Kelly Thiel Studio

Some Thoughts

2012-01-07T11:44:00.000-05:00

Hi there!

I've been busy for the past few weeks with just family stuff. The holidays, traveling, trying to get the house back in order, etc. I've done very little as far as my clay work goes. Whenever this happens, I start to feel "off" and not quite right. I am happiest when my days have some balance between family and art, and the art side of things just wasn't happening. It makes me grumpy and I feel like I lose myself. I even feel a physical sensation - my chest gets tighter. I feel like I can't expand my lungs and take a super deep breath. This is the way I have been feeling lately. I wasn't sure how to change things either, as there seemed to be no end in sight. Until last night.

I got an email last night about an exhibition I had applied for. It was a surprise email as the notification date for the show had already past. I couldn't believe my eyes! My heart sped up and I actually gasped as I read the email! And then POOF! That tension, that tight feeling in my chest disappeared instantly and I felt like I could breathe better and stand straighter! What a feeling. I was so happy and it brought me back to my goals and dreams that I have for myself.

It's taken me a while to understand that I truly need to make time for myself. I tend to forget it, but how I feel when I get some creative time is vastly different from how I feel when I don't. I know I am a happier (read: better) mother, when I have just a little time to create. I don't need 10 hours a day to create - no, nothing like that. (I'd love to have it, but not right now when my kids are so young!) But I need to make sure that I get 5-10 hours a week for myself. That's not that much, and oh, what a difference it would make.

This is a huge topic for me, and I could keep typing and typing, but I don't want to put you all to sleep. Really, I just wanted to share my good news about my invitational. I will share some details later, as I learn more :)

Breathing easier,
~Kelly

A Story to Share

2011-12-28T11:17:00.000-05:00

Well, I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday!! I got to visit with my family, and as I get older I really, really value my family. We're a small family now, but I am thankful for them! My aunt told a story this time that I had never heard and I wanted to share it with you. When I was a kid, I was forever getting in trouble for drawing and writing on things (no surprise there, huh?) and one day, I locked myself in my bedroom. Everytime my parents tried to convince me to unlock it, I replied, "I busy!" Uh oh. What was she busy doing??? Low and behold, they finally got into my room and I had been doing some serious artwork on the walls with my crayons. Not the washable kind either. I thought it was kind of a cute story until my husband piped up with, "She's still drawing on the walls!" And you know what? I AM! I just finished painting these flowers in my 3 yr old's room, and now I'm stenciling a pattern on the wall in the baby's room! What a riot! I guess I've always like drawing and painting, huh? I also remember a time when I got seriously in trouble for drawing on my bedsheets with an ink pen. I guess they were a little boring as they were :)

Here I am, about the age where I learned to love drawing on the walls

I'm doing well and hope you guys are too. I'm looking forward to January. My husband and I have decided to share the childcare during the week, so that we can both have a couple of days to work. As it is now, it feels like neither one of us are getting much done. This comes at a great time for me, since I will need to get cranking on some sculptures. I've got 21 small things made (unfired, but made!) and I plan to keep adding to that.

Hope you guys found ways to stay creative during the holidays!
~Kelly

Studio Progress

2011-12-14T15:27:00.000-05:00

Around our house, things have been a little busy. We're building a garage, as well as my studio, so that means we have men wandering around in our yard starting at about 7:00 am. Which means you have to be careful walking by the bathroom window when you're getting dressed :)

It's about 700 sq ft!

Progress is moving right along. The house wrap is on, the electrical is roughed in, as are the lights, and next in line is the windows. I'm pretty excited - it's going to be awesome! And then one day, I'll get around to landscaping in front of the studio, so that I can walk down a path through flowers and plants on my way to the studio. Is that inspiring or what?!

My personal goal was to have 20 small things made before the studio was built, and I'm about to meet that goal now! How awesome - I rarely get to a deadline early :) I'm working on the 20th thing right now, so after that I will keep plugging along and trying to stockpile things so that I can start firing right away. With that show coming up in March, I know it will take me a while to produce enough work. Especially at the snail's pace I am working at right now. But that's okay. I'm happy (most days!) with the balance that I'm seeing in life. I'm really enjoying the little babe (she's almost 4 months now) and time is flying by. I'm still trying to get her on a good schedule; she likes to stay up late partying and sleep in in the mornings. The staying up late part is hard, since I am so tired at night. But we are having a good time.

