Kaia Thomas - A path with ART

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...

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...

 "Joy" 20" x 20" acrylic on canvas includes custom frame This painting has a lot of meaning for me. A year and half ago, my brother was in a bad car accident - it was serious and he is lucky to be alive. He suffered TBI (traumatic brain injury) and was in ICU for 2 weeks and rehab for 2 more. We remained with him the entire time and we had an amazing outpouring of energy from friends and family that I believe really floated us through the experience.  Today he is miraculously fine - the changes in his personality were minor, considering all the horror stories the doctors told us, and his fractured neck healed with no problems. At the time this accident happened, I had just started this painting and it took me many months to find the energy to return to it but when I did, a lot of my feelings of joy and being so blessed that this life changing experience had a happy ending. The experience really opened my eyes and heart and this inevitably influenced the pai...

"Cosmic Flower" 15" x 15" acrylic on board available here Just finished two new mandala paintings to add to the show at the "Art with Heart" gallery in Tempe. Although these kind of paintings always manage to have a mind of their own and I find myself going along for the ride, I am happy with how they turned out. "Interwoven" 5" x 7" acrylic on canvas available here

So I finally completed them! These are entirely hand crafted - made from gessoed hardboard, painted with acrylics.  Sprayed with FOUR coats of polyurethane, and a cork bottom.    They are currently for sale in my Etsy Shop

I got an idea to do hand painted mandala coasters yesterday...   The first one!

Here is the latest creation...                                    "Prime"                    12" x 12" acrylic on hardboard                   custom made floater style frame I named it "Prime" because after designing it, in the attempt to find an evenly divided pattern became tricky when I discovered the math of the design was a prime number. Don't ask how I got it evenly divided because I won't be able to tell you...I winged it and got lucky! This is now available in my Etsy shop .

 The word "Mandala" comes from the Sanskrit language meaning (roughly) "circle"...the way I often define it is "sacred circle".   "Direction" 12" x 12" acrylic on board   Painting a Mandala is like an exercise in taking one to their "sacred" space, both the one painting it and the observer... "Joy" 20" x 20" acrylic on canvas framed purchase here  When we see what is happening in science, the deeper we go, the more these kind of incredible patterns emerge.  Take fractal geometry for example... "Spectacle" 12" x 16" acrylic on board available as matted print purchase here I am so happy to have found Mandalas - I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I enjoyed painting them:) "The Flower of Life" 8" x 8" acrylic on board You can find these paintings in my Etsy shop !   

About a month ago I decided to give Etsy a try .  For those of you unfamiliar with Etsy , it's an online site dedicated for buying and selling anything handmade. I put together a shop that currently has my gourds and some mandala paintings for sale.  Etsy is amazing really; I have fallen in love with it and the products available are so unique - Clothing, jewelry, all kinds of art, beauty products and so much more. Well, after a month of putting a lot of energy into the shop and beginning to wonder if it was worth all the effort, I had my first sale! I was so excited! Whether you are a buyer or seller, I highly recommend Etsy.  This is the gourd that sold "Echoes of the Past"