Select Oil & Acrylic Abstract and Landscape Paintings 2025

"Untitled" 14 1/2" x17 1/2" Acrylic on wood

2025 was a year of more abstract and landscape paintings, and my year of oil paintings. I experimented with oils, brushes, and strokes. I learned that oils take a long time to dry, from weeks to months. I learned to add a drop or two of linseed oil to make thick oils smoother, and to add a drop of Liguin to help speed up the drying process. I also practiced the process of creating an oil painting outside in below 30°F winter weather.

I painted on black canvas, blue canvas, and a combination of other underpainting. I continue to see that what I envision in my mind about a painting takes a life of its own on canvas. Painting oils doesn't require sketching. I added the practice of sketching my landscape paintings.

Painting abstracts has no rules. As Helen Frankenthaler said, ""Every canvas is a journey all its own. There are no rules. Let the picture lead you where it must go."

This year I painted my first still life. And I painted an award-winning landscape, my first.

And for the first time since I began painting In 2021, when I became a self-taught painter, in 2025 three painting inspirations appeared in my dreams. One of those dreams is painted in acrylic, another in oil. The third dream, yet to be painted, came in the form of a Pollock-esque abstract.

Here is a selection of my 2025 acrylic and oil abstract and landscape paintings.

My first oil. I played and experimented with earthy colors oil paints, brushes, and textures on canvas, and created my first two thick oil abstracts.

"Untitled" 12"x 12" on canvas

My second oil is painted with brighter colors. Like my first oil painting, there is no rhyme or reason behind this painting; just playing with oils, brushes, and textures.

"Untitled" 12"x 12" on canvas

After I woke up in the middle of the night, I suppose anxious about my colonoscopy the next day, I just wanted to paint. I got up, went to the kitchen, and prepared our vintage enamel metal table with pullout sleeves with my paints, brushes and canvas, and began painting as I listened to a movie on the ROKU channel.

"Untitled"

16"x 20" oil on cadmium red light hue acrylic canvas

Inspired by the bouquet of flowers our dear friend brought with her to Thanksgiving dinner, I painted my first still life. The flowers brightened up our kitchen table across our brick wall fireplace. I wanted to preserve the flowers in a painting.

"Melanie's Flowers"

11"x 14" oil on canvas

To prepare to paint in the cold weather at a "4 Colors" plein-air competition with the colors I chose — titanium white, cerulean blue, raw umber, and yellow ochre — I practiced with linseed oil and Liquin, and created this painting in my backyard.

"4 Colors" 12"x 16" oil on canvas

This painting was inspired by a dream made of an olive green with three solid yellow circles on each of the two horizontal black lines. Painting it became messy and created a very different image of my dream. I'll try acrylic paints another time.

"A Dream Deferred" 12" x 16" oil on canvas

This acrylic painting is my first dream-inspired painting. This bright autumn image of our trees by our driveway appeared in a dream on what would have been my late mother's 100th birthday on October 13. She took her last breath on June 13.

The bright dream woke me up at 4 am. I got up and prepared a raw umber and yellow ochre canvas, went back to bed, and painted it later.

"Autumn Dream" 11" x14" acrylic on canvas

A friend in her 60s and a fellow ultrarunner in her 40s died of cancer a day apart. The joy that they gave their friends and families inspired this painting. Death and sorrow bring sadness, but in times of grief, remembering the lives of the deceased and their goodness offers joy.

"There is Joy in Sadness"16" x 20" acrylic on canvas

We continue to live in turbulent and chaotic times. But one thing is for sure. No one can take away my paints, brushes, canvases, imagination, and our flower gardens.

Provoked by our chaotic world, and inspired by our flower garden under the dogwood tree, I painted layers of colorful paints on a green canvas for four hours straight; so relaxing, calming, and meditative.

"In Times of Chaos, Find Respite and Calm in Flowers"

11"x 14" acrylic on canvas

With our national parks suffering and the uncertainty of air travel, for the first time since 2010, my husband Jon and I did not adventure at a national park. But inspired by a photo that Jon took of me hiking in a forest in Yellowstone NP in 2011, I painted that memory on my first black canvas.

“Solitude on a Summer Day”

11”x 14” acrylic on black canvas

An intended snowscape scene of birch trees painted on titanium white/cerulean blue canvas became an unintended intuitive abstract painting. I kept the unfinished birch trees, played with the colors and brushes, and added small, horizontal rectangular shapes.

"Untitled" 12"x 16" acrylic on canvas

When my husband Jon saw this painting, he said,

"Colorful. Joyful."

In these dark times, I was thinking the same.

"Brightly Untitled"

16"x 20" acrylic on canvas

The weekend of December13, 2025 was filled with violence, loss, and sorrow. Inspired by the 7-inch snowfall and one of the big maple trees in our backyard, I painted.

I had no words, only a canvas, brushes, paints, and snow.

This unplanned painting helped me to meditatively process those tragic events in the comfort of my home.

"A December Snow-Covered Backyard Maple Tree"

11"x 14" acrylic on canvas

This painting was entered in a juried contest and art exhibition. It won second place in the acrylic/ nonprofessional category. This painting was inspired by an old photo of our backyard and vegetable garden.

"Our Backyard in the Spring"

16" x 20" acrylic on canvas

When I first began playing with paint during the pandemic, I painted memories of landscapes of our adventures in national parks. Then I added painting memories of the sites of ultrarunning events I ran in — trails, roads, and track. Nature and solitude were recurring themes.

The following year, I unintentionally painted my first abstract after I painted over a landscape of a waterfall in a forest that I was not pleased with. More landscapes and abstracts followed.

In 2025, a more turbulent and violent year on our soil and throughout the world, my paintings took on new themes. My paintings were inspired and shaped, not only by nature, but also by chaos, dreams, death, and loss, along with pleasant memories of joyful moments amidst the chaos, and that which we can't control.

But with my paints, brushes, canvases, and imagination, I have creative control over how I react to the world in turbulent times, and in sad and happy times.

Here's to my 2026 paintings and to learning, discovering, and creating more.

©2026

Visit the My Paintings page for more about my self-taught painting journey began, my first solo exhibition, and view more paintings and the stories behind them.