Colors

A few months ago there was a beautiful article (I think in Martha Stewart?) about a potter with beautiful pictures of her home and studio. She had made these glaze tabs that hung on her studio wall - I loved the idea so much, I made my own reference tabs for my watercolors. I cut little strips of watercolor paper and painted on a little sample of all of my colors on each strip, punched a hole in the top and hung them up with little nails in the wall. The hard part was getting them to line up perfectly on the wall! I'm really pleased how it turned out! Makes my studio seem for professional - like I actually turn out hundreds of paintings a week! :)

Fox In A Blue Poka-Dot Dress

Another piece I created today on an Art-Board. Lately a lot of my inspiration has come from old ideas in my sketch book. It's nice to revisit that old creativity and make new of it again. And it's fun to see that you actually do come up with some good ideas every now and then! :)

Wow - Art Boards are great!

Trying out a new product called Art Boards: http://www.art-boards.com/
Basically watercolor paper mounted on board through a heat activated process - beautifully clean and lovely to work on. Below are little samples measuring 2"x3" that I painted this morning. Both together are "Prairie Night and Day" and separately "Prairie Night" and "Prairie Day"! :) Expect to see more of my work on this format in the future! It's so great to be able to keep my style and how I love to work, but have a little twist to it.

Threads of art

Why does creativity take so long! I don't know if a lot of other artists have this problem - but sometimes it just takes me so long to get going on my creative process. Even just phyically getting to my art desk is challenging! Like this morning I had to go through making granola, folding laundry, doing the dishes, talking on the phone, going outside and generally milling around before I made it to my desk! Lucky for me I did! So, today I did a little experimenting with paper mache paste and thread - coating the thread with the paste, gently laying it over my watercolor paper, letting it dry and then creating my piece over top of the thread and finally peeling it away to reveal fragile white lines. Loved it! Take a look.
The piece is called "Firefly Bath".

New works and Winter musings

Been away for a while - back to Kansas for Christmas, out to CO to see my sister Betony and my brother-in-law Tim and finally back home to Vermont with Phoebe - the newest member of my little family! Phoebe is a beautiful little Corgi with lovely big brown eyes and the sweetest personality! She and I went on a nice long walk together last week when we had some amazingly unseasonable weather - great for a walk with only a light jacket! Phoebe has been my little muse this week - along with my Grandma Nancy and the poet Mary Oliver. My grandmother passed away many years ago, but I have always felt like she has been a part of my life and has somehow been watching over me and my family from wherever she is now. I always feel her presence near. So when I was home to KS I asked my grandpa for some old family pictures and acquired a beautiful little photo of my grandmother as a little girl. I loved it so much I was inspired to create a work about her and myself. Family is so meaningful to me! As for Mary Oliver, my good friend Amy let me borrow one of her works and I just fell in love with her words! So, as it always happens, a piece of work just emerged by itself and I added a little poem of Mary's called "White Flowers".
As for the rest of my life - it's as busy as ever! I've promised myself to have a series of all new works for the summer and have plans drawn out for the design of a new traveling booth for my art shows! Other than balancing my professional artists life, my dance teaching and still keeping the home fires burning and keeping the love light alive - the mountains are still here in Vermont, there is snow still falling, the pellet stove is burning away, the cats sleep and eat and Sandy and I do our best to be gentle to each other and support each other through the good and bad times. Thanks for visiting! Love and real Peace - Katie