This photo cracks me up

I'm looking forward to spending time with my family at Christmas. My family gets more and more important to me every day, and Christmas for me, means making memories and laughs with my family.

Love to you all,
~Kelly

Wall Birds

2011-12-04T15:40:00.002-05:00

I've been working a little here and there, when I have a little time, and I have been making these bird ladies to hang on the wall. They're pretty small, about 8-9" tall (i think) and they have not been fired yet.

I've made a dozen of them so far. I like how they look; in fact, I'd like to see them on bronze too! Even though I don't have a studio yet, I wanted to get a head start on creating some small pieces to fill the kiln, whenever I get that set back up. So I'm just stockpiling a few pieces until then :)

I am starting some other small pieces too - I'll post them after I've made a few more. On the studio construction, I've got a lovely concrete slab that is just ready for some framing. Boy, I'm excited to see that get started! Maybe I'll have a studio early in the new year... Just in time too- I'll need every second to get ready for my ACC show in March... Thanks for hanging with me in these past months when I've been posting so irregularly! I'm feeling a bit better these days. Little baby Finley is sleeping through the night now, and that makes ALL the difference! We will talk soon, Kelly

Keys to Creativity

2011-11-29T15:00:00.000-05:00

If you guys have never seen this book, you should check it out. We've had this one around the house for a while, and I just saw it again recently. I love this book. It's about how to be creative and the creative life, and it all started with the author, Hugh MacLeod sketching on the backs of business cards.

The title is just the beginning:

I know it's a little extreme, but there is some truth in that, no??

I'll be sharing some of the other sketches and sayings from his book in the future.

In other news, I'm still slowly working on some clay at my table in the house. The studio has been held up with permitting problems with our county. Fun paperwork kind of stuff. Ick. But hopefully soon, I'll have some pics to share...

Hope everyone is well!! ~Kelly

A peek into my Sketchbook - Faces

2011-11-12T09:59:00.000-05:00

Hello Hello!

I know I've been absent so much over the past few months, but I have a very good, and cute, reason. Her name is Finley and she's almost 3 months old! Time is flying by and things are starting to settle down into a nice routine. I've even started to have some creative time again. Not much, of course, but a little here and there when the girls are sleeping. I have to let the dishes or the laundry pile up in order to create, but sometimes, that's just fine by me :)

So I've had a chance to do a little sketching in my journal with conte crayons. I've never used them until now, so I've had fun just playing with them! They are so soft and lovely to work with...

In this last one, I used two shades of brown conte crayons, and all of these are done on watercolor paper. I still have to add some text to this brown one, but I wanted to share the face with you now.

Have a happy, art-filled weekend!

Love,
Kelly

Text Painting for my Foyer using Pan Pastels

2011-10-13T17:11:00.000-04:00

I have finally completed this project that I've been slowly working on. In our new house, we have an odd round niche in the foyer that needed decorating. I knew I wanted some art work on the wall, but I didn't want a collage of smaller items. So I created a 4 panel painting on canvas panels that could work on the rounded wall we have in our foyer. I used the same method for this painting that I used on my first one. You can read about that technique here. I was pleased with how the finished product turned out. Sorry the photo is dark (we still need to install a light in the foyer!)

It became a piece about my husband and the beginnings of our relationship and marriage. Then I included some things from our current life, like our two daughters. This was a poem that I gave to my husband, back when we started dating. There's a lot of detail and texture that you can't really see in these photos, but you can see my doodles that I did in a gray PITT pen.

I love how the panels turn the curve! So, that's it. And I'm stoked how it turned out, and I want to thank Alisa Burke for inspiring me to make it :)

In other news, I am supposed to be getting a new studio here soon! I will let you know as soon as we start construction! Yay - I'm excited, and anxious for it to start, as I agreed to do a show in March and need to get making some sculptures!!

