Kaia Thomas - A path with ART

Shown here left to right: Kaia Thomas, Don Dean, Clement Scott, Lili Laurin, Cynthia Rosen and Glenn Renell.  Not shown: Harry & Linda Stacy, Susan Akridge and Sarah Thomson. Back in February I created a Facebook group called the Cochise County Plein Air Painters. My intention was to provide artists and art lovers in our area, along with artists who enjoy painting and exploring in our area, a place to come together and share art, photos, paint out opportunities, pretty much anything related to our beautiful Cochise County and painting outdoors. After inviting those who I thought would appreciate the group, it quickly sprang to life with enthusiasm - paintings and photos of loved locations were shared, and an interest in Portal, Arizona arose. In a very short amount of time a paint out had been planned and reservations were made for the first weekend of April to paint in Portal!   Located on the extreme eastern edge of Cochise County, onl...

The year of 2016 has been nothing but amazing thus far, beginning with winning a Best in Show, a Best in Landscape, a People's Choice and a Judge's Choice award! There were many adventures and events attended as well, including the Plein Air Convention and Expo held in Tucson, Arizona in April, the Bisbee Plein Air Festival in May, also in May I held my first ever plein air workshop with 10 students, and most recently I was super excited to participate in the Maynard Dixon Camp Out as a guest artist in Mount Carmel, Utah! What an amazing experience getting to see the grounds and studio of Maynard Dixon, not to mention meeting great artists! The landscape is of course gorgeous there in southern Utah and I got a lot of painting time in as well. This path with art continues to grow and expand and I am truly grateful for all of the support and encouragement along the way. I am fortunate to have met some amazing people that have helped me realize this dream of being a full tim...

"Blackstone Sunflowers" 10" x 8" oil on canvas panel Contact me for pricing and availability During a recent trip to one of my favorite places on Earth - The Blackstone Hotsprings Hotel , I was struck by grounds keeper Dorthy's amazing sunflowers that were growing there. Having brought my painting gear along, I set up and produced this plein air piece. I am always deeply inspired whenever I stay there!

Sometimes I find I take for granted places I see day after day, like my driveway, and skip over potential paintings because of this. So...I set up my easel in the driveway, and in no time at all, was inspired to paint. My focus landed on the shadows cast by the Salt Pine tree.  "Driveway Shadows" 6" x 6" oil on canvas panel 

"Afternoon At The Amerind"                             6" x 8" oil on canvas panel Contact me for pricing and availability My friend Clement Scott and I had a recent plein air adventure near the Amerind Foundation in Dragoon, Arizona.    It is an area full of history, and about a million paintings waiting to happen! We had a blast, and this painting is the result of that day.   If ever in this neck of the woods, a visit to the Amerind Foundation is a definite must! Well worth it.

So I finally put together a Plein Air Paintings section in my Etsy shop and now have some available pieces! I will continue to add work but for now this is what's available... "Rustic Barn" 9" x 12" oil on linen board $150.00   purchase here "San Jose de Gracia" 12" x 9" oil on linen board  $150.00 purchase here "Morning Light" 9" x 12" oil on linen board $150.00 purchase here

So I have just returned from a week in Taos, New Mexico where I attended a workshop with artist J. Chris Morel.  The weather stayed perfect for us even though the weather report had us concerned. It stayed absolutely beautiful the whole time! This was my second time taking Chris's workshop and I got even more out of it this time around. His workshop is so much fun! We got to paint at some great locations like the San Jose de Gracia church... and here is my painting from that location...  9" x 12" oil We spent all of the second day at a beautiful ranch outside Llano de San Juan that belonged to a friend of Chris's. We painted amongst horses, goats, sheep, dogs, cats and there were several old inspiring structures as well which I chose to focus on... here is my painting that came from that experience... 9" x 12" oil The last day of painting was hard. By this time everyone is reaching their exhaustion point. I wasn't very happy with what I pai...

So I finally found some time to dust off the plein air equipment and get out to paint! It's actually been so long that I am embarrassed to say. The kick in the butt is my upcoming workshop with Chris Morel and not wanting to show up to paint too rusty. As usual, it was an adventure...it was a pleasant, first cool day in 3 months and all seemed to be going well...We went to a favorite spot of mine that I've known about for many years and it's just loaded with magical beauty. Unfortunately it's also a favorite spot shooters...I was about an hour and half into my painting when the gun shots started. The shots would make me jump and added some unwanted brush strokes to my painting. I tried to endure but soon became very uneasy about ricochet bullets. So I had to put an end to the painting... We went to another area away from the flying bullets but by then the day was nearly spent... So I spent the rest of my time taking photos of the beauty... All in ...

I realize it has been way too long since my last post. Life has gone and got crazy busy again...busy is getting to be a more frequent occurrence these days and time is beginning to be a precious commodity... I recently completed two mandalas - "Renewel" is an 8" x 10" acrylic painting (shown above) and "Vibrancy" is a miniature 2.5" x 3.5" ACEO acrylic painting (see below) and both are available for purchase in my Etsy shop .  These were painted in a different way then I usually do. I disciplined myself to only two colors (minus the black) and after laying out the mandala drawing, what I would normally do is find particular patterns that I wished to emphasize with certain colors and sometimes painting over lines in the process. With these mandalas, I tried something different, where I kept every line and painting with the rule - no one color could touch itself...so it was like - purple, green, purple, green, that sort of thing. I found...

Every morning while watering the sunflowers, I find myself getting captured by the backlit glow of the petals. I finally had enough brains to bring my watercolor sketch stuff with me this morning and gave an attempt at capturing it. I also tried to capture this lighting with the camera to save for reference and although the pictures are nice, they don't quite capture that glow... "en plein air" it is!!