Gouache Painting – Katie Jeanne Wood

Hello 2025

Happy new year! I’m a little late to the party, but thought I’d drop in to give you a sneak peek of what I’ve been working on so far in 2025.

Gouache portrait paintings
on cardboard

I’ve been enjoying a slow turtle start to the new year. It was nice to have some time off, but I’m happy to be back at it. These portraits were painted yesterday – my first day back in the studio after taking a month off.

I hope the bright gouache colors
& cat silliness
add some cheer to your day.
Meow!
😺😺😺😺

Here’s an artist tip for you – if you post a bunch of closeup shots of your work, you will appear to be more prolific than you actually are. 🤣

I completely forgot to take work in progress (wip) photos as I was painting last night. Oops! I remembered as I was getting ready to clean up my work table at 1 this morning. Doh! Too late!

Forgive me. I’m so out of practice, it seems I’ve forgotten how to blog. Yeaaah, that annoying little detail of needing to prepare ahead of time completely slipped my mind. Aw well..another time, perhaps?

Since these are fresh off the easel, they’re not listed anywhere yet. I won’t get around to it until next week. If you’re interested in purchasing any of them, you can contact me for first dibs.

Yesterday, I listed a bunch of other new paintings you haven’t seen yet, if you want to take a look.

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What I’ve been reading:

100 things that made my year (2024) by Austin Kleon – I didn’t make a list, but if I did, one of my 100 things would be that I reread 3 of Austin’s books in 2024 for like the 4th or 5th time. 😂

I also ran across this article about Austin’s blackout poetry by accident, which led me to Andrew Lavers Youtube channel. After watching his video titled Empty & Silent, I now want to binge watch all of his videos.

Audiobooks:

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley – haven’t got too far into this one yet

Journey of Souls by Michael Newton – finished this one. It’s pretty trippy, but interesting, for sure.

Watching:

Harold Garde: Working Artist – Dale Schierholt has released Harold’s documentary on Youtube! I’ve written about Harold, and this documentary several times over the years starting here in 2017, here, and last year, here. I’ve seen the documentary a few times, but I watched it again when I saw it come up on my Youtube feed. It’s so beautifully filmed, and I love listening to Harold tell his story. He is such an inspiration to me, and always be. ❤️

Saying Random Words for 1 Hour – lol I can’t..I can’t watch the whole thing, but maybe I’ll listen to it sometime when I’m trying to fall asleep or if I’m trying to come up with titles for my paintings? Haha!! I love & appreciate Peter’s creativity, and the painful effort he made.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a happy weekend.

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Sneak peek at new gouache portrait paintings

Not Again

This is a little sneak peek at the new gouache portrait paintings I’ve created in the past few weeks. There are many more that I haven’t had time to photograph yet.

These smaller ones are part of my Rescued Series,
and will be listed individually.

Some larger portraits have already been listed in my shop. I haven’t been listing the smaller ones here, but you can find the entire Rescued Series on Daily Paintworks, and some will be crossposted on eBay.

Rescued Series No 156

Not all of these are up on DPW yet. If you see one you like here, but you can’t find it, please contact me. I’ll make it a priority to get it listed.

Together Forever
SOLD!
Thank you!

I’ve also marked some paintings down 50% on DPW. You can basically get two paintings for the price of one right now, if you feel the urge to splurge on more than one.

Beautiful Train Wreck

Rescued Series No 157

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you have a lovely week ahead.

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I’ve been fighting the urge to paint on giant canvas lately

Unfolding
Gouache portrait painting
Available

I’ve been fighting a strong urge to paint on the giant canvases I have in storage. I don’t have the studio space to do it, so unless I want to paint outside, these bigger sized cardboard pieces will have to do.

Passage of Time
Available

You’ll have to check the sizes,
but most of these are 9×11 or larger.

Banjo
Available

Everything Gray
Available

As always, shipping is free if you purchase directly through my website.
Loves The Great Outdoors
Available

I have added a bunch of other new paintings to my shop, so be sure to check it out.

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Things you might like that I like:

A Soft Murmur – I listen to the singing bowls as I’m going about my day or when I’m meditating. It’s calming and peaceful.

Haiying uploaded an origami diamond video last week. If you like asmr or paper folding sounds, you’ll like this.

Drewscape explains how he makes diary comics. I might have to try doing this in my art journal sometime.

Peter Draws also Peter pianos – his recital of Beauty and the Beast.

The Shadow of The Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I found this book last week while searching for authors similar to Donna Tartt. I especially enjoyed her book, The Secret History. I’ve been wanting a book like that one to sink into, and this one’s 565 pages, according to Wikipedia, although it’s only 490 on my phone. I’m only about 100 pages in, so I better get reading, eh? Oh, alright, if you insist. 😂

Okay, I’m signing off, so I can get my orders shipped out before my afternoon reading session. Have a wonderful Thursday. Thanks for stopping by.

