A Joy to Look at Print

Acrylic cupcake painting on canvas with the paper cut out words “A joy to look at.”

 This is the third in a series of four paintings each with a line from a short four-line poem written by me, Robert Krell: Life is a cupcake, Luscious and sweet.
 A joy to look at, Even better to eat.

 Like most of my poems, it was written first with children in mind and then the adults who might be reading the poem to children. I wanted to focus on a positive message for everyone…to let people know, in spite of all the negative things in this world, life can be sweet and joyful. It’s really often a matter of how we perceive the world around us and what we do to make our world a more loving and accepting place for everyone. To me, a cupcake is a perfect metaphor for life. Cupcakes, like our individual lives, can be beautiful, luscious, and sweet; great to watch life around you, but even better if you take a bite out of life and enjoy it for yourself with all its unique qualities.

 The poem really dictated that each line be associated with its own unique cupcake to signify that all of our lives are unique, and that children need to grow up knowing they are unique and don’t have to look like or be like everyone else. 
 The paintings are meant to be uplifting and expressionistic interpretations of cupcakes that can brighten up people’s lives and make people smile. Thick impasto acrylic paint was used for the icings. The letters are hand cut from colored art paper using fine scissors. The letters are individually glued to the colored backing paper to form the words, which are adhered to small pieces of gator board, and then permanently affixed to the canvas. This approach gives the words a floating and playful quality.

 To own the complete four-line poem, consider collecting all four prints in the series.