New Work – Kirsten Bailey: Art

Posted on March 14, 2014March 21, 2014 by Kirsten — 1 Comment

Painting for Baby

Today I finished a painting for my son’s nursery. I’m very happy with it! Not least of all because he smiled when he saw it 🙂

I haven’t had a chance to scan it yet, so this is just a picture from my phone and so not the best quality, but I don’t plan on making prints of this one anyway – it’s a special painting just for my little boy. The blue and yellow trees represent my husband and myself, and the little green tree represents my baby boy. I chose these colours specifically to show that he is a mix of the two of us. Inside the blue and yellow trees are green hearts, to represent that he is always in our hearts.

While I won’t be selling this painting or making prints of it, if you like this idea for a baby nursery, I can create a custom artwork for you. You can choose the colours of the trees, their positions, sizes, etc.

I think this would make a lovely gift for a new baby – my son’s painting has a personal inscription on the back of it from me. I hope that when he grows up, it will be something he treasures.

Posted on June 16, 2012 by Kirsten — 2 Comments

Monthly Painters Challenge: Breakfast

This is my first time participating in the Monthly Painters Challenge, hosted on Facebook. And it definitely was a challenge for me!

Each month, a different subject is chosen. This month’s subject was breakfast, and the challenge for me was not the painting itself, but coming up with an idea for the topic. I’m posting this a day late, and it wasn’t due to the time it took to paint, but the time it took for me to think of something!

In the end, this is what I came up with – an image of baby birds being fed a worm by the mummy bird.

Breakfast for Early Birds - original watercolour painting by Kirsten Bailey — Breakfast for Early Birds

The idea came about from the saying “the early bird gets the worm” – lucky mumma bird was early!

I created this painting using watercolours on watercolour paper. Lots of people ask if the black in my paintings is ink, but it is actually black watercolour paint as well.

I’m happy to invite constructive criticism for this piece. In particular, I was wondering about the addition of leaves – I nearly left the branches bare. I’m also concerned that this looks more like sunset than sunrise, which I had intended. Please let me know what you think!

Posted on March 11, 2012March 11, 2012 by Kirsten — 7 Comments

Hope Within

Last weekend, I finished this painting, which I’ve titled Hope Within.

It’s been sitting unfinished for a long time, and to be honest I wasn’t sure if I would ever finish it.

I started this painting last year when I found out I was pregnant. When I later miscarried, I put the painting away because looking at it made me sad. They say that time heals all wounds, and while maybe they never heal completely they do hurt less. Last weekend I finally picked up the brush to finish this work.

After all that time (it’s been nearly a year), the meaning of the painting has evolved. When I started it, it was a symbol of the life growing inside me. Now I see it as a symbol of the fact that I haven’t given up hope.

Sorry for the sad (and maybe too personal) post. I debated with myself about sharing this with you, but ultimately I think I needed to explain the meaning behind the painting.

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Kirsten — 7 Comments

Getting My Groove Back

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve done more painting than I probably did during the whole of last year.

There were lots of reasons for it including work (my day job is teaching) as well as some difficult things I was going through. I just wasn’t in the mood to paint, and when I did give it a go I wasn’t happy with the results.

For one reason or another, I seem to have gotten my ‘groove’ back, and have lots of new ideas for paintings running around in my head. I’ve decided to finish off any unfinished work before I get to the new stuff.

You might remember a while back that I started a commission for some friends of mine. The challenge was to create a large acrylic on canvas version of my painting Colours of Nature. Well, I finally finished it! All those little swirls took quite a while but I’m very happy with the result. I can’t wait to see it hanging up!

After finishing this painting I felt such a sense of accomplishment, I wanted to do more!

First I painted this one, which I’m calling “Rainbow on a Cloudy Day”. It’s a LOT smaller than the one above – it’s only 4″ x 6″. It can stand up on its own so can be put on a shelf instead of hung on the wall.

After completing this one I really wanted to have a go at some other new ideas in my head (and play with some new paints) but I thought I should finish off some unfinished work. So…

I finished this one, which has been sitting and waiting patiently for more than a year for some attention. Well, it’s nearly finished anyway – all I have to do is spray on a coat of sealant and it’s done. I have done many watercolour paintings in this style, but it was a challenge to create the same effect with a canvas! I’m eager to try to do more like this.

Finally, I also finished this painting:

There was really no excuse for not getting this painting finished earlier, as all that was left to do was the tree trunks and branches – all of the detail work in the swirls was already finished. I’m very happy with how it turned out in the end!

Hopefully I will be able to keep you up-to-date with lots of new work in the future!