know anything about painting with watercolor! So here are the two I came up with: Hibiscus and plumeria.