"The Church Lady", #7 Wire Drawing of 30 Day Challenge

"The Church Lady", 7" x 10"
Price:  $50, Ink on Paper
 

Remember the good ole days when everyone dressed up to go to church?  The ladies even wore hats!  I have fond memories of my mom dressing up for church and playing the piano for the congregation.  I can't wait to turn this drawing into an acrylic painting!  Maybe soon.  Look closely for all of the hearts that showed up when I was doing the initial pencil sketch for the wire drawing!  My friend, Connie, must have been looking over me.  She passed on last year in November, but she used to collect rocks that were heart shaped.  I miss her lots!

"The Chaperone", #6 wire drawing of 30 Day Challenge

"The Chaperone"  7" x 10"
$50   pen and ink on paper

This is the 6th wire drawing done in the January challenge. It dawned on me today that I am the type of person who requires goals in order to get things done. I've done the "30 paintings in 30 days" challenge for the past 3 years. It is a really tough challenge, but I always grew as an artist and felt such a feeling of accomplishment when I finished that 30th painting! So, this year, due to recovering from a bad bout with pneumonia in November and December, I decided to just try to do as many wire drawings as I could. Here it is, Day 18, and I've only done 6 wire drawings! My lesson learned is that I need to have specific goals in order to get more done.  That goes for everything in my life. When I diet, if I just tell myself that I will do my best, it comes off really slow. But if I have a deadline to lose a certain amount, I usually meet that goal. So.... Going forward, I commit to complete 9 more wire drawings, making a total of 15 wire drawings within the 30 day period. That's a good goal!

"Chicken Little", #5 Wire Drawing of 30 Day Challenge

"Chicken Little"  7" x 10"
Ink on Paper,  Price:  $50

I started this wire drawing yesterday, and worked 2 more hours on it this morning.  These drawings have been selling really fast!  So, if you are interested, contact me right away.  It was fun to be inventive with the detail, making checks in the feathers, etc.  I may need to space these wire drawings out though, because they are really hard on my eyes right now.  I need to see an eye doctor.  I'm so excited to turn these drawings into an adult coloring book.  I can just picture these with many different colors!

"Love Conquers All", Wire Drawing #4 ,within 30 Day Challenge

"Love Conquers All"    7" x 10"
Ink on Paper,  Price:  $50

This is the 4th Wire Drawing that I've done in January.  The last few days have been spent painting in prep for national show competitions.  There are many deadlines that fall in January.  Today, I took a past painting, pictured below and did a wire drawing of it, hoping that it would have a different outcome.  I'm anxious to use this wire drawing as a start for another painting, where I will be using gelli printed papers for collage.  Stay tuned for this!  If interested in this sketch, it is only $50, my January special price!

"The Diva"

"The Diva",  Acrylic on paper, 14" x 20" image
Price:  $850



I painted this artwork yesterday, starting at 8:00 a.m. and finishing at 5:00 p.m.  I had to meet a deadline for the Northwest Watercolor Society.  I entered with one hour to spare!  Several times, I almost quit in the midst of this painting, but my granddaughter, said, "No, grandma, you can do it!", so I continued.  Constantly, I tell students that very thing.  If we just keep going past the "ugly teenage" stage, lots of times, these can be your best paintings.  I really listened to the painting as I worked.  For instance, the blue streak coming from the left side was in the underpainting, and I liked how it connected the background to her dress, so I left it in.  Also the abstract shapes behind her head were formed in the first layer also, so when I negative painted around them, the shapes were very interesting. 
This painting started with squirting several colors on prepared paper, and then scraping it with a credit card.  It's a great way to get exciting colors in the underpainting.  I'm teaching in The Villages, FL from January 25 - 29th, and this is one of the subjects, "Painting like Gustav Klimt".  It's really a fun technique!  If interested in coming, contact Beverly Hennessy at www.thevillagesartworkshops.com
bbaug97@aol.com  352-572-5317

Woman of Mystery, (#3 Wire Drawing of 30 Day Challenge)

"Woman of Mystery"
 6" x 8", ink on paper, $100

I have to admit, I was procrastinating this morning, perched in front of the TV, scared to go down to my studio and face the watercolor painting that I'm doing for the TWSA show.  So, instead of wasting time, I grabbed my sketch book, and drew another wire drawing. I love this, because her hair is so long, that you have to imagine:  is she naked or is she wearing an evening gown with a low back?  Most of my paintings in this January challenge will be marked for $50, but I fell in love with this one so much, that I decided to mark it higher.  If interested, contact me.

