Palette of the Day. My most-used tool. I think palettes are beautiful. This one represents animal fur and animal noses. :)
Is this a beautiful place or what? It used to be the railroad station in Nashville and has been restored (to the tune of $14 million) and is now a hotel. It was a delight wandering around and enjoying the architecture. I grew up riding trains and have spent a lot of time in stations, many of them just beautiful.
I finally plopped down on a comfy couch to soak up the atmosphere and do a little sketch, as shown below. Did you know... statistics have proven that if you stop to make a sketch you remember more than if you snap a photo? I didn’t need statistics to know that!
When I travel, I’ll prep some pages in my little sketchpad with paint. All the paint on this page was applied BEFORE I had any idea what I was going to draw. When I want to draw something, I just scroll through my sketchpad and find the painted pages that seem to fit the mood. :). Sometimes I’ll paint further but not often. As for this one, I like it the way it is.
What a place. Although I’ve never been in this particular station, it brought back a lot of memories. ❤️
Start now and get a jump on Christmas so you can enjoy the season. I love this pretty painting!
To me the colors seem rich and modern. My little friend likes it too.
The lily pops out at me and glows in its iridescents and silvers. The way the colors flow around each other pulls my eyes around the painting as I follow the ways the paints move and blend together. Such a beauty!
This is an acrylic pour over 8”x8” cradled birch. I used the highest quality archival paints which will not fade with time. That and the sturdy frame will make it an heirloom! Wired and ready to hang. Signed on the side.
The website is:
www.colorcatstudios101.etsy.com and there you can find many more pictures of this painting along with lots of information including the price, which is a MERE $60.00! Check me out!Honestly, I think this might be my favorite one of all my pourings. The golds and reds have melded together so perfectly and the teals and blues compliment them so well that it’s a joy to follow the movement.
Oh my goodness, just look at this thing!
It’s 12x12” on cradled birch, heirloom quality paints for only $120.00. https://etsy.me/2UmAwyH. I wish somehow I could capture the beauty of this thing with a photograph, but alas, it is not to be. Just know that it is ever so much more beautiful in person. Signed on the side. The birch box is about 1” thick, and I let the paint pour over the sides to continue the art.
Glorious!! You can find lots more pics on my website,
These are my two octopus paintings, the first one with toes for scale. :) They’re both 24”x30” and gorgeous with rich, glowing colors! I call this first one Octopus Walking and it’s for sale. The second one I named Maestro and is sold.
Did you know I use the highest quality archival paints that resist fading? They’re painted on gallery-wrapped heavy, deep frames and coated with a UV protectant varnish. These babies are not just going to last, but will become heirlooms. When you purchase art, you need to ask this kind of question - ‘What kind of paint do you use? Is it fade-resistant? Is there acid in the canvas or any of the supplies you use? Have you protected it?’ Most of the work I see sold in stores is made to last for a very short time before it fades to nothing or simply falls apart. And many artists - sorry, people! - use below-average materials which look good for the moment but will not last.
Find my work on
colorcatstudios101.etsy.com.
colorcatstudios101.etsy.com
Commission work today; therefore all you get to see is my palette. HOWEVER, once I get to these tiny brushes it means I’m almost done with it! :) love!! One wonderful thing about spring break is that I have more time to paint, and that’s always good!
My business, Color Cat Studios, is two-fold. It often feels like multitudinous-fold. One side is my paintings. I both sell my finished ones and take commissions for what others want me to paint. When people ask me to paint something, the first thing I ask them to do is look at my art and see if they like it, and choose particular works so I know what style they desire. If they don’t like my style I send them elsewhere.
Another side of my business is teaching art. Oh my GOODNESS I LOVE kids! I teach formal classes to kids ages 9-21 and we both love and inspire each other. I’ll also teach adults at art conventions, art gatherings, speak at business gatherings, etc. I absolutely ADORE painting for theater; it’s about the only time I get to paint as big as I want.
