Paintings With Soul

    "Chester," a painted sketch, approximately 4" x 5" roughly centered on a 9" x 12" paper, done in acrylics, depicting a mixed breed dog, private collection (THANK YOU!).   Chester is a gift, so if you recognize him, help me keep the secret, ok?   I will be phasing these sketches out by year's end - lately they have been taking nearly as much time to complete as a panel painting and are far more laborious to pack and ship. So if you are interested, please  speak up now  and we can get it scheduled.   Thanks, as always, for supporting and following along with my artwork!   Hoping tomorrow brings along my wit's end, because today I think I lost it - Kim  ksantini@turtledovedesigns.com

"Curly Flanks," 8" x 10", Golden Open Acrylics on Ampersand Gessobord, $469 and headed home to the first one asking nicely. Inquiries (portraits start at $29 and make incredible gifts) may always come to me . I love love love the abstract elements of this painting. Flip it in any direction, squint way down, and it's still beautiful. I know it's been quiet - at the end of last week, I took a few days off to celebrate my brother's wedding. It was the perfect weekend with family (the Kelly family is a big and most excellent one) and old friends (also most excellent!). I returned to the studio refreshed and ready to paint. However the painting bit didn't happen till later in the day - this morning was spent with a photographer and videographer from the press (I'll keep you posted on that!), mid-morning involved email responses (I'm still about 300 messages behind, but am working on them in the order received), and the afternoon was consumed ...

Every 4 to 8 weeks, Linda Shantz and I host an equine themed Virtual pARTy . A pARTy is where a group of artists work from the same reference photo, creating their work within a 24 hour period. The resulting artwork is posted on the pARTy blog, so that everyone can linger over the incredible variety and individual styles inspired by the same photograph. (psst! If you are interested in playing along with the February pARTy, you have until this Saturday at midnite EST to complete and submit your entry - details here ). So, without further ado, here's my entry for this month's pARTy: "Up Close (Percy)," 6" x 8", portrait of a Curly Horse, acrylic on board, $329 to the first one asking nicely. Inquiries (including booking your own pet portrait, from miniature size [4" x 4"] to larger than life) may always come to me . I visited Percy and his herd of Curly Horses at my friend's last weekend, and loved every minute. These horses were huge teddy ...

One of my favorite unsold paintings from 2008, "Lashes & Corkscrews," 5" x 8", acrylic on canvasboard, depicting a tobiano buckskin curly horse, $289. Inquiries to ksantini@turtledovedesigns.com (but read further on how you can get a special deal on this painting!). Now it's ridiculously easy to browse my painting archives. All you have to do is visit my Etsy store . Etsy has a Shopping Cart (so you can pile it high with purchases from a variety of artists), is integrated with Paypal (although you may still pay by check if you prefer to), and is terribly simple to navigate. When the week has ended, I will have listed almost 100 of my favorite (UNSOLD!) paintings here, grouped loosely by subject matter. During 2009 I'll update the shop regularly, and add non-Dog-a-Day pieces as a bonus, thus making it easy to search for that perfect gift. Watch my daily postings for announcements, promotions and discount codes. If you do not receive the Dog-a-Day emails (...