Kaia Thomas - A path with ART

Free Rangin' 20" x 16" oil on canvas framed $650.00   Available Here! This was such a fun painting to do and definitely a different choice of subject for me. Never thought I would be painting cows but this particular circumstance came from a great photo shoot that landed me some wonderful reference photos to work from. I really loved the playfulness of this cow and worked to express that part. This painting is available in my Etsy shop . It is framed with a rustic style, handmade, mesquite frame that suits the mood of the painting well. Here are some evolution shots for those who enjoy watching a painting in progress...

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 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

   I decided to document this latest still life painting from beginning to end. I was trying out this newly discovered style - a much looser, "get the paint on there", kind of style.       F or much of my artistic life, you probably could of called me a "Miss Meticulous" type of painter. I loved to spend hours on one spot and often leaned towards painting fine detail type stuff (cultural designs, mandalas). There has been a shift in me lately where I have learned to let go and just paint! I truly believe that this has been my missing link, mainly with my oil painting.    T his past workshop that I took is where I discovered this new style and ever since then, my painting style has become looser and more expressive. So, here we go...    I n the beginning I chose not to draw out my idea first, I usually would use charcoal or pencil or even a sketch with paint - this was about a three minute, throw some "thin"paint on there, ...

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...