Hope everyone is well!
~Kelly

A little craft for the baby's room

2011-10-10T14:12:00.000-04:00

First of all, I wanted to say Thanks for the comments on the last post. I was wondering if anybody would read my post, since I've been posting so intermittently! I'm still lurking around Blogland when I get time :)

So, I have seen a variety of these around on the web and in person, and I've always loved how they looked! And so easy too - just right for a busy mom of two (like myself!) I decided to make some for the baby's room and I'm so glad I did. It is a great project that you can stop and start when you need to run off in a different direction all the times, like I do.

I got on Etsy and bought lots of awesome fabric, to get me inspired to drag out my ancient sewing machine. It worked. I headed to Michael's and bought these embroidery rings in various sizes and some white felt. I already had some pink thread so I knew I was ready to get started.

I steamed out the wrinkles in the fabric, and cut out the letters out of the white felt. After cutting the fabric down to size, I pinned the letter on to the fabric and got to sewing in a zig zag line. I wanted to use my free motion foot for the sewing machine, but of course, I can't find it after moving. I guess it's still in a box somewhere. So I used the regular foot on my machine and for the most part it worked just fine. The hardest letter to do was the "e" since the whole letter is basically made up of curves :)

After I stitched on the letters, I inserted it into the ring, making sure to get the little tightener knob at the top of the letter. I then used a glue gun on the back side of the ring and glued down the excess fabric to the inside of the ring.

All done! I just put a little nail in the wall and hung the tightener on that. Simple!

Hope everyone is doing well, and I promise to start blogging again more frequently. The baby is already 7 weeks old!

Happy October!
Kelly

I'm actually still here :)

2011-09-22T13:38:00.000-04:00

I wanted you all to know that I am actually still here!! I have THE MOST unreliable internet connection - ever. You'd think that I live in the middle of jungle by the trouble I have with my internet. Yes, we did move out to the country, but we are not so far out that we can't have the luxuries of civilization! We are using the Verizon MIFI for our internet and it just craps out on me all the time for one reason or another. Not to mention that it's slow as all-get-out! What I may start doing is taking my laptop to a wifi coffee shop once a week and try to get in a little internet time that way. It's just that it's a little more difficult with a 5 week old baby. (Is she really already 5 weeks old???) You just never know how the baby is going to behave, but I guess that kind of thing will last the rest of my life :) I should get used to it.

In the meantime, I have slowly been working on a text painting, like I blogged about here. We have a curved wall in our new house by the front door and I've been thinking about what kind of artwork we could hang there. Because of the curve, a large flat painting wouldn't work, so I've decided to make a painting out of 4 canvas panels that are each 10" x 30". I'm turning them vertically and will mount them side by side so that they can turn the curve of the wall without too much space behind the canvases. I like this idea and sure hope it works! Here's the four canvases lined up on my table. I've been collaging them with torn brown paper bags, and that took forever!! I didn't think I'd ever get through that task... And now I've just started putting gesso on them. You can see I've got two more to go.

While the gesso is wet, I'm stamping or carving texture and words into the wetness. I'm using narrative words or phrases that go with the meaning of the painting, as well as stamps that fit the concept. I'll share that meaning with you later :)

So you can see I'm trying to set up a lot of texture and hopefully the next layers of paint and pastels will accentuate these. :)

In other news, I just got word that I'm accepted into my favorite retail show for next March! Now I have to figure out what I'm going to do about not having a clay studio set up.... Hmmmm...

Hope all of you are doing great! Until next time~
Kelly

My baby girl has arrived!

2011-09-04T08:08:00.001-04:00

I know I've been absent so much lately, but I have a good reason. Finley Kate arrived on August 18 at 6:56 pm weighing 8 lbs 4 oz and sporting a headful of dark hair! Everyone at the hospital laughed because she and I have the same hairdo :) My water broke at 1:50 am, and after laboring all day long, she was delivered by c-section. I cried when I found out I'd need a c-section, but after I saw that sweet little squishy face, I was only happy that she was healthy.

