Paintings With Soul

check them out, take one home At left “Berna Pup,” 8”x8”, $525 and at right “Sunshine,” 6”x8,” $470. Both of these paintings are acrylic on flat museum quality panels, available at my website through the above link. S&H inside the contiguous US is on me. Hawaiian, Alaskan and Canadian shipping available at additional cost. 20 years ago I began my commitment to daily painting, starting the pet portrait project Painting a Dog a Day. Shortly in, the project went viral (viral wasn’t even a thing 20 years back!), and   within days I had an 18 month long wait list for daily paintings . Over the years I developed a unique style and fresh approach that was eagerly anticipated by thousands of collectors. It was a lot of fun until it wasn’t - I burned out around 2017 and have done very few pet portraits since. Until recently. I snuck out to visit my friends at   Kara Bullock Art School   earlier this month and we filmed my next online workshop. Of which the above two paintings ...

  Paint with Me   Come paint with me next week   - October 3-6, in Tustin, California - and learn all the secrets behind how I build paintings full of mystery and delight.   Join   On the Fly   — an intimate 3-day workshop experience all about improvisational painting and following the sparks that thrill you. Together, we’ll explore how to intuitively build a piece inspired by birds and flora (two of my current obsessions). I’ll share insights, walk you through actionable steps to connect with what   really   matters (spoiler: this is how you grow your own style!), and you'll have a front row seat to my personal approaches. Expect spontaneous marks, playground fun, and a compassionate community. Yes, it will be life-altering. Yes, free hugs are included (consent required). Seriously, let’s paint together — you won’t regret it for a second. 💛 Kim P.S. If you’ve taken my online courses, you already have most of the supplies. So just ...

    I have been hard at work behind the scenes, creating on demand lesson videos for students unable to commit to a workshop experience or my student membership. My goal is to provide affordable, easily digestable bites of thinking, painting process and specific technique in a streamable, self study format. These videos are takeaways from other teaching experiences, so they have already been student tested and approved. In them I share approaches to ideation, techniques, thought processes, and various tips on things like color mixing, palette management and intuitive work. I hope to release them monthly. If you have already painted with me in some capacity, check out the lesson descriptions to ascertain if the video is derivative from an experience you might already have had. The newest addition to this growing library is   The Making of Columbine , in which I outline the progression of a painting from the initial contour drawing all the way through to completion. There's...

Photo courtesy of Vivos Images, Nancy Gutelius. I love   teaching   - there's nothing like sharing all I've managed to cram into my brain with a group of like minds. And when those ah-ha moments happen, it's glorious - goosebumps, joy, pride - it's a great time all around. Because learning is most successful when the environment matches the students' needs, I offer three different ways for us to work together: in person, one on one via Facetime, and a new online community. I travel once or twice a year and teach multi-day workshops. A host group sponsors, markets and sells the event, and then I show up to do my song and dance. I will be doing so in   Saginaw, Michigan   (this September) and in the Hudson River Valley of New York (next March). Links to the Saginaw workshop are on   my website ; the New York event will be added once they begin accepting reservations. Workshops are priced based on the various gr...

Above, detail of today's workshop demo, representing approximately an hours worth of work, mostly wet on wet, acrylics on panel, 11" x 14". There's the adage that "those who can't teach," but I take issue with that. The best teachers I've had CAN and DO, and they articulate that, no matter how many times I (or my classmates) re-phrase the same question. I'd like to think I'm working my way towards that category of Teachers Who Can. That some day, one of my students will be able to say that my techniques/approaches impacted them in a powerful way that didn't include therapy. Meanwhile, I'm refining my teaching skills with an especially delightful group of painters on the western coast of Michigan. They are willing to try all sorts of things with their brushes during the day, and then in the evening, I retire to a Lake Michigan facing porch, sip my wine while listening to the tide, and forget about their tears. And ...

Pictured above are a few of the paintings I've completed as coursework this week in Lynn Whipple 's Big Bold Blooms Wild Painting  online workshop. For reference, the larger piece on the ground is 24" x 30". I'm working big, and bold, and a little wild! I learn so much when I take classes from other artists. Besides the obvious content, I get to see how others' teach and how they structure their lessons. And then I get to continue to learn by practicing the lessons on my own, inserting my own ideas and agenda, and determining which processes are keepers. I really need to reel myself in, though, this time around. I am so inspired by Lynn and the exercises (working with neutrals and layered drawings), my brain is going on fast forward, piecing together all sort of possibilities. I couldn't even sleep last night (yes, I know I am OCD). In between all of the above, I did some complete some serious work on a commission. But I also need to...

A simple 6" x 6" study done in last week's workshop, featuring a Dum Dum lollipop (it IS Halloween, after all!). This exercise was to demonstrate simple blending techniques with acrylics, and to show how to achieve a variety of marks, INCLUDING SMALL ONES (but not brushy-brushy small ones, because those are worst than a firey rash), with a large brush. Inquiries to me , and thank you so much. "Do as I say, not as I do," say's the woman with her paint brush in her mouth and her fingers in the paint And yes, I open paint tubes with my teeth. I have lots of bad habits. But I also have a few gems of knowledge I'm happy to share with those who will listen. Tomorrow is Day Two of our color and brushwork intensive. I'm happy to report there were no tears in Day One, although there was a knitted brow or two and some most excellent questions. And I'm loving having an audience who's interested in talking abo...

In process detail from "Once Upon Another Time (Self Portrait)," 16" x 20", acrylic glazes and other magic on an Ampersand gessobord, all inspired by the wizard of scumbling and all sorts of mark making, Stanka Kordic . My Brain is Exploding After just one day. And I think she was holding back, too. Very graciously, I may add, just pacing herself so as to not overwhelm us. Ok, me. My biggest ah-ha moments (and there were plenty!): Burnt sienna + cobalt blue + white = flesh tone when layered overtop a raw umber wash. Optically mixing color (ie layering glazes on a painting surface) achieves color you cannot mix on a palette. It's a challenge to focus on the surface effects and patterned marks and NOT on the form, but that's where the magic happens, so get over it. If using a grisaille beginning, accentuate the highlights, so that the layered glazes eventually settle at the correct value. More photos are  here - to...

Photo courtesy of one of my Louisiana Art and Artists Guild workshop students from April 2013 - I'm kicking myself hard for not tagging this photo with your name - whoever you are, I am blowing you kisses - thank you!! With a local weather forecast of negative double digits, significantly more snow accumulation, and our school district already warning of possible closures, you can bet I'm excited to be heading south next week. Friday and Saturday I'll be teaching at The Craft Shack near Orlando Florida . I've condensed my 4 day workshop into a whirlwind 2 day extravaganza. We are focusing on color and brushwork, a combination that will leave students with a whole new bag of tricks when they return to their own studios. That is, if they don't collapse of exhaustion first. Because I am a slave driver in the classroom. There were two escapees, err cancellations, yesterday - so grab a seat while you can and leave that winte...

PLEASE NOTE: If you would like me to come teach in your neck of the woods, shoot me an email and we can talk about it! Thank so much! Kim Santini

Mona Lisa, enjoying some sunshine but keeping an eye out for daVinci, who has a knack for the perfect ambush and happened to be "casually" ambling by. This will be a future painting.   I spend a lot of time in my workshops addressing all the aspects of being an artist that do NOT involve picking up a paintbrush. And while I am a daily painter, and my goal is to paint 5 days a week, that's not always my reality.   For instance, today I - reviewed a contract for upcoming workshop, coordinated revisions, and researched travel arrangements created marketing materials for a local event inventoried materials returning from last workshop, began packing and prepping for Sept classes sorted photos from previous two weeks' of events and archived digitally wrapped and shipped paintings to new homes updated website database fielded approx 150 emails sent hand written thank you notes paid a months' worth of bills began planning for this weeken...

      IN PROCESS:  "Gettin' Jiggy"," 11" x 16", portrait of a mixed breed dog playing in shallow waters, done in acrylic on museum quality panel, $609 (when finished, which should be tomorrow). Is this one yours? I can make it happen - just  let me know !   I went to a painting demonstration last nite , and as a consequence spent today working more slowly, carefully considering each brushmark and analyzing color decisions.    The dog's local color (orange-yellow) + reflected color (yellow) + light temperature (yellow) = lots of yellow, and yet I want to add pinks and oranges and buffs in there too. But yellow is good, especially Indian Yellow, which I've used about a half tube of in this painting so far.   And then if the light is warm, like the noon sun, shadows are cooler. Which means more blue in the shadows, but only a cooler blue - none of those cyans and turquoise's I've been loving lately. Bu...