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Honest Illustrations Show What Happens Behind Closed Doors In Every Relationship (30 New Pics)
Love has always been a source of the greatest creative ideas for artists and everyone who has been in love at least once understands why. The world fills up with butterflies and rainbows which you want to experience with newly enhanced senses and the perfect significant other by your side. But the truth is that there isn’t such a thing as a perfect relationship. Once the honeymoon stage is over, reality strikes, and even though it doesn‘t exactly look like a romantic movie, the trust, and comfort two people develop is not less worthy of bringing to light.
A 29-year-old Los Angeles based artist, Amanda Oleander, invites her audience of 878k people on Instagram to the intimate world of everyday life in loving relationships that is often left behind closed doors.
Scroll through the cute drawings below to explore the inner working of long-term relationships and see if they look familiar. And if you can’t get enough, check out Amanda’s illustrations that we’ve previously shared on Bored Panda.
More info: amandaoleander.com | Instagram | twitter.com | Facebook
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It comes as no surprise that behind the scenes, the relationship may slightly differ from the image that we put out to the world. The talented artist shares quirky love stories through her adorable illustrations and her distinctive style filled with fine details and subtle humor helps to portray the simple yet magical bond between two people in a long-term relationship.
Inspired by her own romantic relationship with a long term partner, Joey Rudman, to whom she recently got engaged and her family and friends’ honest confessions, the artist depicts the precious mundane moments in relationships that create a real picture of unfiltered love. The unglamorous scenarios Amanda portrays in her artwork are far from a fairytale but they reveal a very genuine and relatable side of romance. Amanda’s illustrations confront an unrealistic image of a ‘perfect’ relationship that the media often dictates; they show that love can be simple.
How sweet ! You invited your mother-in-law . :D (couldn't resist. sorry :)
“These illustrations are inspired by my personal life. I love illustrating life behind closed doors. What really happens when we are comfortable at home by ourselves or with our loved ones. This is the first time I am in a healthy, loving and kind relationship. I love illustrating what it's like to be in one and how important It is to be loved for who you really are.” - Amanda told Bored Panda.
Am I dreaming or in place of the time on the oven it's written hot?
Amanda’s illustrations convey a reality that could not be documented with scripted or altered photographs that we often see online. Relationships consist of small and quiet moments and they are not always pretty: from cuddling in bed and cooking together, to pimple popping and changing a tampon in front of your significant other – her drawings are as real as it gets. But this is actually how every long term relationship looks when nobody’s watching and it makes Amanda’s artwork so authentic and universal. Despite different backgrounds, cultures, countries, and languages, people and their relationships are very similar.
Amanda Oleander’s career bridges fine art, technology, performance art, and commercial work for which she was honored as one of Pure Wow’s 100 Women Emerging in Culture. After receiving her degree in Fine Arts, she worked as an illustrator for E! Entertainment. It took Amanda 4 years to get 2k followers on Instagram, but it skyrocketed when in 2015, she started incorporating Periscope into her daily routine by live-streaming herself painting and showing snippets of her life and became one of the app’s breakout stars. The rest is history. Now the artist has hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram and over 51k followers on Facebook who appreciate her honesty and refreshing approach.
Revealing the reality of relationships is just a part of Amanda’s inspiring work. Besides romantic partners, she depicts other types of love that play a huge part in our lives, like affection to pets, friends and, most importantly, ourselves. She uses her influence on social media to articulate her thoughts into pieces of art and encourages self-love. Drawing inspiration from real life moments, Amanda is not likely to ever run out of ideas.
The message the artist wanted to convey is "looking at photographs that we are together and it feels like he is here with me". Or it's "I killed him and I was at last free to play candy crush... "
Through her art, Amanda is able to reach and connect with millions of people worldwide and she tries to give back to people who support her in creative journey. She has a print sale every Monday for 24 hours on her website. "When people send me reaction videos of them getting my artwork gifted to them and seeing them cry from excitement warms my heart so much and is such a big motivator for me to keep doing what I love," said the artist.
Got stopped by police for driving with my girlfriend like this... not sufficient control of the vehicle should something happen.
When we lived apart my boyfriend made me a “Boyfriend-pillow” so I wouldn’t miss him so much by putting one of his smelly t-shirts over a pillow. I still love him for that
If that was me I would be wearing ketchup in my clothes. Always end up a mess eating burgers.
At first I agreed with the sunburn comments. But look how deflated she looks. I'm thinking he's turned his back on her in a mood (showing anger RED) and she's attempting to get him to 'normal'.
hope nobody takes this literally and tries to treat a sunburn w/ acrylic paint
When somebody shows their true colours, we should stop trying to repaint them
It's acrylic paint. Basically she is seeing his true colors but ignoring all the red flags and painting the picture of who she fell in love with. Not who he really is.
Yup, the Goldfinger scenario... the jar says GOLDEN ACRYLIC PAINT Capture-5c...bdd54e.png 
My mind immediately went to the Bond film Goldfinger, where the bad guy has a woman killed by covering her with gold paint... I hope I'm misreading this one!
I was thinking he has a fever and she is trying to heal him or make him feel better.
It's her taking care of him while he is healing from the sunburn. She's painting him his normal skin color
I think that he's really a devil and she is painting him gold to make him look like an angel. (covering up his faults).
He’s running a fever, and she’s trying to help him feel like “gold” again because he’s ill. She wishes she could just wave a brush over him and paint him better, but ultimately there’s not much she can do. Just a guess.
Wow so many people taking a sunburn as "He's a bad man and she's trying to cover it up!!!!1111!!!!111" Given her nice golden tan and fresh freckles, it looks like the usual joke about one person in a couple burns into a lobster, and the other has a lovely tan. You've never "painted" on aloe onto a bad sunburn? There's a lot of angsty projecting going on in these comments.
Hes a devil. Treats her poorly, has hurt her, ect, bit shes using the labeled acrylic paint to paint him in a better light. Its a common color scheme for Liquitex paints, a d said acrylic on the container as she paints him Gold. She wants to have a better relationship, so shes actively choosing to see the good and bury the bad.
She got a golden tan, he was badly burnt. She's painting him so he is tan too. Nice thought, but better paint him with aloe to make him feel better. I must be missing something here.
I think this is symbolism for her wanting to change him into something else.
To her at this moment he is the devil. Look at his hair. Jet black and slicked back. She is sad and wants him to go back to normal.
At first I thought "sunburn". Then I thought 'peanut butter?' lol
Taking into consideration that she is using paint to conceal his devil red color and facial expression, she is convincing herself to see him in a different aspect of his natural self. This typically happens behind closed doors.
maybe she wants him to wake up the colour he wanted not the colour he is
It's a cartoon not a photograph depicting real life. You take things too literally. Sheesh!!
Load More Replies...Note: this post originally had 57 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
These are sweet and all. But things look a bit different after 10 years of living together. ♥ There's still love, it's just... More independent? Anyway, nice drawing style.
Yo también hace 10 años que estoy en pareja,y está diferente el amor también 😞😞
Load More Replies... Lovely drawing style. I can relate to a lot of these in my relationship, but my favorite thing about this post is that you can get a sense of depth of emotion and realness past the superficial "happy couple" that you see a lot of. The style in reminiscent of Frida Kahlo's work. Not "pretty" but captivating and soul baring. At least that's what I see... Thank you for sharing your work.
Didn't think I'd like this as much as I would. Love the concepts and illustration style a lot! Thanks for sharing ^_^
I've been happily married for 11 years. And we don't look like that at all. We really aren't lovey dovey or touchy feely... just saying you don't need to have all that touchy stuff to still be happily married.
Lol my husband sleeps like a mummy wrapped up in a soft taco shell and I sleep with tons of pillows. Her pictures show lots of cuddles.
I'm not sure "Honest Illustrations Show What Happens Behind Closed Doors In Every Relationship " is the most fitting title for this, but they're cute, if not a bit sad for the older and more jaded among us.
These pictures are seriously everything and touched my soul to the darkest core.
The artist’s handling of the watercolor medium + pen-and-ink is absolutely amazing. These are just beautiful. Please don’t tell me this is all digital or I’m going to throw my paints and brushes in the fireplace and give up.
These are sweet and all. But things look a bit different after 10 years of living together. ♥ There's still love, it's just... More independent? Anyway, nice drawing style.
Yo también hace 10 años que estoy en pareja,y está diferente el amor también 😞😞
Load More Replies... Lovely drawing style. I can relate to a lot of these in my relationship, but my favorite thing about this post is that you can get a sense of depth of emotion and realness past the superficial "happy couple" that you see a lot of. The style in reminiscent of Frida Kahlo's work. Not "pretty" but captivating and soul baring. At least that's what I see... Thank you for sharing your work.
Didn't think I'd like this as much as I would. Love the concepts and illustration style a lot! Thanks for sharing ^_^
I've been happily married for 11 years. And we don't look like that at all. We really aren't lovey dovey or touchy feely... just saying you don't need to have all that touchy stuff to still be happily married.
Lol my husband sleeps like a mummy wrapped up in a soft taco shell and I sleep with tons of pillows. Her pictures show lots of cuddles.
I'm not sure "Honest Illustrations Show What Happens Behind Closed Doors In Every Relationship " is the most fitting title for this, but they're cute, if not a bit sad for the older and more jaded among us.
These pictures are seriously everything and touched my soul to the darkest core.
The artist’s handling of the watercolor medium + pen-and-ink is absolutely amazing. These are just beautiful. Please don’t tell me this is all digital or I’m going to throw my paints and brushes in the fireplace and give up.