Little Finley is a great baby; sleeps quite well, is a great eater and burps on command. We are adjusting to having two kids in the house, but in general, things are going very well. Not much artwork happening, but I did start another big "text" painting. Hope everyone is having a creative weekend!! I'll be back soon~ Kelly

New Canvas Experiment with Text

2011-08-13T16:37:00.000-04:00

Since I am out of a clay studio at the moment, I am having to find other ways to keep me happy! I've been doing some art journaling, and that has helped, but then I saw a blog post from Alisa Burke one night, and I was inspired to get out of the journal and play with some canvas instead! My natural inclination when I create is to be rather tight, and controlled, so this inspired me to be loose and free and just have fun, which is what I did. And it felt GREAT!! Feel free to let me know what you think of this canvas :) I did this one for me, as practice, and if I like the results enough, I'm going to make a larger one (with a different phrase) for our new house!

Collaging brown paper bags

So I ordered some canvases, 10" x 30" and turned it on it's side, for a horizontal orientation. I didn't feel like I wanted the canvas texture, so I decided to collage it. All my beautiful papers are packed up somewhere, so I attacked the brown paper bags in my pantry :) I ripped it into pieces and used gel medium to adhere it.

After that, I wanted to cover it in gesso to make it sort of white again, and I decided to add in some texture in the gesso, just for giggles.

stamping into wet gesso

I purposely did not make it all perfect and pretty at this point. I was slapping it on! Next came adding a bit of color, and my Pan Pastels were sitting next to me, so I decided to use those instead of paint. I have to say, I really love my Pan Pastels!! I did add a layer of matte medium to set the pastels, so they wouldn't smudge so much. The pastels just went with the whole idea of this canvas, just having fun and not getting caught up in perfection. It felt so good, especially since there isn't much control or perfection happening in my life right now anyway! Working this way just sort of suited my mood at the moment.

adding color and doodles

After adding color, I wanted to doodle late one night, and so I grabbed my PITT pen (a light gray) and just had fun. I don't always love my doodles, but I was just trying to have a little fun and keep my brain out of it, for once. Next I had to decide how I wanted to do the text. Alisa Burke used shoe polish, and after I scoured the town to find the right shoe polish, I decided it was too big for this size canvas. So I went to Wal-Mart and got some squeeze bottles and decided that I'd do the text in a more fluid, loose way. When I was feeling brave the next day, I dumped in paint and matte medium, stirred it all up and added the text! What fun to not worry about drips, spills and such! Here's where I forgot to take a picture :)

detail

another detail

I let the canvas sit for a day or two while I thought about it, and then today I added some oil pastels to the corners and some circles of a turquoise pastel. I outlined the circles in black and white circles, splattered some white and black and called it done! Now I need to find my varnish and then I'll really be done. It was a fun, fun thing to try out, and now I'm ready to do a bigger one, if my hubby is okay with it. :) The only problem is that the time I spent working on the canvas was time I should have spent unpacking boxes! Oh well. Gotta do things to keep me happy, right??? The final color is more golden, rather than lemony like in the photo, and I am pleased with the outcome.


Final Piece, 10" h x 30"w. The actual color is more golden and less lemon-y yellow.

So that's it. I hope you all have a creative weekend. I guess I'll go unpack a box now :) Either that or organize baby clothes some more, as my due date is tomorrow!!

xoxo
~Kelly

Journal Page with Flowers and Watercolors

2011-08-05T10:00:00.001-04:00

I've got another journal page to share with you guys! I actually started this one over the July 4th holiday, when all I had was pencil and pens. I sketched out several pages and I'm just getting around to finishing them (well, some of them anyway!)

I had an odd day recently where I found myself with two short windows of free time, and I zipped into a coffee shop and spent some time working on this page. I didn't finish it that day, but I did make some good progress. I did this page with micron pens, watercolors, colored pencils, watercolor pencils for the detail on the flowers, distress ink pad, a white sharpie and then Staz On stamp for the date. I actually decided to leave the page fairly uncluttered, in case I wanted to use this as a background.

I also have started a new sketchbook, and it's one of those Moleskines (which I totally love!!) but it is a different proportion than what I'm used to. It is LOOOOOONG! I guess it's meant for landscape paintings..

But that's it for now!
Happy August to everyone!
~Kelly

Journal Page with Pan Pastels

2011-08-01T21:21:00.000-04:00

Hi everybody,
I'd like to apologize for the absence from blogland, but things have been totally crazy here. Trying to settle in to the new house and prepare for this baby, all with limited energy, has been tough. It hasn't left me with a whole lot of time to blog, and even less for creativity. But that's okay, I am still journaling when I can, and I wanted to share a page with you that I finished a couple of weeks ago.