Now we come to spring break - whew! I’m really excited and relieved to have a break. It’s time to refresh myself. One way I do this is by working on abstracts. I love this one, done with good old Brusho pigments. These pigments are ... well, pure pigment with no vehicle. I really love these and use them often. Anyway, HAPPY SPRING BREAK!!!
I bet you didn’t know that today is TINY BRUSH DAY! What that means is I’m almost done with another painting! :). It’s a commission so I can’t show you yet, but it’s coming! Yay! I love the sense of accomplishment when a painting is finished.
I painted these two octopus paintings several months apart. For one I wanted to focus on lines and for the other I focused on texture. I was surprised when I set them next to each other that they looked like they had been painted together and look as if they’re joining... well, not hands, but maybe like each one’s arms are extending beyond himself over to the other. They truly are a pair! One thing that unites them is my treatment of color; I used the same colors and laid them down in thin glazes so you could see through each layer of color like stained glass.
The borders I put above and below (to make a square for Instagram!) are super closeups. Each piece is 24x30” and they’re on my website to be sold separately unless some lucky person decides to purchase them together. LOVE these!
You can find them at
colorcatstudios101.etsy.comHere’s another tiny section of my new mystery painting. Can you tell what it is yet? My concentration for this piece was texture and color. The plan was to lay down textures before anything else, and then I thinly glazed colors, one on top of the other so it would be as luminous as stained glass. I am a colorful girl after all! The big reveal will be tonight at 7:00. To help you guess what it is, this painting is the mate to another, which you will already find on my website
colorcatstudios101.etsy.com
Here’s a super-closeup of a new painting I’ve got up my sleeve. Since it’s 24x30”, I guess that means I’ve got a big sleeve, huh? Can you guess what it is? This painting is a friend of another I recently painted as they both have the same subject; but that one was based on a linear concept with a strong emphasis on drawing and lines. For this one I first laid down a heavy layer of textures and words to be the base for the painting itself. My goal was to layer the colors in very transparent glazes so you could see how the glazing reacted with the textures and so you enjoy how the colors interact with each other, changing and mixing as they’re either layered or not layered. Goodness, this painting is as complex as expensive, aged wine! You’ll get the big reveal SOON! Hope you like the little sneak peek!
Okay, here we go with Installment #5 spelling out how my creative mind came up with my recent cat painting and the steps I took to get ‘er done. These four shots show the next set of layers into which I brought golds to pull those royal colors together. You can see I used my handy dandy linoleum acanthus leaf stamp that I recently carved. Now... we’re getting close to actually painting a cat!
For me, a painting has to hold my interest, just like music. With all the layers of color and texture, I never tire of work like this! :)
Creative Process Cat Painting Installment #3; for those of you curious as to how an artist works. You’ve seen a closeup of my cat painting and a pic of me sitting next to the finished piece in my previous two posts. This picture shows the third stage of my painting; first, paint the wood in blues. This particular color pairing has been one of my favorites since I was a teenager, and that was a long time ago! Second, imprint it with garden leaves, and now third, adding the circle with rays. My original intent was to put a halo around his head, Alphonse Mucha style, so the charcoal lines delineate that. In a later stage I ditched that idea and decided to go with gold to indicate royalty. These leaf textures peek from the very back of the painting as you look, and beckon you to not only see the cat, but dig deeper into the mystery. The same way I like complicated music, I like to give viewers a lot to look at and think about. There you have it! Lupus Regem, the start of my Wolf King cat painting creative process. Look for Creative Process #4 next!
Here you can see how the octopus painting I just finished progressed. First I worked it up in charcoal with lots of rubbing out and movement. Once I got the composition the way I wanted I laid in some thin Payne’s Grey to set it up for color and get the contrasts balanced. My next post will show the progression of color. This piece is 24”x30”
Here’s a closeup of a section of ‘Enter,’ the previous painting I posted. I love the abstract qualities of this piece. Happy day to you!
