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

Mural Mural on the... well..

Today, I spent my time painting a mural for the town I live in.

It was kind of like a survival challenge. The mission? To paint over an unwanted scene on a big, oddly shaped screen. Supplies are limited to 20 mystery cans of wall paint left over from prior projects and school play productions put on at the town hall, a few brushes, a roll of paper towels, and drop cloths. Time limit: get it done in one day.

After spending well over an hour popping cans, I figured out I had a ton of pastels and other odd colors, and NO primaries. I had a red-red glaze, which kinda counted, a beige yellow, and an off blue. I made do with those, though, and in the end it worked out for the most part.

All told, it took 7 1/2 hours of painting. It wasn't all at once, though, since I had to run and pick up my children, and feed them, and then get myself back. It was much harder to go back than it was to start in the first place. I was tired! I did something I never do, and that was to have caffeinated coffee in the late afternoon before I returned to work on the mural.

I admit, I was a little panicky around 6PM, thinking I'd NEVER get this finished. I even said to myself "I wanna quit." But I kept at it.

As I was painting, I realized it was pitch dark outside. I was by myself, in a VERY old building. Painting, most lights off, days from Halloween... I thought to myself "This is the part of the movie where the girl with the paint brushes ends up dead, isn't it..." And right as I was thinking that, my friend who asked me to do the mural came banging through the door.

A good startle is as good as strong coffee, as it turns out!

I finished the mural at 9PM. It's funny how a day gets divided when you have outside responsibilities. 7 1/2 hours is less than a normal work day, but it took me ALL day to fit it in!

Here is my mural (please excuse the bad picture, I took it with my phone, which is decidedly low-tech):

Not bad for a day's work!

It's Halloween!

I painted a new Halloween painting, and I'm just so glad I made my return to oils. I had forgotten how smooth they are, how easily they work, and how much deeper they make the colors. I have been working on this one the last two days, and I'm happy to say that I'm pleased with it. I like this one!

Here is the evolution:

It's wet, so the pictures aren't fabulous because the light really reflects right now. I'll have better photos of it once it's dry. It'll go up in the store in a week or so, when it's dry (and the varnish too.) I don't feel right putting a wet-painting up before it's ready to ship.

I have a town painting project I have to work on today and tomorrow (which is painting a screen for town events), but then it's back to painting fun stuff! I'm really enjoying myself. I want to paint a haunted house silhouetted by the moon. I'm contemplating a cat & ghost painting, but I don't know if I'll do that or not. I've also been thinking about a few butterflies in the paintings. Some plain pumpkins, rather than jack-o-lanterns. More than all of this though? I want to put more of my figures in the paintings too. Maybe a few more with the girl and the cat, maybe as a witch, maybe not...

We'll see! It's supposed to snow on Thursday, so I've also been in the mood for some other types of holiday paintings. I'm definitely hitting a major painting streak right now!

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

A bit of frustration that should have been anticipated, but wasn't, finally lit a fire under me. I can be as irritated as I want at the outside influence, but really it's my own fault if I should have known. That being said, this bout of aggravation lead to my finally taking steps to make everything better.

First stop? Start putting things in the Etsy store. No longer will I be simply announcing that a new painting is finished and for sale without a direct buy option, it leads to a tangled mess, and frankly? Sales get lost in the process. Plus, I know that most people want to buy something without the personal interaction. We had already decided to revamp the website with an easy direct buy option through the site, but that is taking a bit of time because it's all part of a major site overhaul. But in addition to that, we had also decided on a few other venues for access - one of those being Etsy.

So, we now have an official Etsy K. Wilson Studio, Kyra Wilson Original Art Store. Is everything in it yet? Nope. That'll be slow moving, I think, but I'll get it done as I revamp and everything gets organized (so there should be more things added daily!) However, anything new will immediately be in the store (it's really the older stuff that will be slowly added over the next few weeks.) Going forward, it's the right way to roll, and it feels good to boot!

I'm planning on having Giclee prints made of a few things, including the garden party I recently finished, but also my snowman painting. I'm excited, because I have found a printer here that specializes in fine art prints! I'll have to drive up, but I have a good feeling they're exactly what I've been looking for! Soon, those too will be in the Etsy gallery (and on the new site.)

The mini-witch painting is already up and available for purchase. As are a few other miniatures and I'm slowly adding some of the larger paintings too. I'll be pulling down my main website (www.KWilsonStudio) while we go under construction. I'm hopeful it won't be for long, and I can spend less time on the computer stuff and more time with my brushes!

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I am on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/KyraWilsonArt

and now Twitter: http://twitter.com/@kyra_art

Yay for progress!