I tried a new technique here - I had recently bought some black gesso and wanted to play with pan pastels over it. I liked the results, but unfortunately, the fixative I sprayed over it darkened the pastels so much!! I think that's my fault though, I think I put too heavy a coat of the fixative on the page. After I did this page, I made a birthday card and used less fixative, and it seemed to help. :)

I anticipate more blogging breaks when this baby comes (less than 2 weeks to the due date!) but I'll check in when I can. I'm still reading all of my favorite blogs, and thank goodness for all of you guys - it makes me feel connected to the art world, even though I'm not doing much right now!

Take care everyone!
~Kelly

I've been Crazy Busy

2011-07-12T18:43:00.000-04:00

Hi there! I've been crazy busy - moving out of one house, flipping it to make it a beach rental, trying to get settled in our new house, had company for a week, and on top of all that, I couldn't get my computer to play nicely with our new wireless set up at the new house! Not to mention being uber-pregnant and trying not to overdo it and get ready for baby, all at the same time. Closing in on 36 weeks pregnant and feeling every bit of it :)

But seriously, as crazy as things have been, I'm feeling pretty good about things. I have actually done 3 or 4 sketches (but they're not ready to share here), and I certainly haven't been doing any clay. I knew there would be some downtime as we traveled through this nutty time of transition. I'll get back to it soon, though, because one of my galleries has been selling the work and will need replacements soon!

In the meantime, now that I am back online, I have been reading blogs again, and Tara Gentile had a great motivational post that fired me up. I wanted to share that with you. and I hope that it gives you a little boost too! Check her out.

Hope everyone is well, and I am so happy to be back online, I can't even begin to tell you! It makes me feel like life is returning to a manageable chaos :)

~Kelly

Looking for Gallery Representation? Read this!

2011-07-03T14:04:00.000-04:00

Are you trying to find more galleries for your work? Good galleries that work with you to actively promote your art will want to make sure you are on the same page as they are. They want to know if you can meet their needs and give them what they need to help you succeed. I've just started following this blog, but it's awesome and truly helps you think about business in a fresh light. If you are serious about finding gallery representation, Read this:

http://baangandburne.com/blog/2011/06/27/inside-the-mind-of-a-gallery-director/

Happy July 4th to all my Americans and Happy Sunday to everybody!

~Kelly

We Made it into the new House

2011-06-28T16:38:00.002-04:00

Well, we did it. We moved in to the new place, and it is still a disaster zone over here. No Internet connection for me yet (still working that out), so I'm blogging by phone!

I wanted to share the beginnings of a journal page that I've started. I sketched out a girl's face and look forward to adding some color. Also, I just downloaded Hipstamatic on my iPhone (since everyone else seems to enjoy it) and wanted to play with that a little :) It is kinda fun! Another meeting with the builder tomorrow afternoon about my new studio. Sounds like this is actually going to happen and I'm so thankful. I will probably get the new studio just before or after the baby comes, but that's okay. At least I'll have it for the day/time I'm ready for it! It will wait for me until the time is right :) Right now, I'm just concerned this babe will be early. I'm only 33 weeks, but I'm nervous about her coming too early! My first child was three weeks early... Hope you're having a great week! ~Kelly

Big Changes and the Next Step

2011-06-22T10:49:00.000-04:00

Big, big changes are happening over here! I haven't talked about it much, but we are in the middle of moving to a new house - today! It started on Monday with the movers coming to box up stuff, and today they are working on my studio :( I have a picture of the studio being packed up, but Blogger won't let me load it. Oh well. It was a fuzzy shot anyway..

I think I've been in a bit of denial over this move, and now I'm finally facing up to it and working with it. I think that all of this transition (and the hormones from this pregnancy) have been really getting to me - even more than I realized. I'm a homebody, and I love my house and studio, and so the thought of leaving all this behind was kind of hard. Not to mention the nesting instincts are strong, and I just want to be getting the baby's room ready, instead of moving an entire house! But you know what?? I'm feeling better than I have in a while. The new house now looks like an actual house (instead of chaotic construction site), and it helped to give me an attitude adjustment. I finally realized this is the closing of one door and the opening of another.

