Paintings With Soul

Quiet, 10" x 10", acrylics on museum quality panel depicting my studio muse, Mona Lisa. This painting is reserved for an exhibition and will be available for purchase in the future. SOLD. I used the same limited palette as yesterday - carbon black, pthalo blue green, titanium white, cadmium yellow medium, cadmium red medium, light magenta and light ultraviolet. I think there's also a couple pops of cadmium orange.  I made a slideshow of the in process photos. Thanks, as always, for following along with my artwork, Kim ksantini@turtledovedesigns.com 

      "Skittles," 6" x 8", commissioned pet portrait of a silver tabby, done in acrylic on museum quality panel, private collection (THANK YOU!!).   Should you like a portrait for yourself, please  let me know . It's my job and I happen to love it.   Fondly, Kim, who is exhausted and all tingley at the idea of getting to lie down in 10 minutes ksantini@turtledovedesigns.com       Share the Dog a Day love and forward this email to a friend  - with my thanks, of course!  

  "Bug (aka Mona Lisa)," 5" x 7", acrylic on museum quality panel, depicting a certain ornery tabby, $289 to the first taker (the painting, not the furry troublemaker).   Inquiries can always come  to me! !! And thank you!!       I always knew she was a starlet!! Even when busted playing in my brush water, she maintains her composure. And looks at me  just like this .   Little Mona Lisa is hitting the big time - watch for a special announcement (completely unrelated to the Cherished project's news) very soon!   And snag up  one of her paintings now,  before she is Hollywood A List-ed and we are mere bothersome papparazzi, sifting through her trash.   Now that I think about, I'm already changing her litterbox. Damn. Curses on these opposable thumbs!   Have a spectacular weekend, Kim ksantini@turtledovedesigns.com   ...

"Babysitting," from the "Cherished" series of paintings, 8" x 12", acrylic on museum quality panel, $499 to the first one raising their hand. SOLD. Inquiries, as always, can come  to me . And, as is typical of late, in process views of "Babysitting" can be seen on  the studio's Facebook page . I spent many a nite babysitting. My charges, though, were a bit sassier than this tiny gray kitten. Thanks, as always, for following along with my artwork, Kim ksantini@turtledovedesigns.com

  NEARLY COMPLETED: "Evil Eye (Badd Kitty #1)," 6" x 10", portrait of Mona Lisa, my gray tabby kitten, done in acrylic on a museum quality panel. Inquiries may come  to me .   This is the first painting in a new series of Badd Kitties - I'll be painting cats with attitude and reputations. Do you know of any?  We should talk  if you do......       Mona does this thing when I'm working late on the computer - she leaps up onto my desk, snugs in under my chin, and gives me a head bump.    She usually also "Kitty types" across my keyboard.   I gently pick her up and put her back on the floor and edit her typed comments. And two minutes later, she's back again.   She continues this game until I give in, turn the computer off, and take her up to bed (she sleeps in a warm little nest at my feet).    However, if I take too long, the head bumps stop.    Instead, she jumps onto the desktop in one gracefu...

  "Blue Sneak," from  the Gratuitude Painting series , 5" x 11", done in acrylics on a museum quality panel, starring my own little sneak, Mona Lisa, $329. Proceeds from the sale of this painting will be donated to the Oakland Pet Adoption Center in Auburn Hills, Michigan, where Mo-Bug hailed from. Inquiries may come  to me .      Today I couldn't get started on anything until I did a little bit of cleaning in the studio - it's been awhile since the dust bunnies had been herded into another room of the house!   While I was sorting through piles and finding homes, I discovered a stash of scraps from previous cut-down panels.   One of them called out to me, begging for an image.    I couldn't say no.   Hence the title, "Blue Sneak." This panel snuck onto my easel unplanned. Just like it's subject sneaks up onto my taboret and flips dirty brushes out of the water cup. And just like she then streaks off to make mischief el...

  "Gray (Stanley's Profile)," 6" square, done in acrylics on a museum quality panel, one of two paintings starring this sweet little muse (the other one was shared  yesterday ). Inquiries may come  to me .     I wanted to point out that while the nature of my subject matter dictates that I primarily work from reference photos, I make certain to also use artistic liberties to create a piece that is entirely new.   For instance, the background in the photo for "Gray" was dark and flat like the picture in the sidebar. Softening that background allows the viewer to notice all the other edges inside the painting, not just the profile edge. It also turns the eye into the focal point (since the eye now contains the largest area of the darkes dark).   I also relied on my visual memory to add details to the painting that were not present in the photograph. Hints of color inside the iris, a wash of pink underneath the lighter fur to warm up and refer ...

