2010 – Page 7 – Kirsten Bailey: Art

Posted on February 10, 2010February 10, 2010 by Kirsten

I’m a writer!!

I’m excited to announce that I’ve been invited to write for Handmade Spark.

The site is designed for sellers and buyers to connect. Through the blog sellers wil learn about marketing, blogging, how tos, and much more. Buyers will find new shops and items through the handmade features posted by me and a group of writers. Handmade Spark is also a directory where sellers can submit their links, like Twitter, Facebook , and blogs.

I’m really excited to be involved, and I hope I can bring a little something different to the website as I’m so far the only Aussie writer.

My first post is about ACEOs. I was inspired by the fact that I made my own first batch of ACEOs this weekend. I love the way they look on the little easel! If you’d like to find out more about ACEOs, you can read my post on Handmade Spark.

aceos

In other news, my painting Two Hearts, One Love has been featured on a Valentine’s Day post at Calico & Co., the Indie & Handmade Blog. There are lots of other pretty things there too! 🙂

Posted on February 6, 2010 by Kirsten

Saturday Selections

Many thanks to Trina for thinking of a nice alliterative title for my weekly choice of favourite items from Etsy. It’s much easier to find the time to write this post on a Saturday!

For this week’s theme, I’ve decided to go for the ever-classy black and white.

First up: This gorgeous pair of handpainted leather heels by Mitsui.jing shoes. I LOVE this idea of handpainted shoes – they are completely unique, and just beautiful.

Now for something completely different (and really cool). I love all of Morphologica‘s science inspired jewellery, so it was hard to pick just one thing to feature today. I’ve decided to go for this Pyramidial Neuron necklace. I love the idea of wearing a funky, cool piece of jewellery that proudly displays your science nerdiness – although only to those who know enough to work out what it is 😀 This necklace is also available in white. Why not pair it with some DNA Double-helix inspired earrings?

Inspired by Australian snow gum trees, this Snow Gum series of glass platters by Jens Studio would make a perfect addition to any home – black and white goes with everything! I think these would look great with little appetisers on (like little sushi rolls!) or just displayed in the home. I love functional art like this!

Finally, I just love this set of 6 elegant black and white fabric coasters by Odds & Blobs. I’ve used fabric coasters and love them because you never get that annoying thing where the glass sticks to the coaster and gets picked up with it. Also, if someone spills a drink on them you can throw them in the wash! They’re a wonderful idea and this set in black & white is just beautiful.

Thanks for checking out my “Saturday Selections” this week! Be sure to have a look at all these sellers Etsy stores, as they have lots of other goodies on offer!

I’m hoping to get some painting done this weekend, so will post later on with an update on what I’ve done 🙂

Posted on February 1, 2010February 1, 2010 by Kirsten — 2 Comments

Works in Progress…

It’s been a productive weekend!

I’ve done lot’s of work on my lastest commission, a painting for a friend:

Paulas Garden work in progress

There is a lot of detail in this one, and it is HUGE (I can only fit one panel at a time on my easel), so it’s taking me a really long time to finish, but I hope the result will be worth it in the end.

I completed another painting this weekend, and thought I’d show you the stages it went through:

Step One: Painting taped down and ready to go. I've also used tape to separate the four panels (as opposed to wrecking another brush with masking fluid).

Step Two: Spring colours - I decided on pinks, greens and yellows to represent spring.

Step Three: Summer is orange, yellow and green. You can see the paint was still wet when I took this photo.

Step Four: Browns, oranges and reds for Autumn

At this point, I left the painting to dry before removing the tape. I painted a tree branch going across the top of the painting. Here’s the result:

I also made some more art pendants this week, but that’s a post for another day!

Posted on January 30, 2010January 30, 2010 by Kirsten — 2 Comments

Saturday Favourites?

It’s been a hectic week with school starting again. That’s my excuse, anyway. Not sure what my excuse was last week.

When I came up with the idea of listing my favourite Etsy items once a week on my blog (an idea I’m sure I stole from someone), I chose Friday because I liked the alliterative quality of the title “Friday Favourites”. I didn’t really think about how busy Fridays are for me! It’s a shame that Saturday Favourites doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Anyway, rather than doing what I did last week and just completely forgetting about it, this week I’m thinking it’s better late than never.

And since I struggled through the first week of school this week (it was very hot in our classrooms!), I’m doing a back to school theme for this week’s Saturday Favourites.

This first item is a button I’ve featured before in a treasury, because I think it’s just awesome 🙂 Made by beanforest, this ‘Teachers Are Hot’ button has a double meaning this week – it was 36 degrees celcius in my classroom for the last few days so the teachers (and the students) were literally hot.

Isn’t this Robot Children’s Tote Bag cute! Who doesn’t love robots? This would make an awesome library bag. All students at the school I work at are required to have a library bag if they want to borrow books – so why not have one as cool as this? It’s from Tiges and Weince, where you’ll find lots of other cool stuff for kids.

