The inspiration for this painting was a posy of wildflowers, picked in the spring and beginning to dry and wilt as spring moves in to summer. Painted in shimmery gold paint, this painting is prettier in person than it is on the screen!
You can purchase this original painting from my Etsy store. Prints and other products like the ones below can be found at Redbubble.
I called this painting ‘contemplation’ because this style of painting is very meditative to me. I never know what the finished painting is going to be like when I begin – I just go with the flow, and see where the paint takes me. I love this combination of colours!
You can purchase this original painting in my Etsy store. Prints and other products like the ones featured below are available on Redbubble.
You can purchase these original paintings from my Etsy store. You can find prints and other products like the ones below on Redbubble.
This week’s prompt over at Illustration Friday is ‘Hair’. This is the perfect opportunity to show you two of my newest paintings! Both of these paintings include figures with long, flowing hair – at least, that’s what I see!
As I explained on a previous blog post, I’ve been experimenting with a new abstract painting technique. I start with an image that is purely abstract – I work wet-on-wet on the paper, use lots of paint and water and allow the paint to ‘flow’ in the direction it wants to go (sometimes I help it along). I add textural elements such as gauze, and then I allow the first layer to dry. After it has dried, I start adding more layers, and then an image begins to form – almost like a Rorschach test! As the image begins to form, I help it along by adding in details with a fine brush. In the end, I find the painting isn’t so abstract anymore.
In this first painting, I saw a female figure, floating on her back in the water. I imagined her as some kind of sea goddess, and gave her long, flowing hair. My 3-year-old son still says it looks like a jellyfish though, and points out the ‘tentacles’! I like that about abstract art – people can see in it what they want to. We all bring something of ourselves to the art we view.
In the second image, I also saw figures in the water. This time, I saw two figures and imagined them having tails – so they became mermaids. I added some scales, and like the sea goddess, long flowing hair.
What do you see in the images? Do you see the figures that I see? Do you see a jellyfish like my son does, or do you see something else?
The original paintings Sea Goddess and Drifting Together are available for purchase in my Etsy store. Prints and other products including clothing and accessories are available at Redbubble and Society6. Interested in receiving a little bit of art in your mailbox every month? Become a supporter of KL Bailey Art on Patreon!
Many people are looking for interesting art for their walls to represent their families. I myself have grand plans for a family feature wall in our next house.
I can create a work of art for you that represents your family in a unique way. In my family tree portraits, I represent the family using a number of my signature swirly trees.
In the portrait, I represent each parent in a different primary colour. I then represent the children as a secondary colour that is a blend of the two parents’ colours, to represent that the children are a blending of the two parents. I also use hearts to represent the love the family shares. I can do any variation on this theme you like, including creating a portrait for blended families with stepchildren. It is a great way to have an artwork on your wall that uniquely represents your family. These paintings can be created as anything from small watercolours on paper to large acrylic paintings on canvas.
Another way your family can be uniquely represented on your wall is in a painting like this:
In this painting, only a couple are represented – however, smaller birds could be added to represent children. Once again, a painting like this can be commissioned as anything from a small watercolour to a large canvas. I have plans to create a painting like this for my own family – but I think I might make the background more like this one:
If you’d like to commission a painting that represents your family in a unique way, please contact me!
I love painting in watercolours – it’s definitely my favourite medium. My watercolours are a bit unusual compared to many I’ve seen, as many of them are abstract or naive in style. I love making abstract watercolours because it gives me a chance to let the paint have a ‘mind of its own’.
Many of my favourite abstract watercolours are inspired by science, like my ‘Moons of Jupiter’ series:
Some more ‘space’ inspired works:
From the very big to the very small – some of my other abstract watercolours are inspired by microscopic images:
But I think my favourite overall is this one – it’s only a tiny painting, but it has a lot of detail:
So I haven’t posted here in a while, for a lot of reasons – I haven’t had much time for creating since I had my kids, and I’ve had even less time for the more tedious aspect to having an art business: promotion. I’ve completed a few paintings since I last posted, but just didn’t get around to putting them up here. I’m also hoping for a long-overdue overhaul of this website, but I’ve decided not to wait until that’s done before I start getting organised again.
My latest painting is called DFTBA, and I think it’s very fitting that this is the beginning of my creative revival. I hope you like it!
This week’s topic over at Illustration Friday is Immovable. The first idea that came to me was stone – but then I got to thinking that even stone isn’t really immovable. Sure, it might take a long time but even stone is worn away by weathering and water. So that was my inspiration for this painting – stone being worn down by water:
Please forgive the horrible photo – I took it at night without flash so it’s pretty grainy. I’ll try to upload a better version when I get time to take a good daylight photo – but that probably won’t be till the weekend and I didn’t want to miss out on Illustration Friday!
One of my favourite books of all time is First Light by Richard Preston, which is about the Hale Telescope (and is a fascinating read for anyone interested in astronomy). One of the passages that stuck with me was this:
“There is a saying among those who polish astronomical mirrors for a living that an optician never finishes a mirror – you take it away from him.”
I think that pretty much sums up how a painting like this is for me – I can’t guarantee the picture above is the final version because every time I walk past it I think about adding another brush stroke here or there, another layer or another detail.
I managed to remember to take pictures as I went for this one – here’s how it looked as it progressed:
What do you think?
At first I wasn’t sure I was even going to contribute to this week’s Inspire Me Thursday. I thought about making homemade soup and photographing it, but it’s the middle of summer here and I just don’t feel like eating soup.
Eventually I came up with this idea:
“Primordial Soup”
The original plan was to do a background and then paint over with black to make amoeba-looking shapes. But I liked the background so much that I thought I would just keep it the way it is. You can imagine the microscopic amoebas floating around in that water.
This week’s topic over at Inspire Me Thursday is “Fuse”.
I deviated totally from what I was originally planning to do for this topic, but I guess that’s how it goes sometimes with art. Here’s what I came up with – “Cold Fusion”:
