Kaia Thomas - A path with ART

I remember a few years back someone asking me what my Chinese Zodiac sign was. I had no clue. I could remember those silly place mats at the Chinese restaurant with all the zodiac animals on it but I never paid any attention to it. However, after being asked this, I did eventually google it one night and to my surprise, found a fascinating world to explore. I learned I was a Rat - the first sign of the zodiac and I discovered, after looking up different friends and family members, that it was amazingly accurate! Wikipedia's chart has some good basic info on your sign, if you want to find out for yourself. So, this Chinese New Year, which begins February 3rd, is the year of the metal Rabbit. I have read a lot on the forecast of this upcoming year. It appears that traditionally, the Year of the Rabbit is known to be a calm period, a time for home and family, creative pursuits, creature comforts, that sort of thing. The Rabbit is the luckiest of the signs, so it is expected t...

Ok, so who the heck hit the fast forward button on 2010?? Or the past few years for that matter... I am finding it harder and harder to complete everything in a day - simple things even. This has been the case and getting worse for some time. I think the area of my life that has been hardest hit is in the creation of artwork. This constant feeling of having to race to get stuff done causes a great fatigue which is not conducive to inspiration at all! The creative expression process turns into any other job, which in my book is no good. There are many discussions out there on the subject of time speeding up - a lot of them are related to 2012. The latest doom date to look forward to:) Or enlightening date to look forward to, depending on who you talk to. How I look at it, date or no date, what needs to be done in our lives is still the same. We all have this rather short opportunity here on this planet to experience life, find joy, learn what it means to be this human being and so on....

So I received a special order for a gourd birdhouse before the holidays - it was intended to be a Christmas gift. It was one of three birdhouse commissions I received at the same time! They are a lot of fun to make and I continue to expand the creative possibilities with each one!  This one was actually inspired by a new found love - Moroccan folk art! I love discovering new cultural designs and I'm amazed that I had not stumbled upon their art before. Here I have a step by step look at the making of the birdhouse - although I was told I should call them birdpalaces:) Here was the start - cleaned and holes drilled ready for painting.... I did a quick sketch to work out the general idea...the actual design changed along the way. Drawing in the front design... Front design painted! Drawing in the rest of the design... Body design nearly completed... Ta da!! We have a birdhouse! As my friend said " That's one lucky bird." :)) Hope you enj...

Hello Everyone! It has been a while since my last post but I have exciting news! I am now offering 20% off all items in my Etsy shop and giclee prints, as well as greeting cards on Fine Art America! For the Etsy coupon, I am offering exclusively to my Facebook fans, so simply LIKE my page and let me know you're interested and I will send you the coupon code. Here's a gourd currently available in the Etsy shop ...   "Earth Song" Available on Etsy The Fine Art America coupon code is open to everyone and the code is...   ATCXXK During checkout there will be a place for you to enter the code. Here is a digital painting available for print or greeting card...

 "Deer 1" 3' x 2' oil on gessoed hardboard in the collection of Richard Chapman So I finally completed the first half of a commission started several months ago. As life goes, many events limited the time I had to paint, so it is a slow going commission. However, a very exciting first half! I have been doing workshops, book reading and practicing new techniques in the past year and half and really worked to incorporate all that I have learned along the way into this painting. I did document it's progress and thought it would be fun to share it! First thing I did was a 9" x 12" study of the basic concept of the painting... When it came to the 3' x 2' panel, I decided to do the grid method to lay in my drawing. Starting from back to front, I did an underpainting of the trees... My palette:)... Starting to lay in the darkest darks... Background complete! Now for the deer...oops I forgot to take pictures during the deer. Oh well, the...

Well, this year is just screaming by and now we are approaching the gift season! The commissions are coming in and it's time to focus! I thought this a good time to share the gourd birdhouse I did on request a few months ago which lead me to the current commissions - birdhouse was a hit!! Makes me happy because they are really fun to do. This was my first experience doing one and of course there is always a learning curve. A few things I would do differently on the next ones but overall it was a successful first try.

So much has happened since the last time I posted a blog. Life just got too busy for cyberspace:) Many adventures to tell! I will try to play catch-up here and start with what happened in September... I attended the annual Bisbee Plein Air Competition the second weekend of September. This was my second year with a whole lot of learning under my belt since my first attempt. I had only been doing plein air painting for about a month when I participated last year. Needless to say I felt awkward and my paintings didn't go so well.  This year, however, was a very different story. First off, I had some confidence in what I was doing - helps for sure. Second, I had a very good painting session - you never know! Sometimes it just doesn't click but this was a definite YES! At the final festivities there is a silent auction with a chance to sell your work and a reward ceremony (first place $500). I was in total shock when both the paintings I entered sold in auction! Really! This was...