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Handmade cardboard book with gouache portrait paintings

Handmade cardboard book with four gouache portrait paintings

Inside pages

I’ve been making a few of these cardboard books lately. Some only have two paintings, but this one has four.

Back cover

The vibe of this book is unique, original, primitive, naive, and fun. Of course, that’s my humble opinion, for whatever it’s worth. 🤣

This handmade book is roughly
5 inches W x 6 inches L,
and is available here.

PS: if you’ve recently had an issue purchasing artwork through my website, it was because Paypal has changed it’s API. I’ve upgraded the Paypal buttons, and it’s working fine again. Sorry for any inconvenience it might have caused you.

If you ever have an issue, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I don’t purchase my own art, so I don’t know when my site’s not working properly unless someone tells me. A BIG thank you to Larkin, who was incredibly kind & understanding last week. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your patience.

More paintings are available in my shop.

You can also purchase my art on Daily Paintworks, and eBay.

Thanks for stopping by.

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Making lemonade out of lemons

Rescued Series No 126
Sold!

I was sad to see this guy fly off to his new home a couple weeks ago. Some paintings are harder to part with than others. I thought this guy looked like a wrestler or an entertainer of sorts. Maybe he performs in a circus act? Neither of those things interest me irl, but I felt an attachment to this guy.

Last week, I voted early.
I hope you do the same.

Your anger? It’s telling you where you feel powerless. Your anxiety? It’s telling you that something in your life is off balance. Your fear? It’s telling you what you care about. Your apathy? It’s telling you where you’re overextended and burnt out. Your feelings aren’t random, they are messengers. And if you want to get anywhere, you need to be able to let them speak to you and tell you what you really need.

Brianna Wiest

Maude’s reaction to Gussy’s crazy mischief
is the same facial expression he gives me 100x a day.
🤣 😹 😸
Photo taken by my husband

Dried up acrylic paint
One of the reasons I love gouache so much is
because I never have this issue with gouache.
Yes, it costs quite a bit more, but there’s no waste.

Unless you drop your palette on the floor, anyway.
Oops!!!
🤣My husband said..”don’t clean it up!
I know what to do”, and he grabbed a piece of paper.

And just like that,
he made this lovely abstract painting with it.
🤣 🖼️ 🧑🏻‍🎨

And, one of the floor, also.
Clean up was a breeze, though.
A couple swipes with the mop,
and it looked like it never happened.

4×4 on chipboard
Masquerade Mask No 21
Available here

I still have some of these masquerade mask paintings from a series I did a few years back. I don’t think I’ll be painting more of them, definitely not this year anyway.

Plastic Happiness
Available here

Katie Jeanne Wood - Incognito - Halloween masquerade mask portrait painting Incognito
9×12 on flat panel
Available here

Things worth sharing that I watched recently:

New York City’s Controversial Fire Hydrant Fish Pond – I wonder what happens to the fish when the weather is turning colder?

Otters Super Excited for Huge Salmon – oooh, the sound of them eating!! 🤣 I watched it 3x..sooooo cute!!

They Ruined My Hometown – Don’t Let This Happen to Yours (Burlington, VT)

So sad what’s happening in this little city. I haven’t been to Burlington in years, so I had no idea it had declined & so rapidly.

Update: Peter had to take the original video down, and has a new video explaining why.

When kids become content on social media | DW Documentary – I’m glad I made the decision years ago to keep my family & personal life off social media.

That’s gonna do it for me today. I hope you’re well. Please stay safe out there. I’ll see you next time.

Thanks for stopping by.

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Cobbled & stitched together snippets

The start of new seasons tend to make me pause to evaluate how I’m doing things, and think about what I can do to improve in different areas of my life.

Lately, I’ve been brainstorming how I can be more creative here on my blog. I hope you enjoy today’s post of cobbled & stitched together snippets.

For some time now, I’ve been sitting down dutifully every Saturday to write my blog posts for the week. I scheduled them out for Monday, Wed, and Friday evenings. I had a topic for each day – Monday was work in progress shots, Wednesday was art journal day, and Friday I would share recent paintings I had made.

Having set topics and a schedule left little room for creativity or being spontaneous. I rarely, if ever, jumped on here to write a post just because. I had my Saturday schedule, and that was that.

Lately, because of the schedule & topics, I’ve felt that blogging had become a tedious job that I wasn’t enjoying. I only continued doing it so I could tick it off on my must-do list each week. I knew it was time to take a break, and do a reset.

