Paintings With Soul

"Eddy," 11"x14", acrylics and graphite on stonehenge paper, $399 plus s&h to the first asking nicely. This piece will be shipped flat and need to be framed and set behind glass by the buyer. I accept Paypal, venmo, personal checks and payment plans. Purchase inquiries can always come   to me . More art therapy. It's cold and damp in Michigan today and the world seems caught up in an odd vortex of insanity. So what do I do? I work at the easel while wearing my woolen winter hat, and think of baby swans in icy, swirling waters. Now I'm off for some hot tea. Thanks for following along with my painting journey, Kim

DETAIL "Cygnets," 11"x14", acrylics and graphite on stonehenge paper, $399 plus s&h to the first asking nicely. Full image is below. This piece will be shipped flat and need to be framed and set behind glass by the buyer. I accept Paypal, venmo, personal checks and payment plans. Purchase inquiries can always come   to me . I am thinking about metamorphosis and animals that represent change. Also tenderness and vulnerability, which is always summed up neatly in a baby anything (except for maybe a honey badger - I bet those things are fierce as heck from the first breath!) Our lives, our world, is in flux, and painting hopeful images of creatures that embrace that is peaceful to me. Sort of my way of putting my head in the sand. So here is your art therapy for today. Thanks for following along with my painting journey, Kim

IN PROCESS, WORKING TITLE "Cygnets," 11"x14", acrylics and graphite on stonehenge paper, $399 plus s&h to the first asking nicely. This piece will need to be framed and set behind glass by the buyer. I accept Paypal, venmo, personal checks and payment plans. Purchase inquiries can always come   to me . Every day I get at least one email or message, asking about my process. Which means I must not be doing a good enough job talking about   my online classroom,   where I share all the magic and more. This painting is being filmed as it progresses, and my students will get all the deets about my concept, and see the process from the underpainting to the finishing touches. Plus they get the added benefit of discussion, links to my sources of inspiration, learn what I'm reading and thinking about as I create. If this sounds interesting,   come on over   and join us! Meanwhile, Cygnets should be finished later this week, and ...

    From left to right: Koi I, II, III, IV, each 6" square, together measuring 6" x 24", acrylic on museum quality panel, depicting koi fish in a natural pond setting, all four panels together available for $699. Inquiries may come  to me .     I came home from last night's art guild meeting inspired and wanting to paint. Since I had to stay up and wait for a kid to return home, I poured a glass of wine and reached for my brushes. You can see what I worked on long past said kid's return  here  - including the work today.   Around lunch I got to a clear stopping point and decided to work on something entirely different - an idea I have had for quite some time.   So this afternoon was spent fishing.   The four panels are meant to stay together - and yet each of them also works well alone, as you can see in the individual photos below.   Once the originals sell, I'll offer reproductions on these fo...

"Gator," 16" x 20", the latest Water Dog painting starring a golden retriever and a once-still body of water, acrylic on museum quality panel, available to the first asking nicely.  Let me know  if you are interested, and I will arrange for you to see a less-blurry jpg (I only packed my cell phone for this trip, and you all know how hard it is for me to take a non-blurry photo with my phone!!). SOLD. This is the painting I created in the lobby of the  Grand Bohemian Hotel  on Saturday evening. It was a fabulous nite spent meeting new fans and friends and working alongside  Elizabeth . At the tail end of the night, she and I were treated to a tour of  Mr Kessler's art collection , and I got a little teary eyed over  Egon Schiele's  sketches. Huge warm thanks go out to Debbie at the Kessler Gallery for putting this remarkable evening together for us both. As always, there are a mess of photos on the  studio...

      "Gettin' Jiggy"," 11" x 16", portrait of a mixed breed dog playing in shallow waters, done in acrylic on museum quality panel, $609 to the first one  asking nicely . Check out the detail of Jiggy's face below!!   This was my assignment - to create a painting using only color temperature - not value differences - to define depth of field. I started the piece yesterday - posted an in-process image to  my blog , and multiple jpgs to  the studio Facebook page .   It was absurdly difficult, and I know I can get better at this, but in the meanwhile, can you see me doing cartwheels?   Kim, who enjoys celebrating little victories ksantini@turtledovedesigns.com      

"Koi I," from the Cherished series of paintings, 16" x 20", acrylic on museum quality panel, depicting some pretty muscular goldfish. This painting is headed to ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Michigan in September, and will be available for purchase there. Please  email me  if you are interested in it and I will be happy to make the necessary arrangements.   So, the whole time I'm painting Koi (and it was a conscious decision to break away from my regular subject matter), I'm thinking we choose the sort of water we swim in.    We cannot choose what we swim with (or against), but we can control where inside that school of fish (or sharks!) we choose to be and whether to tread water or move forward or turn around and return to where we started.   So it was these sort of circuitious thoughts that filled my head while I worked away.   And I'd love to paint more koi and goldfish!  Let me know  if you have a pond o...