It's the beginning of a new chapter in my life. New house, new child, and hopefully soon, a new studio too. I've been pouting because the new house doesn't have a studio right now, but I've lived without a studio before and I made it work then, so I'll just do that again. It's all temporary - I just need to remember that. And really, once the baby comes, I'll be swamped for the first couple of months anyway until sleep begins to return to my life. So while I may be stuck in limbo for a bit longer, I am going to try to work with it, instead of fighting it. And then I need to journal about it when I need some release :)

Hope all of you are creating some awesomeness! I'm going to ride this crazy train for a bit longer and then hopefully get back to it :)

~Kelly

WIP Painted Flowers

2011-06-17T17:46:00.001-04:00

Just a little update on my textile project! I've made a test piece, that you can see up top, and experimented with some different techniques and products. Below, I've outlined my flowers in the coolest product ever- the Auto Fade Pen for fabric- and my next step is to paint all the poppies. That Auto Fade pen is so awesome, because it "erases" with water. I don't know about you, but I like the ability to erase when I'm drawing! Hopefully, I'll get to work on this project some more over the weekend. Hope you all have a great, creative weekend too! ~Kelly

Nesting Instincts

2011-06-08T20:59:00.000-04:00

Most ladies when they are pregnant have the "nesting" urges that kick in at some point, that drive them to organize like a crazy lady. Well, I've been waiting and waiting for that to happen to me, because I am not a natural organizer in my home. I was actually sort of excited for that urge to kick in, thinking that would be a great time to clean out closets and organize the house a bit more before the baby comes. But then I had a realization not too long ago. My nesting urges were kicking in, but in a different form! What I want to do is make stuff for my youngest daughter. I have picked out a paint color for the crib (a bold purple!) and I've bought bumpers/sheets/etc, but what I'm going to make is a crib skirt and paint it in the design I want. You know how it goes - you decide on a paint or color scheme, then you can't really find the exact bedding that you want in the colors that you want so you end up settling for something else. Not this time!! The idea hit me, in that fluttery feeling that makes your heart beat a bit faster, as I was reading (of all things) a Martha Stewart Living magazine. I probably read this mag once a year, but I got suckered in by the cover :) On the cover was bright, happy poppies and these are one of my favorite flowers of all times. So in reading the article about poppies, it hit me that I could do the baby's room in poppies - but in the colors I wanted!

So off to the computer I went to research fabric paints and techniques and I have to tell you I am so excited!! One of the paints I found you can use (and some of you already know this, I'm sure, but it was news to me) was the Shiva paintstiks, and I already own some of them and I just adore them. And another exciting thing was that I found a line of iridescent colors that I didn't even know existed! Super cool - I can use them for painting the poppies and for my art journal. I held off for a couple of days, thinking about these, and then decided to go for it. You can buy them here, or Dick Blick carries them too, in cool little sample packs.

I also found this page chock full of tips and hints on how to do this painting thing on fabric (Don't ya love the internet for information??) and again, I could barely sit still for the itch to jump on this project...

Now I have all of my supplies in hand, and even bought my fabric today at the store. I was like a kid in a candy shop. And while I was there, I bought a free motion stitching foot for my sewing machine, which I've wanted to play with for a while... So, as soon as I have some time and energy, I will start on this project. If it turns out, you can bet I'll be sharing it here :) If you have any tips/stories/what-not-to-do things to share about fabric painting, please feel free!!

In the meantime, I also did some glazing today. Trying to fill up the kiln so I can run a full load. It's hard to decide what to work on - there are so many things I want to do in the studio!!

Happy creating to all of you..
~Kelly

Creative Business Marathon Update

2011-06-01T20:13:00.001-04:00

Hi guys!
If you remember, around the New Year, myself and four other artists linked up and did a Creative Business Marathon where we got our business plans in order for the upcoming year. When that whirlwind was over, we decided that we needed to do a 6 month check-in to see where we were in our plan. Since today is the first day of June, it is time to do my post. I did a little video - but I am trying not to think about how silly I probably look :)
So here it is:

On another note, things here are well. I just fired the kiln with a bisque and I'm waiting for it to cool so that I can unload. I've got some glazing in the process and hope to have some pictures of finished pieces soon. I also have some ideas in mind for some smaller, less expensive pieces :) and I can't wait to show those to you!