  "Stanley," 4" x 8", done in acrylics on a museum quality panel, one of two paintings starring this sweet little muse. Inquiries may come  to me .     I was commissioned to paint Stanley here, and I had the best sort of problem. That being that my reference photos were TOO good (this is a rare problem, but one that I absolutely love to encounter).   The photos were SO VERY good that I couldn't choose just one to paint.    I tried. I worked from my client's favorite one, creating the portrait above. And yet I wasn't ready to put my brushes down.   So I decided to start another. And shot an email off to my client that she would have a decision to make. And picked up my brushes a second time.   And I nearly got it finished. Took a break for ballet class. Then a basketball game. Then a band concert. Then dinner. Then a glass of wine. Then some chocolate.   And then reality kicked in full force.   Things will just have to...

It was over a year ago when Mike Fry, Director of the Animal Ark Shelter in Minnesota, first contacted me to talk about the extraordinary signage he wanted to create for their new shelter addition. We talked about the aesthetic of the space and our design options. Mike chose faces from paintings I had already done, and we collaborated on combining them to make an entirely new composition. The tiles are 8" wide - this sign measures over 4 feet tall and more than 7 feet wide. What a warm and welcoming gateway it creates to a wing that will connect hundreds - dare I say thousands? - of kitties with new homes. Iris, the Himalayan in the back, was a rescued kitty. I cannot recall if the tabby Thomasina was.... regardless, I know they both are serenly approving their likenesses from The Bridge, and will keep a special eye on all the souls who go through those doors. Warm thanks to Mike Fry for reaching out and asking me to partner with him on this project, too! Thanks for shari...

ORDER NOTECARDS/REPRODUCTIONS "Kitten Fluff," from The Daily Paintworks Challenge , 4-1/4" x 5", portrait of a wee ball of fur, done in Golden Open Acrylics on gessobord, available for $219 (preferred collectors pay only 198!!). Email me if you are interested. The Daily Paintworks group issues weekly challenges, many of which I've been able to tackle. They are a wonderfully talented group of daily painters with a fabulous and well designed web site. It is rewarding to see them add interactive elements and exercises - the sorts of things I haven't been able to take on/think about since college. This week's challenge was to work from a darling kitten photo. As I write this, 60 artists have participated, with their results shared on the challenge page . It's fascinating stuff, how each of us has seen the same image and interpreted it entirely differently. So what do you suppose is this kitten's story? Thanks for sharing my artwork with yo...

"The Light," 6" square, portrait of an orange and white kitty, done in Golden Open Acrylics on Ampersand Gessobord. This little guy can brighten up your art collection for $299 - repeat customers can purchase him for only $269. Inquiries may come to me . I made the executive decision that today we all needed a little sunshine. The unexpected sort of warmth that makes you raise your face to the sky and pause. Enjoy it. Thanks so very much for following along with my artwork! Kim ksantini@turtledovedesigns.com Inspiration A few blogs/websites from contemporary artists who regularly deliver light, at least to me: Karin Jurick Carol Marine Ali Cavanaugh Stuart Shils Karen Appleton Susan Leyland Melissa Peck Katie Upton

For the past month I've been talking up ordering greeting cards featuring one of the Dog a Day paintings. I even went so far as to paint Mona Lisa in a tangle of lights, giving you all plenty of time to create your mailing lists and get them ordered. And then the rug gets pulled out from under my feet. It would appear that the company I was previously using to manage my notecard creation decided they didn't want to do that anymore. Except that they didn't bother to tell their customers this. (You should hear the hoopla going on over on their forums! ouch!) However, all is not lost. I've now forged a partnership with a new company (FineArtAmerica) , and am uploading images as quickly as possible. And the flip side is that FineArtAmerica allows me greater control of my images - their products are of the highest quality, their reputation is solid, managing my files with their system takes less time than with my previous partner, and their cost is much lower! Which mea...

PLEASE NOTE: This painting was juried into the 2011 Richeson 75 Small Works Exhibition and is now available for purchase, with a beautiful custom frame, through them . If you are interested, please send an email to richeson75@gmail.com. Thanks so much! Kim "Tiny Kitten, Big Dreams (Mona Lisa)," 5" x 7", Golden Open Acrylics on Ampersand Gessobord, depicting my new little tabby muse basking in the kitchen sunlight shortly after she joined our household. I wonder what she's really dreaming of? Mona enjoyed sunbathing immensely those first few weeks - I wonder if she had actually felt the sun's warmth prior to that? You can add Mona Lisa to your art collection for $289 - with 20% of the purchase price getting donated to the Oakland Pet Adoption Center, the place where Mona was a short term resident before she picked my son. SOLD. Inquiries may come to me. Meanwhile, if this little painting doesn't sell within a week, I'll be entering her in the Jac...