Colorful Art Made by Josie Lewis Will Make You Want to Do it Yourself

By
Chris L
-

Josie Lewis is an artist from Minnesota whose Instagram account and YouTube channel have gained great popularity over the last few years, with over 1 billion views on YouTube and around 500k followers on Instagram.

She is an artist who works with mixed media, painting, and video. Her artwork is based on experimentation with different materials, and since she has a daughter, she also shares advice on some creative techniques that are children-friendly, such as paper marbling.

Lewis’ art is exhibited in some public institutions such as The Minneapolis airport and UC Berkeley, General Mills, and The St. Paul Regional Rail Authority.  

Besides paintings, she also creates hypercollages, which are 3D collages built from different materials, and she makes large patterned paintings using a tiny brush and watercolors. What people love most among her numerous artworks are video schmears, which are paint daubs smeared across a surface.

If you visit her Instagram or YouTube channel, you may find art pieces that look dazzling, but there are also tutorials on how to do some of the things she does or satisfying art video collections.  

Enjoy! 

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I'll just be over here, playing with cellophane and paint. Sometimes (every day of my life) somebody tells me that "My kid could do that!" 👧🏼👶🏽 To which, I think: yes, and kids are the ones who still have fun when they make art! So bring it on, and if you do this project with your kids tag me or dm me a photo! ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Also, to all the lovely parents who tell me that their adorable littles love to watch me make art: YOU'RE THE BEST. The 3-8 yr old range is a big demo for me. 📈 I love to think about all the cuddling and watching rainbows that's happening. Major metric for success: #nailingit⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Use #colorcompanion for feature at my share account @colorcompanion⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ #josielewis #acrylicpainting #color #paletteknife #impasto #thickpaint #partsofpaintings #acrylicpaint #painting #artofvisuals #paintmixing #rainbow

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I'm in kind of reflective mood these days. Maybe it's because I just had a birthday, or maybe because I'm currently making decisions about the next steps in my artistic journey. Maybe it's because I've been sorting through 250 GB of photos from my phone to try to make SOME kind of organization in my data (the struggle is real, can I get a witness?). ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ These gems popped up during my data org. Scroll through to see the most popular art I've made in the last few years. If you've been following me for a while, these images might be familiar to you. I've got watercolor patterns, paper collage, mosaic tile, thick paint and resin petri (check out @petrifiedrainbow for more). Phew. And that's just the tip of the iceberg! I've been busy! What's your favorite? What should I work on next?⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ #luminouscolor #colortheology #josielewis #colorcompanion #artstudio #artist #artoftheday #colors #patterndesign #rainbow⁠⠀ ⁠⠀

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Per usual I'm finger painting up a storm over here. I think these stripe paintings are kind of…. plaid-like? I'm not sure. As usual, the actual paintings are kind of boring to me, but the PROCESS is the very best part. It's all about the sticky, messy, colorful experiment. About 10% of the things that I video document are interesting to me as finished art objects. In fact, the things that I like as finished art are actually kind of hard to capture in a timelapse video. 🤷‍♀️ ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Speaking of process, I'm deep in rehearsal for the @tedxminneapolis that I'm giving in a few weeks (August 10)! The talk is actually ON process, and social media and the huge personal tragedies I've been through with infant and pregnancy loss and how art saved my life. So, you know, no biggie. I think there are a few tickets left and it's going to be off the hook so you should for sure book a flight from Aberdeen or Tokyo or Cape Town and come visit beautiful Mpls! Or maybe you live here, in that case you have no excuse. ⁠⠀😜 ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Use #colorcompanion for feature at my share account @colorcompanion⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ #josielewis #acrylicpainting #color #fingerpainting #impasto #thickpaint #acrylicpaint #painting #contemporaryart #paintmixing #rainbow

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