Kirsten Bailey: Art

It’s been a hectic week with school starting again.  That’s my excuse, anyway.  Not sure what my excuse was last week.

When I came up with the idea of listing my favourite Etsy items once a week on my blog (an idea I’m sure I stole from someone), I chose Friday because I liked the alliterative quality of the title “Friday Favourites”.  I didn’t really think about how busy Fridays are for me!  It’s a shame that Saturday Favourites doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Anyway, rather than doing what I did last week and just completely forgetting about it, this week I’m thinking it’s better late than never.

And since I struggled through the first week of school this week (it was very hot in our classrooms!), I’m doing a back to school theme for this week’s Saturday Favourites.

This first item is a button I’ve featured before in a treasury, because I think it’s just awesome 🙂  Made by beanforest, this ‘Teachers Are Hot’ button has a double meaning this week – it was 36 degrees celcius in my classroom for the last few days so the teachers (and the students) were literally hot.

Isn’t this Robot Children’s Tote Bag cute!  Who doesn’t love robots?  This would make an awesome library bag.  All students at the school I work at are required to have a library bag if they want to borrow books – so why not have one as cool as this?  It’s from Tiges and Weince, where you’ll find lots of other cool stuff for kids.

All children need a pencilcase for school.  This Woodland Animals Pencilcase is so cute!  It’s handmade so you know it’s going to be better quality than a lot of other pencilcases (then the children will stop coming to me with broken zips to fix!).  I just love it because I think the picture on the front is super-cute.   It’s made by Pocket Carnival, where you can also find prints and originals of artwork like you can see on this pencilcase.

Of course, once you have a cool pencilcase, you need some cool pencils to go in it!  I just LOVE this idea of personalised greeting pencils by Right Brainy.  You can choose the paper and the message.  Would make a great gift to suck up to the teacher on the first day (hint hint!) but would also be lovely for your children – they will never have to worry about losing their pencils when they are so unique.

One last thing…

With Valentines Day coming up soon (are you reading this Matt?), I created an Etsy treasury featuring romantic artworks.  Art makes a lovely Valentine’s gift!  Check it out:

Have a great weekend!

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Tonight I’ll be hanging a selection of my paintings at the Coffee Club, Springfield.  So if you’re in the area, why not pop in for a great coffee, some delicious food, and take a look at some of my paintings in person?

Sorry the picture isn’t great – my camera has a habit of running out of batteries at inconvenient times.  You’ll just have to visit the Coffee Club and check out the paintings in person!

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I was a bit slack over the holiday season, and wasn’t posting my Friday favourites – so this is the first edition for the new year!

This week’s picks are inspired by the colours in my latest painting, “Jacaranda Avenue”:

First up is this divine Bamboo Satin wrap scarf, handpainted by Rainbow Revolution.  The colours are just so pretty, and it looks so soft!  Better still, Rainbow Revolution is based on the NSW central coast – so it’s an Aussie product.

Another wonderful Aussie product is this beautiful soap called “Snow Queen” by Inner Earth Soaps.

I just got some beautiful soaps from Inner Earth Soaps in the mail today (and of course I had to open one right away and wash my hands just for the hell of it!) so I can personally vouch for how beautiful they are.  The lather I got from the soap I tried was thick and creamy.

My next favourite thing for this week is this beautiful pair of Victorian Filigree Teardrop earrings from Adorn You.  The blue stone is just gorgeous – they would be beautiful with an evening dress but I think they’d be a great addition to dress up a casual outfit like jeans & a shirt 🙂

Last, but definitely not least, I’ve chosen this pair of pretty Grape Dangle Earrings by Sew Amore.  I chose these earrings not just because they’re pretty (I think the colours go together so nicely!), but also for another reason.  You’ll notice the listing price on Etsy for these earrings is only $0.20.  You read it right, I haven’t made a typo!  The reason?  These are “Pay it Forward” earrings.

As described by Sew Amore:
“Do your part in making the world a better place by doing a random act of kindness and receive a pair of earrings for only the price of shipping and the listing fee!”

So basically, the idea is to buy the earrings, and then pay it forward by doing something nice for someone else.  With all that’s going on in the world right now it shouldn’t be difficult to think of a random act of kindness!  What better way to start the new year?

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s Friday Favourites!  Don’t forget to stop by the stores and see all the other lovely products these sellers have.  Also, my facebook fan special of a keepsake box and pendant for $50 is ending on Sunday, so get in soon if you’re interested!

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Those who know me know that I have an interest in science.  I believe it’s the most under-taught subject in the primary school curriculum, and I think that’s because a lot of people (and teachers) either don’t understand it and therefore are not confident teaching it, or they simply think it’s boring.

One of my favourite things to do is paint science-inspired art.  I think if people can see that science is interesting and beautiful, it’s got to be a step in the right direction.

With that in mind, I painted this yesterday:

Painted on two sheets of watercolour paper (each one measures 25cm x 35cm), it is inspired by the planets of our solar system.  Poor Pluto isn’t included because it’s no longer a planet.

I really enjoyed painting this – it reminded me of looking through my neighbour’s telescope when I was a kid and seeing jupiter for the first time.

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My latest painting:

For my international readers, the wattle is Australia’s national floral emblem.

I have always loved wattle – I used to collect bunches of it when I was a kid even though it made my hayfever worse than pretty much any other flower.  I didn’t care, because it’s so pretty!

This original watercolour measures 7″ x 9″, and is available for purchase.  Contact me if you’re interested 🙂

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I’m lucky enough to be on holidays – so what have I been doing with my time?

I finished off a commissioned painting, and delivered it to my happy customer:

Now that one’s done, I’ve started working on another commission, this one for a friend:

This is just one panel of a triptych.  I’m looking forward to seeing the finished painting on her wall!  Also a big thank you to my wonderful husband for the new easel it’s sitting on, which I got for Christmas.

Finally, I’ve also been working on some new pendants – these ones are squares and rectangles:

I’m offering a discount to my facebook fans this week – buy a keepsake box and a pendant in your choice of design for $50.  Become a fan of KL Bailey Art on facebook for more details!

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