Kirsten Bailey: Art

I recently started work on a new canvas piece.  I was hoping it would be ready for last week’s Handmade Expo, but the details are taking a while to do!

Here’s what it looks like so far:

Eventually it will be a painting of three of my swirly trees in Autumn colours.  Usually I do this style of painting on a small scale in watercolours, but this one is a larger canvas painting (20″ x 24″).

You can see I’ve started the swirls on the left hand side tree – eventually all the trees will be covered in swirls.  I’m also using a textured gold glass paint on this painting.  I will add the trunks and branches of the trees last.

I haven’t thought of a title for this painting yet – any ideas?

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Here’s my submission for this week’s Illustration Friday topic, ‘Atmosphere’.  For once I’ve taken the topic very literally, and I’ve painted a picture of the Earth’s atmosphere:

The weekend just past was super-busy for me.  I had a stall at The Handmade Expo, which was great fun as always.  We had a great turn out this month with people out and about voting.  A big thank you to all those who stopped by my little stall!  After the Expo we visited family and then the next day attended a birthday party.

With a weekend like that, I was very pleased to be able to get a few evenings to myself to get some painting done!  Of course, sleep is overrated

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I was delighted to discover that this week’s challenge over at Illustration Friday is “Star Gazing”.   I was recently requested to paint something similar to my “When it is Dark Enough” painting, and was part way through it when I found out about this topic.

Here’s the finished product – I’ve titled it “The Stargazers”:

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I think you’d be hard pressed these days to find someone whose life hasn’t been touched by cancer.  I myself have lost family members to cancer, which is one of the reasons why I’m honoured to be participating in a ‘Crop for Cancer’ scrapbooking day next Sunday.

I’m able to combine my love of art with my love of scrapbooking to help raise money for the Cancer Council, in the name of a dearly departed ‘Scrappin’ Sister’ who lost her battle with cancer more than a year ago.  Last year’s charity scrapbooking day raised $1093, and we’d like to top that this year.

To that end, I’m delighted to donate a painting which will be raffled off on the day.  I’ve titled it Field of Hope, and included the daffodils which are the symbol of the Cancer Council.  It’s my representation of hope for a cure.

Field of Hope

If you would like to make a donation to the Cancer Council, you can do so via their website.

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One of the many things I love about creating art is the opportunity it provides me to support more charities. You may remember earlier this year I donated a painting to the Young Variety’s ‘Heart Art Show’.

This year I’ve also been given the opportunity to participate in the Cerebral Palsy League‘s ‘Art for Art’s Sake’ exhibition.  The Cerebral Palsy League is the largest non-government disability services provider for people with a physical disability in Queensland.  Having taught a student with Cerebral Palsy I’ve seen first hand the necessity of an organisation like this, and so I’m very happy to be able to support them.

This year’s exhibition theme is ‘The Joy of Living’, and I am donating the following painting, titled Sunset Joy:

The painting will be auctioned at the Gala Opening and Cocktail Reception on Wednesday 12 May 2010 from 6:30pm, at Waterfront Place, Eagle St, Brisbane.  For more details, please see the Art for Art’s Sake website.

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This week’s topic over at Illustration Friday is “linked“.  Here’s what I came up with:

It’s titled Entwined.

I really enjoyed creating this one, and I’m happy with how it’s turned out… but painting the way I do can be quite messy:

I’m so glad watercolours wash off easily!

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I recently wrote about participating in this month’s colour challenge at Two Happy Stampers, which involves creating something using the following colours:

I wanted to have another go at creating a painting using these colours, and this is what I came up with:

It reminds me of the shrubs they have around my school which drop white flowers in a carpet all over the ground.  The branch of the tree is actually painted in navy watercolour paint although it looks pretty close to black.

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I love holidays!  I get so much painting done

Here’s what I’ve been working on:

“Sunset Joy”

I’m hoping to donate this painting to the Cerebal Palsy League’s ‘Art for Arts Sake‘ charity auction next month (it has to be accepted first so fingers crossed!)

“Evening Song”

This one is going to be sent to someone special

I’ve also been working on some new canvas works – I’ll post details here soon.  I hope everyone had a lovely Easter long weekend!

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Well, sort of.  You may remember I donated one of my paintings, a watercolour entitled “Reach” to the Young Variety Heart Art Show.  While I wasn’t able to attend on the night, I was pleased to be able to support the charity with my donation.

Yesterday, a friend of mine mentioned she had seen a painting that looked very much like one of mine in the free newspaper given out on trains, MX.  She gave me a copy, and Lo and Behold, it was my painting:

I’m not mentioned by name, but that is definitely my painting “Reach”.  Even though it’s only a free newspaper, I was thrilled to see my painting there!  I’m also really happy that my style is distinctive enough for someone to be able to tell it’s one of my paintings even though my name isn’t on it.

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