Checking In

There's a kiss of winter in the air here. No snow, but a frosty morning. I was out snapping pictures of one of my mini-paintings, and I looked beyond the tiny canvas and realized it was actually quite pretty out:

From my deck. A lovely, crisp Autumn day!

It's been a long while since I updated. The art fair went well, and I sold lots of prints and mini-paintings.

The house we were offering on, we had to pull our offer for. Things started changing (good changes, but stressful) for my husband at work, and it put us in a situation where it possibly would be foolish to buy a new house at this time (but talk to me next summer, and we'll see!)

Part of the reason I haven't checked in as much is that my community here suffered a tragedy when a girl in high school committed suicide. She was a year ahead of my daughter, and they went to school together from elementary on. When they were younger, they were friends. As they got older they had drifted apart and were not close. But it seems that in the midst of something this tragic, everyone is close to the fire of it all. It touches everyone in some way. The funeral was last week, and it was heartbreaking. My daughter had been having a tough time before this happened with a few things, and this just changed everything in a frightening way.

"Pieces" 6x8, acrylic on canvas panel

So, I've been focusing on my family rather than anything else, for the most part. Crisis mode, and it's exhausting. I have to confess that this hasn't been an easy time for me. I've had days where I just want to cry. Not work, just cry. You don't truly understand how much you can hurt, or how terrified you can actually be until you are a parent. There is nothing more precious to me in the world than my children, and to lose one of them would break me. Completely.

"Perch" 3x3 mini-canvas, acrylic

"Just Hangin'" 3x5 acrylic on stretched canvas

I did manage to do a time lapse video of the two minis I just posted:



I realize now that I should do the time lapse on my art desk instead of the kitchen table. The slant on the desk allows for the camera to see past my hand better. I'm contemplating doing the time lapse for the Queen of Hearts. I haven't had a chance to start painting her, because it's time for all the holiday paintings, but I'm getting close to starting! I did the time lapse on the white rabbit, so I know how much work is involved with painting and shooting at the same time. I just haven't decided if I want to go through that trouble again, yet!

I finished off this mini yesterday:

"Kitty" 3x3 acrylic on stretched canvas

I think it may be the last Halloween one I do... although I never got to my owls, so maybe that's not the case. I just sort of feel ready to start in on the Christmas ones!

So, that's where I'm at. Where I've been. Lots of stuff happening, much of it not good, but I have high hopes that things are starting to get better and will continue to do so!

Video Mon...er.. Tuesday!

Hi everyone! I managed to get my Video Monday done... a day late. I debated doing it at all, but I decided to get one in super-fast. So, here it is! (OH, and you get to meet my cat, Socrates in it. Before you ask: he's 22 lbs, and I'm pretty sure he's bigger in person.)

A better shot of Socrates:

A better shot of the canvases I'm working on this week:

Two in progress pieces. The dragon and girl (fairy? not sure yet) is 16x20", and the Cheshire Cat is 8x16", both on stretched canvas. I went a little heavier than normal with my pencil on my girl, I think I was getting frustrated. At least I can be a bit more imprecise when on canvas because of the heavier paint. Every stroke doesn't count against you like it does in watercolor. I'm finding it a bit tricky switching between watercolor and traditional painting. I'll be fine once I shake the kinks out!

Monday, Monday

Hello all! I've done another vlog for my Video Monday, and I've got a slew of stuff cookin' today!

First, let me clarify this after the video: you try to cover it with your thumb, and then whichever one shows the object covered when you close the other is the dominate eye.

Moving on, here is my finished Caterpillar painting:

"Cool Cat" 9x12" acrylic on stretched canvas

I like him! He's very laid back, something I'm not. I always wish that I could be more Zen about stuff, but I'm a lot more like the white rabbit than the caterpillar.

Today, minus working on the video and getting my caterpillar all squared away, I'm working on those watercolors I showed in the video. This is an earlier in progress sketch:

A friend mentioned she'd be interested in just a sketch some time, that she prefers the medium. I, once upon a time, was afraid of color and ONLY did black and white sketches (I clearly have gone whole hog on the color now, though. It's an addiction at this point. Color, and the shiny color. Shiny!) So, I'm contemplating making a nice sketch. You know, all back to my roots and all! I may try that a bit down the road when I don't have so many deadlines on me!

Have a fabulous Monday!

Closing the Year

2012 is fast headed out the door, and 2013 looms before us!

This has been a large year for me on the art front because, while I've been selling professionally since 2001, I shut down every other business and idea outside of art this year and committed to it 100% by June. I shut the doors on my photography business in May when it became clear that both businesses were heating up and requiring too much to allow both to survive, and that's when I made the final decision to finally say yes to the paint.  (Want to know more about my art-business path? I was invited to talk about it in a guest post here.)

I even figured out how to make a time-lapse video of my paintings (I made three, actually!)

I also learned that I can make a video blog (vlog?) from my phone, and tried it out:

I plan on actually doing more of those vlogs (and decorating my studio a bit more, because it looks depressingly stark on the video! I should add that my house is vibrant everywhere else, and I think I removed the color from everything in there so mine would be the focus when I added it to the canvases!) And I hear tell that some artists are trying art-meet-ups via Skype or other video chatting, and I'm interested in giving that a go... if I can get over my shyness, and find others who want to chat while we work!

I have a lot of goals for 2013, and I'm looking forward to a year filled with paint and opportunities! I'm going to make it a goal to finish a painting a week. Sure, my larger paintings take more time (months and months in some cases) but I promise to take the time to work on some smaller, faster ones as well. Allowing for some sick and vacation time, that means about 48-50 new paintings next year!

I'm going to tighten back up my sketching skills so I jump forward in other ways. I used to work solely in pencil, not even color. I remember working so hard in high school on detail that I made a picture of my hand that looked like a black and white photograph when I was finished (boring, but all about the detail - composition didn't matter then.) Once I achieved that, I wanted a new challenge, and that was color. I slid first to acrylics and I didn't like the results, so I backtracked and went heavy with chalk pastels. For some reason, color meant more about expression than detail, and I loosened up in order to allow for that.

Eventually I conquered the paint, and my tight detail rendering slid into the shadows as I learned I just needed the basic outlines for painting, and the detail came from the paint instead. It's time to revisit the detail and work on crossing it with the color - in particular with watercolors, where the details count in the pencil rendering. This will make my "painting a week" more achievable, because watercolor just works a bit faster than acrylic or oils for me.

Speaking of oils, they're coming out this year. I miss the depth! I plan on using them for any people I paint, because it just looks better to me. It's going to be tough waiting for the oils to try as the trade-off, but it'll be worth it. I'll still work in acrylics as well, though.

Lastly, I'm going to continue working on my fairytale series, but I'm also resurrecting my abstracts and surreal body of work (I had pulled them from my site when I did a major revamp almost two years ago, I think.) I'm going to be offering some prints of the older ones, and new ones are already lining up for the easel! Also, this work dovetails nicely with THRICE Fiction Magazine, where I have been lucky enough to be asked contribute artistically, along with other talented artists and writers.

I'm thankful to all who have supported my art, as well as those who have found a piece they like and took it into their homes! It's been a huge 2012 for me, and I'm looking forward to 2013! I hope you had a wonderful year, and have a fabulous 2013!

At Last!

I finally finished my White Rabbit painting from my Alice in Wonderland series! This has been such a long process. I started in on my Alice series this year with the intent to have a show this Autumn, but reality set in hard when I realized I needed to spend a lot more time on the paintings than I had thought. It wasn't because I couldn't paint faster, but because I wanted to paint better. I needed to give myself permission to take my time with it. I was pressuring myself, almost panicking, which was silly!

I love art! I love painting! I should be enjoying this series, because I love it too. Why rush through and ruin the journey?

