Liesel Lund
Whidbey Island, WA
Liesel is a full time artist who creates joyful impressionistic oil paintings with a focus on color and expressive brushwork.
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Liesel Lund is a professional artist living on Whidbey Island, WA. She paints impressionistic, plein air and studio oil paintings of landscapes and florals. She uses brush marks, rich color and strong compositions to create a lively surface to create an emotional connection viewers feel. Collectors frequently comment on how joyful and uplifting her artwork is, and place it in treasured spaces in their homes and offices.
Liesel began her creative career, designing exhibit graphics for Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo, children’s books for McGraw-Hill, and textile prints for Tommy Bahama’s tropically inspired clothing.
In 2008, she left the design field to be a full time artist and workshop instructor. From 2008-2025 Liesel has taught workshops in art journaling, watercolor, book binding, oil painting and jewelry in California, Nebraska, New Jersey, Illinois, Texas and Washington.
A third generation artist, Liesel follows in the creative footsteps of her grandmother, a ceramic bead and fiber artist, and her mother, a traditional quilter, author and garden designer.
After moving to Whidbey Island in 2016, she switched from watercolor to painting in oils. She paints outdoors and in the studio the gardens, woods, water and farmland surrounding her. She has taken painting trips to Orcas Island, WA | Sedona, AZ | Santa Barbara, CA | and Carmel, CA.
Her collectors frequently describe her work as “Full of life”, “Uplifting”, or “Joyful”. This quality of joy that she infuses her art with, is very intentional. “I’ve had several paintings purchased by couples as their anniversary gift. I can’t begin to tell you how happy that makes me to know that my art uplifts others.”
Statement
My oil paintings are impressionistic florals and landscapes created with a variety of marks and vibrant colors. Frequently I zoom in to my subject so that viewers feel that they could reach in and touch the scene just a few feet away.
I often paint outdoors where I look for contrasting light, rich color and dynamic compositions in the landscape. I have only two to three hours to paint before the sun’s movement greatly alters the lighting of the scene. A dramatic sky and a changing shoreline also have to be captured quickly. These aspects make painting outdoors exhilarating and challenging.
For large paintings, I work in my studio where I have the luxury of building a painting over many sessions. My approach in all my work is to start with a clear vision and, as I go along, to be open to ideas that pop up as it evolves. Working this way keeps the act of painting exciting and creates work that I feel is more lively and joyful.
Watercolor was the first medium I fell in love with. Later, oils won me over with their viscosity and vivid color. Now I include methods from both mediums in my paintings. I like the variety of marks these techniques create: drips, thick slabs, crisp edges, and soft shapes. My greatest challenge is keeping a balance between all these delicious marks while still building cohesive shapes that represent reality - even if an impressionistic one. If you look closely at my work, you often will see hints of earlier marks peeking out between the top layers.
The comment I hear most often when people view my work is how joyful my paintings are. In talking with collectors, I have found that they frequently hang my work in treasured spaces in their home. They display them in their bedrooms to be seen upon awakening, in favorite nooks to be enjoyed while they have their coffee, and in the center of their home where they can be seen frequently.