so hard to get into a flow

here in NY we've been hit hard with storm after storm.  we've had 7 storms in as many weeks. the kids have been home, the dogs come in and out of the house and since my studio is in my home, it's been hard to get a flow of work going. 
i did manage to get a submission ready.  the theme is shakespeare's women and i've had so much fun getting these pieces ready.  keep your fingers crossed at least one will get in the show.

viola

queen elizabeth i

cleopatra

shakespeare's women

this week i'm working on some ideas for a submission. the theme of the show is shakespeare's women. i love this theme. so much fun to work with and so hard to pick!  there's cleopatra, juliet, viola, lady macbeth, katherine, ophelia, desdemona...i started off with cleopatra.  i made a study of her and struggled with the skin tones. the colors kept getting muddy and i was getting frustrated, but finally, i got it!

only to be informed by my history buff daughter...cleopatra was NOT egyptian!!!!!  (she was macedonian)
back to the old drawing board!

so my next study is this one. i'm liking her. she needs a few adjustments (smaller eyes, not so doe-eyed, thinner lips, better hair), but like i said this is a study. the final piece will be done in my usual style, woodburned and then painted, stamped, printed, colored etc.

CAN YOU GUESS WHO SHE IS???

and the sketchbook challenge begins....

i am participating in the sketchbook challenge just for fun!  i'm excited to see what other artists come up with for pages given the same theme.  the theme for january is 'highly prized'.  of course, my family is highly prized, so are my dogs and art supplies, but when i REALLY thought about it and dug deeper, i came up with WORDS as being highly prized to me.

text reads: where would we be without words? from our young days we are encouraged to talk, then read, then write and as soon as we think we have our native tongue mastered, a foreign language is tossed in to the mix...words can provide comfort, strength, love, hurt, warmth, humor, fun and most of all they bring knowledge.

i'm published!

Back in june i showed you this tease: http://kathleen-nesi.blogspot.com/2010/06/trade-magazine-submission.html

It was a long journey, but it has happened!  i'm published!  find my piece, 'remembering our military' in the jan/feb 2011 issue of somerset studio.

jan/feb 2011 issue

page 115





true colors of the piece



folk art inspiration

I haven't done any kind of folk art/primitive painting since the mid 80's.  Back then, I did a lot of tole painting and created work in the "country" style.  recently, I took a class with Laurie Meseroll and learned how to create her Mudcakes style paintings. Using her techniques and my love for birds I created this little guy and titled it "unruffled". It contains vintage sheet music, scrapbook paper, fabric, acrylics and mica flakes on a 12"x16" gallery canvas.   

I'll be donating this to the local library fundraiser. thanks Laurie!


unruffled



detail of unruffled





poppies

another poppy painting.  this one is woodburned on 12"x24" birch plywood and then layered with lots of fun textural goodies...tissue paper, acrylics, printing, stamping, fluid acrylics, stencils, colored pencil and gold flakes and finally beads in the centers of the flowers.  this may be offered as a future class, for now...enjoy!



winter...it's a wonderland

i'm entering another show. the deadline is this week. this is the piece i made.  the theme is winter wonderland. as i sat thinking about what winter meant to me...the feeling, traditions, the magic and beauty...i kept going back to an earlier piece i did in a journal.  i made it a full size work.  i love my snow tree.  it incorporates the feeling of winter to me with graphics.  do you know the feeling of snow as it lays heavy on a tree?  When everything is covered in white. after a really big snow, when everything is still, silent and quiet?  i love that!  it isn't until the sun comes out that the world awakens from a large snowfall...

...this captures the very beginning of that moment!