"Cardinal Calling", Wire Drawing #2, Within 30 Days

"Cardinal Calling", 7" x 10", $50

Here I am again, making these drawings more difficult that they have to be!  These are supposed to be little sketches, and so far, both of my wire drawings have taken 4 hours or more to complete!  Oh, well, I love to doodle, what can I say?  This was started with a pencil drawing, and then I switched to felt markers to complete it and turn it into a wire drawing.  Check out my website, www.karenknutson.com to see my teaching schedule, if you are interested in learning this procedure.

"Peaceful Farm Site"- (Wire Drawing #1within 30 Days!)

"Farm Site, Wire Drawing #1"
7" x 10", Ink on Paper, $50

This is a farm site near my friend, Jennifer Stone's family lodge near Watertown, SD.  I've had a dream of painting farm scenes with Holstein cows in the foreground for about 7 or 8 years.  I decided to build up to adding the cows and start with a farm site alone to start with.  My plan is to complete a painting of this scene to enter in the Transparent Watercolor Society of America Show.  The hard part for me is that is has to be totally watercolor, and I've become a mixed media artist these past few years.  This drawing took about 4 hours, so the idea of doing quick wire drawings is a far fetched idea, at best! Stay tuned to see the finished painting! Remember, if interested in buying this, contact me right away. 

Out with the Old, In with the New!

Little Abbeys, 5" x 7" each,  $45 each
2 versions of little abbeys, using the same colors
 

After getting very sick with pneumonia, being hospitalized for 4 days during Thanksgiving time....  I am SO READY to paint again!!!!!  All of December, I have been just trying to regain my strength.  So I started out easy, doing a little abbey (small abstract), size 5" x 7".  My goal was to stay with soft edges, and use only 3 colors.  I used cadmium yellow, opera pink, and French ultramarine blue.  Why I picked these colors, I'll never know.  I hardly ever use these colors!  But, I knew from experience, that if I stayed with only those 3 colors, I would have pretty colors. I love the red color that comes from mixing cadmium yellow with opera pink!  Who knew?  My friend, Ressie Burrows predicted that I would be painting with vibrant colors since I had it all bottled up for 2 months.  She was so right! The second day, I used the same colors, but instead of soft edges, I went with some hard and some soft.  I also added wire drawing to complete the painting.  To see more wire drawings, go back to some of my past blogs.  Sadly, I've made the decision to NOT do the 30 paintings in 30 Day Challenge, like I usually do in January.  I'm still rebuilding my strength, so it's not a wise idea to put that kind of pressure on myself.  I will, however, be posting wire drawings many of the days in January, and they will be for sale at a low price, so if you're interested, stay tuned!  Happy New Year, everyone!  I wish you all a healthy new year! 

"Don't Talk to me before 8:00 a.m.!" - (Wire Drawing workshop)

"Don't talk to me before 8:00 a.m.!"    11" x 14"    $195      Original watercolor and markers

This was my demo for my recent "Wire Drawing" Workshop, held in Watertown SD.   As I've said before, I LOVE this process and have found that the abstract backgrounds are leading to the next painting!  The students' paintings turned out incredible, as you will see before.  I made this collage of their paintings, using the website, www.picmonkey.com  I love that site!  My next wire drawing workshop is at the White Bear Lakes Center for the Arts on Nov. 3-5.  Sign up now if interested in learning this process!  The first grouping was the paintings from the first day.

 

The grouping below is the paintings from the second day, when students got to pick between doing an animal or totally abstract.  They actually got 2 demoes for the price of one!