My Precious

I finished one of my watercolors I had been working on, and I decided to call it "My Precious". This may, or may not have been influenced by the fact that I had Lord of the Rings going on in the background. *ahem*

"My Precious" 9x12 watercolor on paper

I really love how she turned out. I think she's my favorite so far!

I still have my elf with her fancy dress to finish and then I'll have two for the week! I think it's doable! And then, maybe, I'll give the kitchen table back to the family. Maybe.

Let It Snow!

I finished my first snow queen!

"Crystal" 8x12" acrylic watercolor (sold)
Prints
Merchandise

I like how she turned out. Watercolor is so much less forgiving than oils or acrylics, that there is a sort of low level of anxiety riding along on any piece you are working on. A couple times there, I thought I had gone right off the cliff and ruined it. I think I got it in the end though! I'm still relearning old techniques and working on sussing out new ones and adding them to my arsenal.

I had some issues with the masking fluid, which I knew I would when I realized it got gone a little wonky on me as it had been years since I had even cracked the bottle. So why did I use it? I'm a little stuck between the traditional "Never add white! White is a violation of the rules of watercolors!" and the realization that I'm not competing with anyone, so I can add any darn color I want. I can enhance with whatever suits me. I could use my earlobes to make prints if I really wanted to, and who's going to care? So, with that in mind (well, maybe not the earlobes, that would be awkward, and then I would have paint in my hair...) I did enhance with white. The masking created a bulky result. That may very well be due to the age, but perhaps the application too. I'd like to find a way to add it to my work in tiny lines (and also to remember where the heck those are when it's time to take the masking off. I keep going back and spotting another snowflake or something that I forgot to pull the masking off of.) I think I wish it came in a pen form. I don't suppose it does? I found this, so maybe that's what I'm thinking of, and I'll order it on my next round and give it a try.

I enjoyed this one so much though that when I put my order into my supplier recently, I made sure to order new watercolors and several smaller hot pressed blocks (maybe one day I'll find a way to fall in love with the texture of cold pressed, but as it stands now I want things smoooooooth!) I forgot to add the masking. Sigh.

It's nice to return to my figures too. I started out with women in my work, whether abstract or not, and it's been a while since I've seen them. I've been on a fairytale kick, and while I love it, I've been yearning to put my figures into process once again. Watercolor, being so quick, is a great way to do this while I'm still carrying out my Alice series in acrylics. It's also giving me something fun to learn. I was an oil painter, and I couldn't make anything come out right in acrylics. It took time, but I finally learned how to do that, and so this year seems to have been all about acrylic painting. I think it's possible that 2013 will be about watercolors, because I love the luminous quality using watercolor and paper can bring to skin tone. I'm still figuring it out, but I'm on to something, and I plan on chasing it!

In other news, THRICE Fiction Magazine is out with their new (free to download) issue, and two of my works are in it. If you like short fiction and fun art, give it a shot!

The forecast says snow this weekend... I'm hoping! I'll be working on my snowflake spider (as well as something involving hot chocolate - on a painting, not drinking it... well, ok maybe drinking it too) in between baking sessions and wrapping up holiday shopping! I need some positive, because this week has been hard on me. I found out one of my dogs most likely has bone cancer (we're waiting on the radiologist, but it's not really in doubt) and I'm worried he'll even make it to January, and we already lost one dog this year (Max, although he was an old fellow. Cosmo is only 7 years old!) My kids possibly have whooping cough, and my son has been told to not go to any public place until Wednesday. The rest of us are allowed to, but he isn't (he doesn't see a problem with this, as it means no school!)

I'm just in sore need of some holiday cheer!

An Irish Kick

With my husband in India (he comes back tomorrow, yay!), my daughter's friend and her mother came over for dinner on Thursday night to keep us company. We had a lovely dinner, with Reese's cheesecake...

