Kansas – Page 2 – Katie Jeanne Wood

Rolling hills – oil landscape painting

Rolling Hills
6×6 impasto oil landscape painting No 53
Available here

I think I had the rolling Flint Hills of Kansas (one of my favorite places on earth) and Oklahoma in mind when I painted this or maybe the Boston mountains in Arkansas? I’m not sure because I painted it several years ago, and I’m just now ready to offer it for sale. I love the jagged knife marks in this painting, where my knife came to a sudden stop, filled up on oil paint and began anew.

I don’t paint landscapes anymore, so this one is kinda special to me.

Hope you have a fabulous weekend, and week ahead. I’m going to be trying to stay warm because from the look of our weather, the high is only going to be around 10F next week. Whoa! Yep, I said high..the low is going to be zero. Good thing I have lots of hot beverages, an electric blanket, books, kitties & the cutest dog on the planet to keep me warm. Gonna make a big pot of homemade soup in my instant pot to eat all week. Have to make the best of it or I’ll just sit around crying. I’ll have little tear icicles to pluck off my face. LOL Nooooooo!!! I keep telling myself I’ll be mowing the grass in another couple weeks, so I better enjoy this time now while I can.

Yesterday was magical

Snow Sayings
There’s just something beautiful
about walking in snow
that nobody else has walked on.
It makes you believe you’re special.
Carol Rifka Brunt

Har-Bear 💗💗💗 snow.
😻

Snow provokes responses that reach right back to childhood.
Andy Goldsworthy

Chewy thought he had to pounce on, and eat every snowball I threw at him.
😂 🐶

Bad weather always looks worse through a window.
Unknown

It takes a snowflake two hours to fall from cloud to earth.
Can’t you just see its slow, peaceful decent?

Amy Krouse Rosenthal

What a visual this last quote is..ahhh. The snow’s almost all melted now, but it sure was fun while it lasted.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

If it looks like I was having fun, I was

If it looks like I was having fun, I was.
Messy work table.

“What did you call her?” she asks but I don’t think it’s her real question. “Sunshine,” I say, and she smiles like she believes it’s perfect and she may be the only person other than me who would think so.

“What is she to you?” she whispers. The real question and I know the answer even if I don’t know how to say it. Drew’s muffled voice rises up from the floor before I can respond. “Family,” he says. And he’s right.

Katja Millay

Sweet Pea found yet another inventive way
to nap in the chair.
🐱🐯😂

I’m having so much fun with these morning warm up pages, that I’ve decided to create a page here on my website to keep them all in one place. I’ll let you know when I have it completed.

Harold Zip and Miss Maudie Maude
taking possession
of the new scratchy toys.
MINE!!

Birds on the wires

black abstract art journal page

Georgie I Love You
Print of a painting

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve changed the time and days I’m posting my blog. You can expect new posts on Mon, Wed, and Fri around 11am central time throughout the holiday season, unless I get too busy. I just signed a contract with another gallery (woohoo!), which means adding more to my workload. I will probably be posting more photos, and writing less for a while. You’re probably relieved to read that. lol

🎨 🤹‍♀️ 👩🏻‍🎨🖌🖼

Have a great hump day! xo

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Living our best life

Miss Maudie living her best life

I’ve been gorging on
tomatoes from the garden
every day for about 2 months now.
How will I ever go back to tasteless
store bought tomatoes
after being so spoiled???

I noticed yesterday that the season is starting to change. The tomato plant leaves are turning brown, and falling off. The hibiscus trees and orange day lilies have stopped producing flowers. It makes me sad, but at the same time, I am always excited for fall. This morning it was only 70F, and I was freezing!! I had to get out of bed because I couldn’t sleep..I was shivering, even with Sweet Pea up against my back. I almost put a hoodie on. It’s weird what you get used to, isn’t it?

my obsession with the sky will never end

Where’s Sweet Pea and Harold?
😀

Okay, back to work with me. I’m revising another painting today. Or, I should say painting over it. I took it down to a white, gessoed canvas because there was no fixing it. It didn’t have good bones, but I like what I’ve painted in its place, so it’s all good.

Without change there is no innovation,
creativity, or incentive for improvement.
Those who initiate change
will have a better opportunity
to manage the change
that is inevitable.

William Pollard

Printing in my art journal, noxious weeds, and more

This is a print I made from a portrait painting inside my art journal. While the portrait was still wet, I folded the next page on top of it, and pressed down. The result is pretty cool, so I think I’m going to leave it as is, and not do anything else to it.

It’s a super busy day around here. Have been working on a huge batch of images to send to a licensing company for 4 days now. It’s going well, and I hope to be submitting them today or tomorrow.

I’m also doing yard work in 105F heat. Ugh. Just got a registered letter from the city this morning stating I have noxious weeds growing in my yard, and if I don’t remove them, I will be fined $100. Ooooh, you mean this little guy?

Oops..I should have been paying more attention. I’ve been super focussed on work, and it’s been soooo hot outside, I never noticed the weeds were getting out of control out there.

I don’t think they’d buy, “but thistle is sooo pretty” as my excuse. lol So, yeah..trying to get some weedeating done without passing out or throwing my shoulders out. Man, that thing is heavy.