~Kelly

Jersey Shore Clay National!

2011-05-25T10:07:00.000-04:00

Can I just tell you how excited I am?? I found out late last night that two of my sculptures were accepted in the Jersey Shore Clay National at m.t. burton gallery! I was so excited to get the email that I had a hard time getting to bed last night :) I didn't hear anything by the notification deadline, so I just assumed that I didn't get accepted, but then I checked their website and they were a little behind thanks to a lost disc in the snail mail. So I thought... okay.... well, the game is still on! And then I got the word! Now I have to figure out the shipping and all the other details, but that's fine by me :)

So these are the two sculptures that will be in the exhibit:

Yay! So excited! And thanks, everyone, for the love on Facebook when I posted about this last night! :)

~Kelly

a painting experiment

2011-05-16T16:00:00.002-04:00

Hi there! I'm back from my workshop and had a great time. My creative spirit just loves that kind of environment. Not to mention, it was a wonderful location!

Mixed Media, 6"x6"

I wanted to share with you an experiment I just finished - well, I think it's finished. I can't decide if I want to add more to it or not! But this is on Ampersand's Claybord, and it's the first time I've played with it. So I bought a few little boards to play with - this one is 6x6. I really loved being able to scratch into the surface - it felt a bit like my surface designs on my claywork that I do. In this piece, I used acrylic paints, alcohol inks, a stamp that Laura gave me with permanent sepia ink, pan pastels, oil pastel, stabilo pencil, and white sharpie poster paint pen. Then I used one of my clay tools to scratch through the layers to reveal the white underneath. It was so much fun to do! I totally lost track of time and I just LOVE it when that happens in the studio. The little flowers I painted are actual wildflowers that grow here at the beach where I live. I guess technically, they are weeds, but we all love them and people mow their yards around them, so as to preserve them.

I hope to do some more experimenting this week - so much fun!!

Hope all of you had a fabulous weekend!
~Kelly

The Bascom

2011-05-14T08:15:00.001-04:00

Main building of the Bascom

Now that Blogger is back up and running, I am able to post about this awesome facility I'm at for this workshop! This is my first time here and it's so great to be here, and I'm loving this location. Everyone is so open and friendly - everyone at the Bascom and everyone in the town too. I'd love to come back sometime with the family for a vacation, but beware of the windy roads! You gotta be on your game to drive these roads and I'm glad that I didn't have to do it at night.

The sign by the road

So here's the entrance to the Bascom. A rock formation serves as their sign and then you have to cross this amazing bridge. Barry Gregg is teaching this workshop and check out this youtube video he made about his work and his inspiration. It's so awesome.

The entrance to the Bascom

So this kind of thing is always so fun. So much energy in the class and everyone is just interested in creating, and supporting each other. I just love it.

Here's a pic of the first little birdie I made for our totem. Everyone made birds, so that was right up my alley! :) We did make some more pieces, but I didn't get photos. Time ran out - time just flies by when you are in these classes!

Bird for my totem sculpture

More to come later :)
~Kelly

Workshop at the Bascom

2011-05-12T21:57:00.000-04:00

I'm so excited! Tomorrow, I'm starting a 2 day workshop at the Bascom -(http://www.thebascom.org/) with Barry Gregg for clay sculpture. There's always something to learn, ya know? So I'm doing all this on my phone, since there's no wifi in the hotel room (boo!), but I should be able to post some pics at least tomorrow. This little town looks so awesome and I can't wait to see more of it tomorrow. The drive here was so fanastic- lots of great curvy mountain roads - so beautiful! Talk to you soon! Kelly

I'm doing a Guest Post today!

2011-05-02T08:30:00.005-04:00

Today, I'm over at ElizabethGLZ doing a guest post for her big blogging anniversary. I'm so honored to be doing this for her and so happy that she has had a positive blogging experience!! If you have a moment, head over to her space and check out her work. She is a mixed media and ceramic artist from Puerto Rico and I just love her creations!

Today's blog post is about Finding Connections. This photo is from one of her original paintings :)

Hope everyone had a great weekend..
~Kelly