About one Year Ago...

Davide set me up in a painting studio. It was far enough away from our apartment that I felt stuck there. This was the point: no distractions, just me battling myself through paintings for 8-12 hours a day. The goal was to learn color, light, shapes, and really grow technically. I started with a concept of painting girls paired with unsettling dolls, using colors I wouldn't normally gravitate towards. I used only oil paint and gradually added amounts of walnut oil. I discovered walnut oil while researching Old Masters techniques. Walnut oil won't yellow whites over time, and it's more fluid than linseed oil. I fell in love with it, and the completed paintings have a phenomenal and uniform texture and glow. However, this process takes a long time, because each layer of paint takes a week or longer to dry. So, it took months to work on these paintings, and though I had many more paintings sketched out with more provocative content, I grew bored...not of the learning process and what I learned, which was alot, but with the final product. While in my opinion they are beautiful and more realistic than anything else I'd painted to date, they were just not haunting enough, not unsettling enough..just not where I wanted to land. And, a habit of mine is to learn as much as possible as fast as possible..and once I feel I've learned the lesson and conquered the battle, I move on. Thus, these paintings were left unfinished as my passion took me onward.

Studio Update...

Here's a quick peek at part of a new oil painting that measures 36" x 72"...

Karyn Crisis Leatherworks on Polyvore...

http://www.polyvore.com/steampunk_fightin_sandworms/set?id=3507096

I know I am Spirit having a human experience. The Spirit part is unendingly interesting for me. It's the human part that I have difficulty with. I realize that in order to experience who and what I am, I have to be here in this body. And in this body is the only chance I have to reach enlightenment...I can't experience enlightenment out of a body..just as I can't experience myself in this set of circumstances on earth anywhere else. But I find so many of the things that are part of this human experience trivial and a waste of time these days: being in this clumsy body, having to earn money to pay bills, working any sort of job that isn't a personal creative expression. The world will say "but that's the way it is, you have to work, you have to do this and that.." but I say, why? Why can't I spend my time being in love and making art and music instead of dealing with commerce?
I believe I'm experiencing this very interesting life of mine so I could reunite with Davide now. And that's what keeps me on this planet, this incredible experience of unconditional love. And I think that nothing should get in the way of that experience. I want to have all the time to share with him all of the time, to love and be loved, to create and express, to experience the human and the spiritual that mean something to us. I don't want to deal with the rot of this world.

Shaman Mask

"Deeds Of Men" new drawing on coffee stained paper

New Leather Projects

Softie Skull Billfold Wallet and Bags..

I'm also making masks again. Here's a close-up of one. The hair is about 5 feet long..Funny thing happened on the way to oil painting..
My plan this year was to hone my oil paintings skills. Not just "hone," but take them to another several levels. I started by working on some oil paintings (that I'll post pics of soon.) I worked super hard on colors, technique (smoothness of blending), compostition, and concept. However, the concepts fell short. For some reason, the concepts didn't seem as as strong once on canvas, but I surprised myself with technique! However, they just weren't dark enough, didn't have enough to say. They were too polite.

Then I went wild working really large, without any drawings, just attacking the canvas. While those captured the movement and explosiveness I wanted, they still weren't up to part technically.

Then I listened to this weird voice inside my head that'd been saying for months "try gouache paint." Finally, I relented. All the colors were outside of my palette, and I grabbed the ones I was drawn to without analyzing too much. And I started to paint.
They are a difficult paint to work with, very chalky and not blendable...the very opposite of oils. They made me paint in a very primitive way. I was hooked! So I started painting images of my experiences with shamanism, reiki, spirits, etc. It was really free and fun- no photo references, no worries about light source, no perfection, just whatever was in my head. They painted themselves as I lost myself in 9 hours a day or more of just painting 22x30 and larger.

After this open studio, it's back to focusing on oil paintings. I've been working on their concepts and drawings during this primitive painting time. I've been learning all I can about techniques..now it's time to attack the canvas again with my first love: oil !
Oil paints have been my siren song, just like music, since I was a child. They've almost conquered me and driven me crazy, but now it's my turn to make magick...

New Work

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Super delayed on updates, but I've been entrenched in my painting studio. Lots of pics to post another day. Quick rundown: painted some new oils with new techniques. I've decided I'll not continue the subject matter, but I hope to apply what I've learned in new oils I have planned that will all be large sizes and very laden with imagery. I have almost completed about 20 acrylaGouache paintings on archival rag paper, 22" x 30" ( like the one pictured above) that I will put up for sale, framed, soon. These will be on display at my open studio in Berkeley June 5th and 6th. I've also got a handful of drawings that will be up for sale as well. Planning the large new oils as well. Whew. Pics soon!

Studio

Paints, paints, paints. I am obsessed with oil paints. I've been spending a minimum of 6 hours a day painting in my studio. Most days I like to reach for 7-8 hours. I'd like to work at least 10-12. That's my goal. I am almost finished with 3 new paintings. Very different style departure. This year my focus has been to choose a level I want to attain with my painting and figure out how to get there. I'm learning alot, but there's still so much to learn! I have an entire series planned out for this particular theme I'm working on..and then I will start to work on a series I have planned for the other subject matter I wish to express. I'm also wanting to learn how to draw super well. I've always just sketched out my ideas and gathered research in the past, working out the details while I'm painting. Yet, with these new paintings I am taking the time to draw out all details before I paint, so everything is worked out on the canvas with pencil before I begin the underlayer. This sensible technique delays the excitement of just attacking the canvas from the start, but it dramatically changes the painting process for me, allowing so much more control in the long run. No wonder artists do this! Taking much more time with underpainting is also something new for me. One thing I haven't changed is my oil technique. I use no turpentine or chemical substitutes. I used to use linseed oil, but have since switched to walnut oil exclusively. I've learned alot about brushes that work for me, and have since gathered very specific tools for my techniques. I'll post some photos soon!

Spring in the Air

Spring is peeking through the clouds here and it's making me feel inspired, feisty, electric! It's reminded me of this photo Davide took last summer..and made me think of how much life has changed in one year, two years...As I made a cappuccino to drink, I reflected on how I wasn't able to drink coffee for most of my life. Before I healed my allergies with Reiki (and my husband's love is also a great healer!) , I was not able to eat pizza, drink coffee, have dairy nor tomatoes, never a pastry for breakfast, and eating out was always a problem. I survived on raw veggies, brown rice, seafood, steamed green veggies...yet still I suffered from terrible skin rashes and other allergy symptoms. Now, I can eat anything I want. I told the universe I wanted to eat like normal people, and for the past year I have! More importantly, I asked the universe for my great love, a partner who loves me as I am, someone for me to love as he is, a perfect match..and indeed we are all this together and more. Ask and ye shall receive.