Random Paintings

I just finished teaching todays art classes for kids and forgot to take pictures of their drawings. They did a great job capturing the reflections in the water drops. The bottles were more difficult for them but they did their best.

I thought I'd post a couple of my paintings that are larger (@30x30-30x40 inches) pieces and aren't listed in my shop. Hope you all have a great weekend. Karin

Students Show

Today was the day to hang my students art at the Pannikin. It went really well and the feedback was very positive. I have thirteen students ages 6-14 years old and I'm very proud of them. Here are a couple shots of their hard work.

Another Corner of My House

I love looking at peoples home interiors and watching shows like house hunters. I think it's so interesting to see how people decorate and whether or not it's their style. You know the mother daughter team on TV that comes in and critiques your place so you can sell it? They would just die if they came to my house. I envision them walking through my house saying things like "paint the walls a neutral color, your style is overwhelming and people will have a hard time picturing themselves here." Well, I do understand what they are trying to do, but thank goodness I don't ever plan on selling my house. I've always thought of putting a coffee table book together with pictures of some of my favorite friends homes. A lot of them are amazingly decorated in their own groovy way from flea markets to thrift stores with retro, vintage and modern flair. Our "stuff" just keeps getting swapped back and forth like musical furniture.

The pictures above were taken after a day of rearranging. Moving out a TV cabinet that wasn't being used and freeing up a lot more space. I call this room my "Genie Bottle," and it's the first room you see when you enter my house. It's a great place to hang out and have a glass of wine. I know, I know, I still need to paint that cord hanging from the capiz shell thing in the corner. I turned it into a lamp and now I need to hide the cord by painting it the same color as the wall. I also moved the GIANT lantern painting to the entry way. This piece was so big that I made a frame out of painted fence boards. Not easy to do but saved a lot of money.
Enjoy the peek, Karin

Drawing and Planting

I spent some time this morning drawing samples for class on saturday. We will be learning how to draw and then paint reflective and transparent objects. Here I did a some water drops and an old glass bottle in charcoal. This will definitely test their patience. You have to work slowly adding more and more layers till it pops off the page. Boy, all these samples pieces I do really bring back memories of my art school days. I can hear my teachers comments as I'm working. It's like they're sitting on my shoulder giving me advise, "bring this out a bit more, make it pop", "make the lines blend away, don't be afraid to go darker". Does anyone else experience that? It's kind of nice. I wish I could thank them now and let them know I really was listening.

Later, I went to Barrels and Branches and bought some beautiful blue pots and succulents. I was going for a monochromatic look. I love how the plants have shades of blue and pink in them. When I planted everything, I had a lot of extra pieces left over for propagating. We'll see how many will make it. Karin

Mother's Day?

If you don't have a clue what to get your mom for Mother's Day, my sister Anica makes some really cool stamped necklaces. She's got her own Etsy shop now so mosey on over and take a look.

Group Project is Getting Some Color

The elephant mural project is underway. We painted the background with two coats of the most brilliant turquoise. I'm so excited that Carol was in to going for a more graphic shocking background rather than realistic. It's so different when your doing a group collaborative project. The three us throw out suggestions, then make a decision. Throw out more suggestions, make a decision. It's kind of funny because we've been changing our minds constantly throughout this project, letting it sort of evolve on its own. The picture might be hard to make out, but hopefully you can see something. I love each stage of the process and will post a new shot of it each week. Something about the stark white silhouettes against this blue makes we want to leave it like this for awhile. I'm sure by next Mondays class I'll be ready to add some more layers. You'll notice the waves of the canvas. It's a large piece of raw canvas(unstretched) that I tried to smooth out, but they kept coming back. We're going to have to come up with a cool way to hang this once it's installed. I'm thinking weights and pulleys. If you have any ideas, let me know.

If you're around on Mother's Day weekend, stop by the Pannikin. I'll have a table set up under the big trees for their annual Mother's Day Celebration. I've been invited to be there both Saturday and Sunday. Hope to see you then. Karin

Sunday Show and Tell

Here's a little update on yesterdays class. Since it was crunch time for all my students to get their paintings completed for their upcoming show, I decided to set everything out the night before. These are the times when it's okay to be a little OCD. I even posted stickies on each project so that they new exactly what they needed to work and which colors to mix. They all worked so hard and can't wait to go visit their paintings at the Pannikin.
The second class finished up their special mothers day paintings. Super cute owl families modeled after my needle felted owls. Last but not least, Caroline finished her first class painting of the gray nat catcher. The only thing left to do is make the picture tags for each one.
I'll make sure to post a picture of their show. If you're in the area, make sure you check it out at the Encinitas Pannikin on the student art wall. Enjoy, Karin