All children need a pencilcase for school. This Woodland Animals Pencilcase is so cute! It’s handmade so you know it’s going to be better quality than a lot of other pencilcases (then the children will stop coming to me with broken zips to fix!). I just love it because I think the picture on the front is super-cute. It’s made by Pocket Carnival, where you can also find prints and originals of artwork like you can see on this pencilcase.

Of course, once you have a cool pencilcase, you need some cool pencils to go in it! I just LOVE this idea of personalised greeting pencils by Right Brainy. You can choose the paper and the message. Would make a great gift to suck up to the teacher on the first day (hint hint!) but would also be lovely for your children – they will never have to worry about losing their pencils when they are so unique.

One last thing…

With Valentines Day coming up soon (are you reading this Matt?), I created an Etsy treasury featuring romantic artworks. Art makes a lovely Valentine’s gift! Check it out:

Have a great weekend!

Posted on January 18, 2010January 18, 2010 by Kirsten — 1 Comment

Mini-Exhibition at the Coffee Club

Tonight I’ll be hanging a selection of my paintings at the Coffee Club, Springfield. So if you’re in the area, why not pop in for a great coffee, some delicious food, and take a look at some of my paintings in person?

Sorry the picture isn’t great – my camera has a habit of running out of batteries at inconvenient times. You’ll just have to visit the Coffee Club and check out the paintings in person!

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Kirsten — 3 Comments

First Friday Favourites for 2010!

I was a bit slack over the holiday season, and wasn’t posting my Friday favourites – so this is the first edition for the new year!

This week’s picks are inspired by the colours in my latest painting, “Jacaranda Avenue”:

First up is this divine Bamboo Satin wrap scarf, handpainted by Rainbow Revolution. The colours are just so pretty, and it looks so soft! Better still, Rainbow Revolution is based on the NSW central coast – so it’s an Aussie product.

Another wonderful Aussie product is this beautiful soap called “Snow Queen” by Inner Earth Soaps.

I just got some beautiful soaps from Inner Earth Soaps in the mail today (and of course I had to open one right away and wash my hands just for the hell of it!) so I can personally vouch for how beautiful they are. The lather I got from the soap I tried was thick and creamy.

My next favourite thing for this week is this beautiful pair of Victorian Filigree Teardrop earrings from Adorn You. The blue stone is just gorgeous – they would be beautiful with an evening dress but I think they’d be a great addition to dress up a casual outfit like jeans & a shirt 🙂

Last, but definitely not least, I’ve chosen this pair of pretty Grape Dangle Earrings by Sew Amore. I chose these earrings not just because they’re pretty (I think the colours go together so nicely!), but also for another reason. You’ll notice the listing price on Etsy for these earrings is only $0.20. You read it right, I haven’t made a typo! The reason? These are “Pay it Forward” earrings.

As described by Sew Amore:
“Do your part in making the world a better place by doing a random act of kindness and receive a pair of earrings for only the price of shipping and the listing fee!”

So basically, the idea is to buy the earrings, and then pay it forward by doing something nice for someone else. With all that’s going on in the world right now it shouldn’t be difficult to think of a random act of kindness! What better way to start the new year?

I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s Friday Favourites! Don’t forget to stop by the stores and see all the other lovely products these sellers have. Also, my facebook fan special of a keepsake box and pendant for $50 is ending on Sunday, so get in soon if you’re interested!

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Kirsten

Art Meets Science

Those who know me know that I have an interest in science. I believe it’s the most under-taught subject in the primary school curriculum, and I think that’s because a lot of people (and teachers) either don’t understand it and therefore are not confident teaching it, or they simply think it’s boring.

One of my favourite things to do is paint science-inspired art. I think if people can see that science is interesting and beautiful, it’s got to be a step in the right direction.

With that in mind, I painted this yesterday:

Painted on two sheets of watercolour paper (each one measures 25cm x 35cm), it is inspired by the planets of our solar system. Poor Pluto isn’t included because it’s no longer a planet.

I really enjoyed painting this – it reminded me of looking through my neighbour’s telescope when I was a kid and seeing jupiter for the first time.

Posted on January 14, 2010 by Kirsten — 1 Comment

An early Australia Day…

My latest painting:

For my international readers, the wattle is Australia’s national floral emblem.

I have always loved wattle – I used to collect bunches of it when I was a kid even though it made my hayfever worse than pretty much any other flower. I didn’t care, because it’s so pretty!

This original watercolour measures 7″ x 9″, and is available for purchase. Contact me if you’re interested 🙂

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Kirsten

How I’ve Been Keeping Busy…

I’m lucky enough to be on holidays – so what have I been doing with my time?

I finished off a commissioned painting, and delivered it to my happy customer:

Now that one’s done, I’ve started working on another commission, this one for a friend:

This is just one panel of a triptych. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished painting on her wall! Also a big thank you to my wonderful husband for the new easel it’s sitting on, which I got for Christmas.

Finally, I’ve also been working on some new pendants – these ones are squares and rectangles:

I’m offering a discount to my facebook fans this week – buy a keepsake box and a pendant in your choice of design for $50. Become a fan of KL Bailey Art on facebook for more details!