Not bad looking, huh? This was my piece! Notice the bowl full of Christmas ornaments? My mother had a box full of plastic ones she was going to toss, and I just couldn't bear the thought. I brought them home and couldn't figure out what to do with them, so I dumped them into a bowl! I like it so much, I want to do it all over my house. That would be over-kill, of course... *ahem*

It was a nice night. Unfortunately, at about 2AM I woke up with the flu. For a while, I was worried I had food poisoning, but as I seem to be the only one affected, I'm going with flu. I'm fortunate that it's a fairly functional one, so I'm still able to operate (even if I did sleep most of yesterday.) Today I finally finished my Irish lass commission piece:

6x6 stretched canvas, acrylics

I think she came out pretty well! I used iridescent paints on her hair and the clovers (I can't seem to stay away from them. I just love the shiny stuff too much.) I was wondering how another figure in acrylics was going to go. While it went well, I still miss the smooth-mixed texture and appearance you can achieve with oils. Granted, I've always had a bit of a heavy hand when I paint... but even so, when it comes to people, I feel better about the results in oils. I just feel that they're deeper. Of course, this was on a small scale too, so likely the results would have been about the same. I'm pleased with her, regardless.

With that in mind, I am finally working on some Santas and the thing is that while I'd prefer to do them in oil, I'm so far behind this season that I there is no way they'd be dry in time to ship anywhere. Of course, on the other side of the argument, if it results in a piece I'm more satisfied with, then I should do that anyway. Maybe I'll do both. Test out how I want my Santa to look in the acrylics and really make a nice piece in oils when I'm ready. Really, I love the holidays, I ought to paint stuff year round when the mood takes me, and then I'd have dry stuff when the season rolls back around!

This conflict between acrylics and oils is going to be tough going forward with my Alice series, because I have one Alice painting started in oils. Bringing together the characters, if they've previously been done in one medium, they likely won't look the same in another... it might make the series appear visually disjointed a bit, do you think?

Now that this commission is done, and the others I have don't have the December deadline, I've decided to stake out my studio as a commission-free-zone and just work on what I want until January. I want to paint Santas, and I really want to work on my Snow Queen. She's been in my head for weeks now! She's going to be in watercolor (to start anyway) and I just can't wait to get started!

I did manage to get my Studio Newsletter out, even if I missed November. I'm working on trying to organize my Zazzle store (advice always welcome on that, because it seems like it would be easy and instead I feel like it's akin to doing advanced mathematics!) I'm also opening up a separate store with my photography on Zazzle. I figure, what the heck? Of course, then the migraine sets in with all the issues of trying to get it to work, just like I have with the first one. (I know, one would ask why I would open up a second, if the first is giving me fits? I don't have an answer. I'm as baffled as you are. *sigh*)

And that's where things sit on this drizzly, dreary Saturday! Oh, except I'm already working on sketching out the elephant I mentioned before. Alice needs an elephant!

I hope you are having a good weekend!

In the Season

I'm finally working on some snowy, holiday work! Yay! I love it! It's also just started spitting snow outside, so even better! Before Thanksgiving, I finished my first holiday painting of the season:

"Orb"5x7 Canvas Panel Normally a 5x7 would be $85, but I'm kicking off my holiday season with it on sale at Etsy only for $65 (incl. shipping US & Can). On my main website, it's the normal $85 price.

Then this morning I managed to finish a happy snowman and his little feathered friend:

"Snowbird"5x7 Canvas Panel$85 (inlc. shipping US&Can)
Zazzle merchandise is up too. I spent some hours this morning on that!

I had so much fun getting to paint these seasonal paintings, that I have two smaller ones in process right now. One will be a Christmas tree with a moon, and the other has a ball ornament and a pine cone together. They're small (3x5 or smaller, I need to measure...) so they're just fun! 

I've been struggling with listing paintings just on Etsy or just on my main website. I sell most of my paintings through my main website, but with these fast numbers I've been leaning more on Etsy. Unfortunately, I think that might leave some of my customers in the dark when I'm coming out with something quick and new. So, this morning I worked a little bit to put some of the Etsy minis up on my site, but I'm waffling on putting up the snowman on Etsy just yet. I don't know how some of the artists manage to get their stuff up consistently on so many sites. The time spent on that alone just boggles my mind!

