Animating the Unseen: Finding Your Own Story in the Paintings

Join me live on Zoom, Wednesday, November 11, 11 am ET. Shown: Whispers Along the Water’s Edge, oil and cold wax.

There is a moment I keep returning to in the paintings. A heron standing perfectly still at the edge of the water, just before it moves. Nothing has happened yet, and everything is about to. I think of it as the moment beneath the moment, and it is what I have spent these last years trying to paint.

This Wednesday, I'll be talking about that moment, and the story that led me to it, in a live artist talk for artNXTlevel.

Animating the Unseen: Finding Your Own Story in the Paintings 

Wednesday, November 11, 2026, 11 am to 12 pm ET, live on Zoom

Join here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85228840944?pwd=dqhj4G9HU08rIbPsT5xBfe6NXs1XJ1.1

What the talk is about

My foundation is in classical, technical realism. For a long time, accuracy was the goal: get the drawing right, get the light right. After years away from painting, I came back to the easel and found I wanted something more. I wanted the paintings to hold what I felt standing in front of the subject, not only what I saw.

That search became the heart of my work, and the phrase I use for it is animating the unseen. Whether I'm painting a figure, a portrait, a horse, or a bird at the water's edge, I'm looking for the quiet energy underneath the surface. The stillness before a gesture. The feeling that makes a scene matter.

In the talk, I'll share how that shows up in the studio. I build each painting by moving back and forth between transparent glazes and opaque passages in oil, layering depth slowly. I choose color by feel, letting value and hue serve the story rather than a formula. And I'll talk about how my classical training still holds everything together, even as the work has become more expressive.

Why "finding your own story"

When someone stands in front of a painting and feels a slight stir, something that reminds them of a person, a place, or a part of themselves, that is when a painting comes alive. I don't think the story in a painting belongs only to the artist. Part of it belongs to the person looking.

So this talk is for painters, and it is also for anyone who loves art and wonders why certain pieces stay with them. We'll finish with a live Q&A, and I would love to hear your questions.

Thank you

I'm grateful to Sergio Gomez and Dr. Yanina Gomez, co-founders of artNXTlevel, for inviting me to share my story with their community. It has been a meaningful group to grow with this year.

I hope you'll join me Wednesday. And if you would like to see more of the paintings I'll be talking about, you can explore them here on jennroyster.art.