Kaia Thomas - A path with ART

"Old Practice" 6x12 in. oil painting, one of three pieces that was accepted and sold at the  Albuquerque Museum Miniatures and More Exhibition Fundraiser in November 2014 So, I came to realize that it had been 5 months since I wrote a blog post! It is shocking how time is flying by these days. It just so happens that those past 5 months contained some very post-worthy events that I am going to do my best to recap and get us up to date here. I was deeply honored and thrilled when I received the acceptance notice that I was juried into the 2014 Miniatures and More Exhibition fundraiser at the Albuquerque Museum of Art. I may have unleashed some squeals of excitement upon finding out. The show started at the end of October and ran through November. I entered three pastoral/landscape pieces and only two returned home...  the above painting had sold during the show! Also in November was the Heather Green Studio's Annual Anniversary Show. The theme was flower...

It has been a very long time since I have posted on my blog - too long. Everything has changed on here and I am having to relearn stuff... The reason it has been so long is blamed on two facebook pages, twitter, blogger, linkedin, etsy, flickr, behance and of course my personal website. I pretty much drove myself crazy and quit everything! The good part about it was is it gave me time to be creative and actually paint some paintings- imagine that! One of the paintings that came from this is " Utpala Spring " a 20" x 24" colorful and vibrant mandala with a few new added techniques. I haven't been able to get a photo to do it justice yet. However, as you can see from the above photo,  it's "kitty approved" so there ya go:)) lol... I named it "Utpala" because of the blue lotus flowers that emerged in this piece. Utpala is the Sanskrit word for lotus or blue lotus, it has several other beautiful meanings as well, so it seemed t...

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 ...

"Source of Joy" 2.5" x 3.5" Original watercolor,acrylic,pen and ink ACEO I have discovered, the last few days, how much I enjoy watercolors. I so often grab for the acrylics before I do watercolor but I had an inspiration to use them together on "Source of Joy"(above). I enjoyed how this piece turned out so I used the same design concept and created "Blue Butterfly" which is available in my Etsy Shop "Blue Butterfly" 2.5 x 3.5" Original watercolor and acrylic ACEO Click Here!

 " Butterfly Dreams" 6" x 6" acrylic on hardboard $50.00 available in my Etsy Shop Click Here Here is the latest completion. I have always felt a deep connection with Australian Aboriginal art and having a love for painting eye crossing detail, it's no wonder!:) On this piece, I was looking to meld the mandala art with a twist of Aboriginal. It didn't go at all as planned but I am pleased with the results. I think I want to try larger scale with this style.

The latest creation...another handmade coaster, painted with thoughts of spring. I live in Southeast Arizona and I am still bundling up in my jacket. I am normally in shorts by now!  So I paint the pretty spring colored butterfly in honor of spring that I am so looking forward to! For sale on Etsy

"Transformation" 11" x 9" acrylic on canvas paper Another colorful acrylic attempt. I didn't have anything in mind when I started this one. I just started drawing a face and away it went. Those are my favorite kind of painting experiences, when there is no direction just the flow of creative energy. No pressures to make it look a certain way. It's actually a challenging thing to do because one often does have something in mind and it is so rare to have it turn out the way one visualized it. I named this one "Transformation" after the butterfly happened on the forehead. To me the painting spoke to me of someone having that moment of realization and then the change that comes out of that realization.