A couple weeks ago, I set fire to my Saturday schedule & threw my topics out the window. Being disciplined served me well for a time, but I’m going to let my future self take over from here & trust the process. What that will mean, I’m not sure?

scrumptious pear
with cubes of diced ginger,
& peanut butter on top

Most likely it will mean more random photos will be posted. I love photography almost as much as painting, but I haven’t been messing around in Photoshop much because the photos didn’t fit in with my topic of the day.

Winging it suits my personality better. Today I feel like posting a longer post than I normally do, so that’s what I’m doing. I have no idea when I’ll post again..it could be in a week, a month or tomorrow? I’ll poke my head out again when I have something new to share.

If you don’t want to keep checking back, you can sign up below to get my posts delivered to your inbox for free. Hello, and welcome to new subscribers, btw! I’m so happy you found me. If you ever have any questions or comments, you can reach me here.

we were all beautiful once

Tiny antique brooch I picked up last week.
I’m not normally a jewelry type of person
because
1. I have severe allergic reactions to some metals
2. I don’t like how jewelry feels on my body anyway
it’s heavy, sometimes noisy, and distracting
but
I like this piece.

It’s dated May 2, 1900 on the back. When I held it in my hand, I couldn’t help but think about all the women before me, who also held it in their hand, and wore it to special events. It’s quite a treasure, and for some unknown reason, I feel an attachment to it. I don’t usually feel attached to things I buy to resell, and I highly doubt I’ll ever wear it. Yet, I’m going to keep this one until the feeling passes.

I’m going to leave you with one of my latest portrait paintings. This girl kept showing up in my mind’s eye, insisting she wasn’t going to leave me alone until I painted her. She seems to have a lot to say with her expression, so I’m glad I listened.

Spiritual Wisdom
8×10 gouache portrait on cardboard
Available here

More paintings are available in my shop.
If you don’t have a Paypal account,
you can also purchase my art on Daily Paintworks, and eBay.

Thanks for stopping by.

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How my “no buy art supplies” year is going

Rescued Series
gouache portrait paintings
on torn cardboard

Here, all waste will be viewed as a recycling opportunity.
Beezer Molten

Katie Jeanne Wood - Rescued Series No 30

I haven’t mentioned it in a while, but if you’re wondering how I’m doing on my “no buy art supplies” year, it’s actually going better than I expected. When I first started, I felt like I was white knuckling it, and had a pretty bad case of fomo going on. I saw artists on youtube showing their art supply hauls, and I knew I couldn’t buy anything until 2025. Whomp whomp. Kinda sucked there for a minute.

Often when you think
you’re at the end of something,
you’re at the beginning
of something else.
Fred Rogers

Katie Jeanne Wood - Rescued Series No 31

Really, though, it’s been such a positive experience once I changed how I was looking at this no buy challenge. Instead of focusing on all the supplies I couldn’t buy, I started to look at alllll the supplies I already own. Decluttering my mess became my focus, instead of adding more to my already overstuffed drawers & shelves.

It’s now mid September, and I’ve only purchased 2 items this year – white & black gouache to replace what I had used up.

Katie Jeanne Wood - Rescued Series No 25

My mindset is so different these days, I didn’t even want to buy the replacements, but I knew it was a need, not a want, in order to keep painting. I squeezed every drop of paint out of those tubes, let me tell you. ha!

Katie Jeanne Wood - Rescued Series No 24

I still look at art supplies now & then if I see an artist using something interesting. The only thing I’ve seen in the past 9 months that I might try sometime is liquid charcoal, and some pencils, but I’m not going to rush to buy this stuff on Jan 1st. I’m pretty clear now on the difference between wanting and needing art supplies. I don’t need those items. I still have shelves & drawers full of paint to use up, and I haven’t even touched the boxes of hardboard panels & canvas in storage. I’m going to continue to use what I have for as long as it takes.

I look forward to the day when my studio is free from all the clutter, and I only have a tiny box of gouache, and some oil pastels taking up space on my work table. Ahh..I’m not going to miss the mess, and my bank account will thank me for it, also. Win/win.

Katie Jeanne Wood - Rescued Series No 26

I’m listing this entire series on Daily Paintworks and some are in my eBay store. More paintings are available in my shop.

Thanks for stopping by.

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Colorful gouache portrait painting

I switched to my other art journal, so I could use some bright colors for this portrait. As you’ll see, I didn’t hold back. I started to miss working with color after a few months of working in my b&w journal.

Color is the place where our brain and the universe meet.
Paul Klee

If I remember right, this was a quick warmup piece I did. Just wanted to get the brush moving, the paint flowing, and rev up the creativity level in my brain.

This painting isn’t for sale,
but there are others available in my shop,
on Daily Paintworks, and eBay.

Precious Sweet Pea

Thanks for stopping by.

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