Turkey Skull Study, and a trip to South Dakota

Turkey Skull Study, 6 x 6 inch oil on panel.

© 2013 Kathleen Coy

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Painted from life. I find skulls to be beautiful - a reminder that we are more than what we see as our physical bodies, and that our time in these bodies is limited. They are a great study tool as well, if you have an interest in anatomy. 

We took our first trip to South Dakota last month, visiting the Badlands and staying in Custer State Park. I fell in love with the landscape, and all the critters. Took lots of photos of bison, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, and elk. Can't wait to paint them! Here are a few photos from the trip:

New Still Life - Lego dude!!

Desk Patrol, 5 x 7" oil on panel

© 2011 Kathleen Coy

I love quirky still life paintings, and had so much fun painting this Star Wars Lego dude! Look for more toy paintings from me in the future.

If anyone is interested in owning this little guy, he comes framed and is available in my etsy shop.

It's been a busy month, with two shows and finishing my big horse commission. I used google's task timer to keep track of the time the horse painting took and logged about 60 hours! I can't wait to post photos of it after the holidays.

I hope everyone is enjoying the season!

Much love,

A couple of cows

Sassy, 8 x 8 inch oil on panel

© 2011 Kathleen Coy

I'm working on a large commissioned piece right now of two horses. Unfortunately, no photos until after Christmas. You never know who's going to see what you post, and I would hate to ruin the surprise for my client.

But I can show you a couple of cows I painted recently. I found this cow in Oklahoma on a very windy day. (Aren't they all windy in Oklahoma??) I loved the way the wind blew the hair on the top of her head straight up. It makes her look like she has an attitude.

And the next one is a different sort of cow. I painted a still life of the Fisher Price Cow. It brings up so many good memories for me; the Fisher Price Farm was one of my all time favorite toys as a kid.

This is actually one of my favorite paintings I've done to date.

Fisher Price Cow, 8 x 6 inch, oil on linen

© 2011 Kathleen Coy

Hope you enjoyed them. I see more cow paintings in my future, because they are so much fun to paint!

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends!

Reentry

I'm not sure what happened to my blogging frequency compared to previous years. Somewhere along the way I had days where it felt more like work than fun and I needed a break. And of course, when you get out of the habit of something, the longer you wait, the harder it is to start back up.

Facebook may be another culprit... it's so quick and easy to post pics and updates there. Question: Is facebook is making blogging obsolete? People seem to want quick info these days, and it can be hard to find time to read (and write!) long blog posts.

But in the end, blogs and facebook are two different animals. There's a lot I miss about the blogging world, and feel it's time to reenter.

Due to my lack of posts this year, it may look like I haven't been up to much, but in truth I've been pretty busy with my art. One of the things I've been having fun painting is still life's. Here's a still life I painted of some of my husband's pottery. Shino is a type of glaze.

Shino, 10 x 8 oil on linen

© 2011 Kathleen Coy

Here's another I painted at a friend's house. She made bronze castings of her face and turned them into art pieces around her home. I thought they were so cool!

Still Life with Cast Bronze, 8 x 8" oil on panel

© 2011 Kathleen Coy

I'm finding that still life paintings are a great exercise to really learn to see colors and form, and is a lot different than working from photos. I'm painting a couple small still life's a week as a way to keep improving my work. We'll see where it takes me.

Cloud is doing great. I can't believe he's 10 years old now. Here's a photo from this morning.

Small works

I enjoyed painting some little 6 x 6 inch still life panels on Ampersand cradled gessoboard recently. I started with a whole orange, and the next day painted it partially peeled:

and the next day just a slice:

I can imagine how fun these would look displayed together in a kitchen or dining room.

Peeled Triptych 6 x 18" oil on panel
© 2011 Kathleen Coy

I painted an avocado the next day:

Avocado 6 x 6" oil on panel
© 2011 Kathleen Coy

I really enjoyed getting back to the basics with these paintings and look forward to doing more. There's so much beauty to be found in everyday objects, it's fun to be reminded once in a while.

Still Life with Antler and Red Pitcher

Still Life with Antler and Red Pitcher
18 x 14 inches, Oil on board. © 2011 Kathleen Coy

This is the first still life I've painted in a very, very long time. In all of my animal paintings, I work from photos out of necessity. Over the last year, I've become more interested in painting from life. I enjoyed painting this still life so much, that it will NOT be a very, very long time before I paint another one.

This painting is being displayed at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, during the month of March as part of the Nebraska Women's Caucus for Art's group show.

Here is a photo of the set up. My mother found the antler during a walk in the woods last year. I'm sure most of you know that male deer lose their antlers every winter and regrow them in the late spring and summer. The sagebrush in the vase is from Montana, and was given to me by a friend. The antler and the sage lend enough of a "nature" feeling, that even though this is far from my usual subject matter, this painting feels like me.