I'm also working on learning Celtic knot-work (or relearning, I used to doodle in class... a lot. *ahem* But it's been almost 20 years since I was in High School, so it's been a while.) I have a commission with an Irish theme, and in addition to that it's my heritage on both my Scottish and Irish sides. I have a... need to start working some knot-work in. But! I have to relearn how to do them in the first place, and it's not easy.

I'm working on a clover right now, and I keep finding myself going a wee bit cross-eyed and losing track sometimes. It's there, my ability to do them, it's just rusty. Really rusty.

You can see where I went wrong easily in the top one. The bottom one is trickier, but it too isn't correct. Not all my over-unders went that way. Some of them went over-over-under and so on. *head*desk* But that's why I'm practicing, playing on notebook paper (I just got my hands on some graph paper, so that should help.)

Oh, and I just this past week received some pendants from my Zazzle store:

I had some extra credits to spend, and I thought what the heck? They're so pretty! I just didn't realize there were different sizes until they arrived. Anyway, I'm only sharing them because I thought they were cool (no matter who's artwork is on them.) I've been really impressed with Zazzle, especially considering my old experience with Cafe Press and feeling like CP's stuff was just so... cheap. My iPhone covers I ordered are simply fantastic (I did the Vibe cases), and I ordered postcards from several of my favorite artists on there and was impressed again. It's just nice  not to be let down!

I hope your week has been wonderful! Who's got something new on their easel?

Snowy Moods

I finished the little commission I was working on:

"Two Owl'Clock"
5x7 canvas panel, Acrylic

While it's sold, I set up some items through Zazzle with it on them (like cards'n'stuff.)

I have another commission I'm working on involving an Irish theme, but my head is completely in the snowy-mood (even though it's bright and sunny - if freezing - out!) With that in mind, I'm digging into more of the holiday decorations and today I'm tackling the main Christmas tree because there are some ornaments I want to use as inspiration for a few paintings... but I can't GET to them without going through everything, and if I'm going to do that, I might as well put the tree up! Plus we were able to get ahold of LED string lights this year (for two years running, they've been sold out every time I have tried to purchase some) and I'm dying to see how they look on our tree...

See how I just made putting up a Christmas tree a work-related activity? I know, you're marveling at my brilliance.

Well, it was brilliant right up until I remembered that there are 90-bajilliony pieces and stereo-type-instructions to get it together. I'm determined though... I have a holiday painting similar to the owl one I'm working on too. Moon, tree, and ornaments... I have the moon done so far, but I really just need to do a quick dive into a couple of these and then I can focus on other work again.

I think, deep down, I'm hoping it'll make it snow.

Happy Friday!

Jade Moon, and other paintings!

Last night, I finished a small painting (6" x 6" x 0.75") called "Jade Moon":

It's up in my Etsy store, along with these others that are not recent, but ARE available (and framed, to boot!)

"Gold" Enchanted Forest Series

"Starry Night" Enchanted Forest Series

In addition to finally getting things up in my Kyra Wilson Etsy Store, I've also finally started getting things up in my Official Zazzle Kyra Wilson Store. I'm very excited about the Zazzle store, because it's got all sorts of things in it. I made a few cards involving my Halloween/cat painting "Patch", and my Snowy Evening painting, as well as my recent painting Garden Party. I even have a slew of things with my Midnight River painting on them, which looks fabulous (Zazzle liked my mug enough to give it a Today's Best award right off the bat!

Anyway, I'm excited about the merchandise I can offer. I'm excited that I've enabled a direct buy option via Etsy until I have my main site completely revamped (I'll have the ability to sell directly from there when I'm done, but I'll keep my Etsy store too.)

I'm getting close to starting in on my snowy/holiday type paintings! I know, I need to get to them quickly!

make custom gifts at Zazzle