So, I took a deep breath and gave myself permission to slow down. I tried to not think about the countless hours translated to an hourly rate per painting (I'm aware that this one wouldn't even buy a stick of bubble-gum with what it breaks down to per hour.) I tried not to panic about other paintings needing to be done, and allowed myself to take time off to do those here and there (though admittedly, this creates a little bit of painting ADD and a backlog of half finished works. I'm not happy with that. I think I need to clear out the backlog, and get back to finishing what I start. Having a business though, means I need to be able to shift between other projects too, so there's a balance I need to strike with that one.)

What was wonderful about this was that I was able to fall in love with this painting. It started to become very important to me, so much so that I was excited to finally paint the white rabbit, but very nervous too. What happens if I mess it up? But I didn't. And I love it!

I know the series has a long way to go yet. I have a Cheshire cat coming, a Caterpillar, and more! Queen of hearts, and of course ALICE!  All told, I think this series is going to round the bend at about 25 paintings. I'm up to about seven right now. Some smaller ones, but some very large ones are planned. I know they'll be complicated, and I know I'll have to slow down and fall in love with every single one of them. And I know they'll be wonderful.

So, without further ado, here is "Tea Time":

"Tea Time" by Kyra Wilson, Alice in Wonderland series
(held for exhibition)
16x20x0.75 acrylic on stretched canvas.

And here is the time-lapse video of it as well!

A Video Hello!

After posting those time-lapse videos of my paintings, I had several people express an interest in me actually showing UP in one of my videos. So, I experimented with my phone, and I managed to actually make one. I'm pretty shy about showing up on camera at all, so bear with me!

If this works out, and people like this sort of thing (and I can figure out WHAT to talk about, suggestions welcome), I'll do a few more now and then!

Media Time!

Things have been cooking along this summer, right along with the temperatures! I've got interesting stuff to share with all of you!

I was again asked to contribute to THRICE Fiction Magazine for their latest issue, and it lead to some interesting developments. Those of you who have followed my art over the past 12 years know that it all came from an abstract and surreal base. I can create down to the tiniest realistic detail, or flow in a completely abstract river. Really, it's all about where the feeling takes me. As time has passed, my art and business have flowed through several different directions. Abstracts, to florals, to fantasy and more! However, somewhere along the way the surreal and abstract paintings took a back seat or simply faded away. For the most part, when I did create a piece that fit those labels, I kept it to myself.

Then the magazine came knocking, and I pulled out many of my older works and started to remember what I liked about that flavor of painting. The current issue, No. 5 (of which my art is also on the cover and back cover as well as here and there throughout, keeping company with other artists' pieces all with the intent to help frame the creative writing the magazine is for - it's free to download!), has some of my art in it as well, but it also has a new piece! I created this piece specifically to illustrate one of the stories in the issue:

"Whim" 9x12, Acrylic on Artist Board

After I posted the painting publicly, it generated interest. It generated enough interest that I actually had to reevaluate my current painting-business structure and make some changes. I decided that leaving behind my abstract and surreal works was a mistake. While they're not the main thread of my work, they are most definitely a part of it, and a part of me. So, I'm bringing them back.

I've restructured my main art website www.KWilsonStudio.com to include these paintings, as well as broken out my current collections into gallery sets. You will find the Enchanted Forest series has its own gallery, as does the popular and currently in progress Alice series. My abstracts and surreals will be showcased and available for purchase in the main gallery itself (as well as in the prints boutique of course) as they're less a series and more stand alone pieces.

I've already created a new surreal piece, but even better? I did a full time-lapse photo session of the whole painting, and I've created my first time-lapse painting movie!

"Entangled"9x12x0.75 stretched canvas, sides painted, acrylic

Here's the video of the painting from white canvas to finished piece, and if you are interested I am going to be doing many more of these (although mostly on the smaller pieces. The White Rabbit painting, "I'm Late", is coming too, but it's a very long one due to the size and detail.) You can subscribe to my YouTube channel to get updates, and I'll also be posting them on my Kyra Wilson Studio page on Facebook.

I hope those of you experiencing the hot weather are able to keep cool!