I also want to do some oil painting today. I usually paint with oils during the hot summer months, but I still need to get some shelves up in my new house, so I have a place to dry them. I don’t want the cats walking across them, and getting oil paint on their wittle paws. For now, I’m only doing a couple at a time, and storing them up high until they dry.

Loving these black and white portrait paintings, and these plein air paintings done in the winter by Rick Beerhorst. I follow Rick’s blog, but I’m a bit behind in my blog reading (like almost 7000 posts according to my blog reader. Yikes!), so I’m just seeing this.

I also just found out that Misty Mawn has a new blog called 3 Things, which is really cool. It’s a blog featuring links to whatever art related stuff she finds online. One of my favorite things about her online classes (besides her art, of course) is that she jam packs each one full of links, and amazing art she finds in her travels. I couldn’t be more thrilled to see her blogging again. I only wish I had found her sooner, but you can bet I’ll be reading every entry, regardless. 🙂 I love me some Misty. xo

My name is on the front of this magazine, and my artwork is inside.

Bad ass storm clouds

After 20 years of calling tornado alley my home, I have a massive collection of storm photos that I take every Spring. I thought I’d share with you some I took earlier this evening. There was a tornado watch in effect at the time, but it’s since expired.

All of these photos were taken within about 10 minutes of time. The clouds were rapidly changing, so I had to shoot fast. I was using a 200mm lens on my Canon DSLR camera, so I could zoom in pretty tight.

I was all alone, and it was eerily quiet as I was shooting these photos, the only sound I heard was my shutter clicking. It was quite breathtaking, and beautiful. It made me feel so small in comparison to these majestic clouds.

My thoughts are with the people in Lawrence, and the surrounding area who experienced a huge tornado on the ground for more than 2 hours tonight. From what I’ve heard, there have been multiple injuries, and many houses/buildings were destroyed. Search and rescue has begun. Please stay safe out there.

Blue & Green Landscape Painting No 1

oil on panel, landscape, 6×6
Available here
Small to large prints available here

After five days, the ice storm is over. The sun is shining, and we’re back in the 50s this week. Looking forward to our Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. In the meantime, I’m still painting birds this week, and I’m retaking some landscape photos, which are too dark. Seeing the landscapes reminded me that I don’t have any landscape or abstract paintings in my Daily Paintworks gallery. So, I’m starting with landscape No 1 today. I’ll swap them out with florals and birds to mix it up a bit along the way. Busy busy. I hope you have a productive day.

Never miss another blog post. Subscribe now to receive free updates in your inbox every time I post.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

The end of blogging?

Katie Jeanne Wood - Clouds
The sky was beautiful Wednesday evening. Greg and I snuck away to our favorite spot to take photos of the sunset.

Katie Jeanne Wood - Greg

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. – John Lubbock

Katie Jeanne Wood - Clouds 02

Ever since the 30 in 30 challenge ended, I’ve been feeling completely burnt out on blogging. I’ve been seriously questioning whether I want to continue, and why. To be honest, I have been leaning heavily towards quitting for months now. I’ve even imagined the relief I’d feel once the blog was deleted. Ahh! I’ve been literally forcing myself to post.

Yesterday, I was ready to write a goodbye post. Then, I looked back at my old posts, and felt a little nostalgic. Oh, crap! Why’d I have to go and do that?? I was instantly torn. Something struck me hard..there is a HUGE difference between the kind of blogger I used to be, and what I’ve become. I used to be in the moment, real. Other than tonight, I don’t remember the last time I wrote a blog post in the moment.

For so long now, I’ve focused on quantity in every aspect of my business. More is more. Super mega size is even better! There was a time where I played a game with myself called, how many paintings can I do today? I would then bust my ass, and knock out as many paintings as I could in 12 to 16 hours, always focused on breaking my own record. I think the largest number was 22. It was a fun game at the time. It got me a super huge portfolio rather quickly, and I’m immune to my ego now. I simply don’t care a fig about producing a perfect painting. Every single one is flawed, and I’m fine with that. Painting that much made me realize, a perfect painting is unattainable. I’m no longer hung up on being perfect, so I’m not sorry I took this approach.

Katie Jeanne Wood - Clouds 03

It carried into my blog. I started asking myself, how many posts can I get done today? Go! I got a lot of posts done in one sitting, and wouldn’t have to touch my blog for a week, sometimes an entire month. But, big deal. Who cares, right? It almost sounds like I’m bragging about how much I accomplished, and I was pretty proud of myself each time. But, here’s the thing about writing all your posts at once, it gets stale and boring because I never moved from my chair. So, I was always writing from the same moment in time without giving myself time to breathe, stretch, and experience life in between posts. Yes, I got a lot accomplished, but at what price?

Lately, I’ve been craving quality over quantity. It’s no longer important to me that I paint 20 paintings a day or that I post a blog entry 6 days a week. Whoever dies with the most paintings and blog posts isn’t going to win anything. Things have to change. Is this the end of blogging? It’s the end of how I’ve been blogging, yes. Stick around. I think you might find the change as refreshing as I do.

Share this:

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Share this:

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Share this:

Share this: