Skip to main content

Kanab, A Visual Memory

Yesterday afternoon I drove from Las Vegas Nevada to Kanab Utah, through the desert and mountains, listening to Stravinsky and watching the sun slowly drop lower in the sky, casting lovely deep purple shadows through the landscape. I arrived in Kanab too late in the day to visit Best Friends, but made the most of my evening settling in and getting to know my roomie Dottie, a wonderfully opinion gray and white kitty wise in years. We are getting along famously.

I then pulled out my paints and decided to try an exercise in visual memory. Using casein (a milk based paint with some wonderful properties – I am just learning to work with it), I quickly laid down boldly colored stripes that would make up my landscape, adding layers of glaze (watered down casein) and modeling the shapes of the cliffs, sky and desert all from memory.

I can't wait to take my paints into the sanctuary! I'll be there first thing tomorrow......

Thanks, as always, for looking at - and sharing - my artwork and musings with your friends and family.
Kim

PS I will have intermittent internet access while here, which means my posts will hit a day later. It also means I'll not be as responsive to emails – but I promise to reply to your inquiries as soon as I possibly can.

TWITTER: ksantini
SHOP ORIGINALS & LIMITED EDITION GICLEES: at my Etsy shop
ORDER CUSTOMIZED NOTECARDS & REPRODUCTIONS: at Imagekind
COMMISSION A PET PORTRAIT: contact me
GIFT CERTIFICATES AVAILABLE: contact me
READING MATERIAL: Preview and order each of the Dog a Day books at the publisher's website: The First Year (2006-2007) and That's 14 in Dog Years (2008). If you would like your copy personalized, order them through me.

Comments

  1. Wow, I'm so jealous that you are so close to this amazing scenery! And OMG you did it! 1000' NOW WHAT??? Besides the wine, of course.

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Now what" is a great question!! I'm working on a large collage (hooray for collage!) headed to a competition and building an exciting and complex composition for an (important to me) juried exhibition. Plus working on my 3rd book, readying myself for the holiday portrait season, and trying to enjoy the last week of summer vaca. That'll keep me busy for a couple days!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“Katie’s Moustache,” 6x12, pet portrait in acrylic on canvasboard, $90. Inquiries to ksantini@turtledovedesigns.com . One glimpse of Katie’s face, and I was hooked. Not only did she fall into my beloved “black & white” category, but she came with a full moustache and doe-like eyes. I first covered the canvas with a variety of blues and purples, using a (mixed) light green and pink for the highlights. (Right now my palette has been expanded to include the following: pthalo blue red, azurite hue, cad red dark, alizarine crimson, cad yellow dark, and then for graying/hazing out I use light green yellow and ultramarine purple.) I lighten with titanium white and darken with one of the blues and a touch of one of the reds. As a side note, at this time last year I was really struggling with my limited palette (I went from about 60 pots of paint to 3), but I have lived the benefits – I am so much more familiar with what I can mix given just this handful of colors. My paintings are also m...

Dear Copyright Thieves

Dear Copyright Thieves,   Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's free for the taking. So let's just stop pretending the internet is a free-for-all.   Don't play the card that you didn't know - that's insulting. And don't also tell me that you meant to follow up and get permission but never got a chance to. That's insulting too. And by the way, don't you have a copyright protection notice on your own site?   And don't even try and point the finger at a third party who commissioned you to make a copy of my painting - again, an insult - you and I both know the difference between a reference photo and a painting.   And don't tell me that I asked for it because I share my artwork on the internet. I share my paintings and ideas and the stories behind them so as to encourage others to pursue  their own passions . I do not share so that those lacking integrity and morals can copy and market the images as their own...

Golden Open Acrylics

I get all sorts of process oriented questions. Most recently I've been getting asked a lot about my paints and palette, which made me realize what a nice blog topic this would make! I use a Masterson Sta-Wet Premier palette box . This is comprised of a box (think Tupperware) with a sponge liner and a slice of palette paper that work together to keep my paints wet. This setup allows me to work with the same palette for about a full week, having the box open for multiple hours every day. You can see what the palette looks like at the beginning of a new session above - below the exact same palette after this week's work. For the last 25 years I have used Golden brand acrylics, mediums, and varnish. I love the overall quality of these paints and the fact that, when I have a question, their customer service department is made up of artists who actually use the products. Until last year, I used their Heavy Body paints exclusively. They have a buttery consistency, a little loose...