The Swimmer No 2
Girl wearing sunglasses
Oil portrait painting on panel
*free shipping within the USA if purchased through my website
Watch me paint her in this video.
Mixed Media Artist - daily painter of portraits, flowers, abstracts and birds
The Swimmer No 2
Girl wearing sunglasses
Oil portrait painting on panel
*free shipping within the USA if purchased through my website
Watch me paint her in this video.
This one has taken me about a month to paint. I’ve had to allow the oil paint to dry in between sessions because her skin tone was getting too muddy. Plus, I had to do a lot of detail work with a tiny brush. Hands and skin tone don’t usually give me any trouble, but for some reason I struggled on this one. I think I finally finished it a couple nights ago, but I’m going to let it sit for a few days before I decide for sure. More photos to come later.
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I’m still having a studio sale in both of my Etsy shops. You can find portraits here. Florals and birds here. Some prices have been reduced greatly. I need to free up some space for more paintings.
Don’t Look, But Isn’t He Cute
Was $400, now $300
I’m thinking of painting over this one soon, if it doesn’t sell. Get it while you can.
Apologies to everyone for not visiting your blogs lately. I’ve been working around the clock, and haven’t had time. I’ve also been having trouble staying consistent with my blogging schedule, plus I have a slew of comments that I haven’t got around to reading and publishing yet either. Ugh. I hope to get it all back on track this week. I hope you understand.
Love,
your exhausted friend, Katie xo
work in progress
oil portrait painting
My husband built these handmade shelves for drying my oil paintings. I’m not sure if I’ve ever shown a photo before. I remember writing about the shelves a couple years ago, when he was building them. I think I got busy filling them up, and forgot to post a photo.
This photo was taken with my iPhone last summer, and it’s not that great. The lighting is horrible out there in my shipping room, but I’m posting it anyway, so you can see my drying situation.
I have more of these shelves lining the walls in my studio, and office. Now that I have them, I have no idea what I’d do without them. I can’t imagine all these painting lying on my work tables, taking up space for a month while they dry. I’d never get any work done.
new art journal page – girl wearing glasses painting
In case you missed it a few weeks ago, Flipping through my art journal video.
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A couple weeks ago, a gallery in Chicago contacted me, and asked me to partner with them. I’m still looking over the contract, and if all goes well, I hope to sign it later this week. I’ll keep you posted.
I thought about what I wrote last week about casting my net wide and far, and I re-opened my gallery at Daily Paintworks. I’m willing to give it another shot, and see what happens between now and the end of the year. I have new lower prices on my mini 4×4 paintings. Some are as low as $15. Get them while you can.
My summer office hours started on May 1st, even though it’s technically not summer quite yet. I’m now in my office Monday – Friday, 10am to 5pm. This is when I’ll be replying to email, shipping out orders, writing and scheduling blog posts, making new videos, editing photos, and listing items. My studio hours will be 8pm ’til whenever I finish for the night. I always paint best in the summer after the sun has gone down, and the heat from the day subsides a bit. In the winter, I prefer to paint first thing in the morning. Hey, whatever works, right?
New blogging schedule for the summer will be Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, and every other Thursday. I’m swamped with work, and things are about to get even more hectic if/when I sign the new contract. The featured artist posts will continue on Thursdays, but I have to cut it back to twice a month for now.
I think that’s all the news I have to share for now. I’ll see you on Wednesday. 🙂
new oil portrait collage painting
If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen me post this photo last night. I stayed up until 2am painting, and when I woke up this morning, I wiped the painting. Argh! All that work down the drain. Ah well, the collage paper on her nose was bothering me, and I couldn’t get past it. You’ll see what I mean if you scroll down.
This is what I’m talking about. Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it. It made her look like she’d been in the sun, and was peeling from a bad burn or something. Poor dear.
It wasn’t too bad from a distance, but eh..I’m starting over again tonight on a new canvas, as long as we continue to have power, that is. Looks like some of the state has been issued tornado warnings, so we’ll see how it goes. I’m keeping a close eye on the tv, and the sky.
As I was painting last night, I noticed this on the rug behind me. Aww..I’m never alone with these two love bugs around. 🙂 It’s always great to have company in the wee hours of the morning.
I got asked about my book art section in the comments the other day, and it got me thinking whether I used the correct wording when I titled that section. When I looked up the definition of “book arts”, I found out it’s used when talking about physically making a book or making a book into some sort of art form, like these hedgehog books I found on Etsy.
Long ago in a galaxy far far away, I used to make handmade books, so I should have known the definition. I’m more about filling books than making them these days. I buy all my books at Dick’s, eBay, Etsy or library sales, and I alter them. The photos in my book art section aren’t from books I made myself, so I decided to change the title of the section to Art Journals to avoid any confusion.
If you want to know more about my daily book exercise, I wrote about it here.
art trading cards
mini portraits painted in oil
It’s probably been 10 years since I made any of these little Artist Trading Cards, or ATCs, as they’re called. Do artists even make them anymore, I had to wonder as I sat down to paint?
I think a few artists still do, but they no longer trade them because the cost of mailing them got too expensive. I used to have a page set up on my website, and gave 100s away. They used to be so popular.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do with these yet. I usually give a free painting away when I receive an order for an original painting, so I might use them for that. I’ll wait until they’re dry before making a decision.
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Reading: Etsy has ousted CEO
Etsy names Josh Silverman as its new CEO
black-and-white Capital Calls for Change at Etsy
I’m not jumping for joy..yet, but I do feel a glimmer of hope. FINALLY something is going to be done?? Help is on the way, perhaps? Can Superman save us all?? Can a sinking ship be saved? Lots of questions. No answers. It’s got to be better than what we’ve been going through, tho, right? Ugh. Please keep your seat belt on until this roller coast comes to a complete stop.