Less than a year.

It's hard to believe how much life can change in just a few short months. Less than a year ago I had not even found my current painting style and had no thoughts of starting my art career until my son was older. It is hard to step back and appreciate all that has happened in the last year. Even 7 months ago I was still working casually on the first larger painting. Now, I have established a relationship and shown in my first gallery, Gallerie MK, and tackled my first art fair and made quite a few sales. Mostly to family and friends, but sales none the less. Everyday I have to stop and Thank God for the gift that I have been given. I feel truly blessed to be walking the path I am on.

Switchin it up

This was fun. I was signing and taping some work I did last month and when I took a painting apart I saw this:


I showed to Aaron and he loved it, so after way to much discussion about it I decided to keep it. I'm still not sure what I think about it but I have decided to let it go. I named it after Aaron since he is in charge of it.

The next question was what to do with the top layer of nicely painted glass. I pulled out another painting and put it behind it and Voila! I made 2 paintings out of one.

I like this "Peace" so much better than the old one. It didn't change to much, but it was just what this painting needed.







Here is the original.

The flip. I flipped both pieces of glass but keeping the same order. I feel really good about this one. I tend to rate my paintings on how many times I have to flip it before it is finished. This was a one flip painting. Good job Kal. I really needed that this time, I Haven't been happy with my last few paintings, Aaron said it is because I know what I am doing now. this made me laugh because it is true. In the beginning this was all so new and exciting that every time I flipped a painting I was so impressed with myself for how it turned out. As I develop my technique and know more and more what it will look like It isn't such a surprise when I flip it over. Apparently I had a hard time with that. Now that I'm over that I am looking forward to moving on with my new style and really exploring the new world I am living in.

Process III

The next step is just more watercolor (after vigorously cleaning the surface with rubbing alcohol the suggestion on a very friendly and helpful conservator I spoke with). This is where all the fun is though. and all the frustration, and the prayers and victories and failures. This is how it looks @ this stage. Although this is a vary subtle piece with similar colors to the canvas painting.

Process II

J was really good yesterday and I was able to get some work done, he did a great painting too! here is what the second layer looks like.

It doesn't look much different than the first layer, but when I reverse it it will make for a nice symmetry.

Process

I decided to switch up my process a bit and do all my oil paintings first. Last week I did 7 oil paintings, so i am really excited to get going on the glass. It was nice to go back to my roots a bit and really have fun with my colors, even though they are really just oil sketches and are going to be covered up for the most part, I realized that doesn't mean I cant have fun with them. Now on to glass, I hope J is ready for some painting today, because I am! I am also going down to GallerieMK to drop of my 3 pieces for the opening on Friday night. Big day ahead.

J

I am so proud to show off this video. We all want our children to be interested in what we are interested in, but J pretty much has no choice, with 2 painters for parents, he thinks it's just another part of life, like cooking or shopping for groceries.

Studio

At least once a day we have the "maybe we should switch rooms" conversation. J, Aaron and I are all crammed in one 9' x 10' room for the better part of the time we spend in the house painting, playing and talking. It seems silly that we all pile into the smallest room in our house doing what we spend most of our time doing, but Aaron and I are both so attached to using that space for our paintings that we can never quite talk ourselves into switching rooms.

Our House

There are many days when I wake up in the morning feeling as I always do, like I just want to go back to sleep. But as I think about what I am going to do when I get up, I come across something that stirs me out of bed.

Today it was this,
I am so glad to see Aaron painting again, not for all the obvious "this is what you were put on this earth" reasons, but because I love, love , love his work. It is so soft, loving, and gentle, I love a man who has such a connection to those aspects of himself, and yet can build all my frames from scratch and fix the heater! What you can't really see from this photo is that this painting actually looks like metal, the way he brought the plaster to a shine after the paint was married with it is absolutely beautiful. i cant wait to see what he does today.