australian artist – Page 4 – Kirsten Bailey: Art

Posted on July 29, 2017 by Kirsten

Heart Felt at :the mezzanine: @ Entangle – Living Art

The Heart Felt exhibition at :the mezzanine:, Entangle – Living Art, is happening in just under a week and I’m starting to get ~~nervous~~ excited!

Heart Felt Exhibition at the mezzanine, Entangle - Living Art, Dayboro

This is the first time I’ve been involved in an exhibition since before my daughter was born, and I think the theme fits perfectly with my painting style. Many of my paintings, especially my ‘family tree portraits’, feature hearts and convey feelings of belonging, love and connectedness.

Hope Within - Original watercolour painting by Kirsten Bailey — “Hope Within”

I really enjoy being involved in exhibitions. Not only do they give me an opportunity to showcase my work, but they also allow me to see the work of others. My husband is staying home with the kids on Friday night for the opening, so this exhibition will also an opportunity for a kid-free night out!

If you enjoy my work, I really hope you’ll take this opportunity to come and see it in person. I do my best to scan or photograph artwork carefully, but seeing it in person really brings it to life. There are also 6 other artists showcasing their work, and from what I’ve seen of their work so far, I’m extremely honoured (and maybe a little intimidated!) to be showing my work alongside theirs.

“Heart Felt” opens at 6pm on Friday 4th August at :the mezzanine: @ Entangle – Living Art, 38 Williams St, Dayboro. The exhibition runs through until August 27.

Posted on July 16, 2017July 16, 2017 by Kirsten

Art as meditation

Taking Flight - Original abstract watercolour painting by KL Bailey Art

I’ve never been good at meditating. Most of the time I have trouble switching my brain off to be able to sleep, let alone meditating. But I do find that creating art is a form of meditation for me, especially when I’m creating more intricate pieces and lots of little swirls. I get lost in the painting.

Two of my most recent painting are great examples of this.

Dracontine - Original abstract watercolour painting by KL Bailey Art — Dracontine by KL Bailey Art

For these two paintings, I was initially inspired by Linda Melvin’s abstract watercolours. I started working wet-on-wet and letting the paint flow and do its own thing. I also used gauze as a textural element, as she does with some of her work. But that’s where the similarities end.

As you can see, my work is very different to hers. In her tutorials, Linda talks about the importance of coming back in and enhancing an image after it dries. This is the stage at which I get carried away! For both of these paintings, I began to see a shape emerging from the abstract patterns – in one I saw a humanoid figure, and the other, a dragon-like shape. As I went in with my fine paintbrush to enhance the images, I accentuated the shapes I saw. In both cases, I did not know what the shape would be until the initial layers of paint dried. I used swirls and patterns to add details to the images.

I really enjoyed creating both of these paintings – I loved the way I could switch off my brain and get lost in the small details, and the way that an image emerged from the painting seemingly on its own. When I paint, I feel calm and peaceful, and it’s the closest thing I get to meditating.

Original paintings ‘Taking Flight‘ and ‘Dracontine‘ are both available for purchase in my Etsy store. Prints and accessories are available via Redbubble or Society6.

Posted on July 3, 2017July 3, 2017 by Kirsten

Illustration Friday – Love

This week’s topic over at Illustration Friday is ‘love’. I haven’t participated in one of these prompts in a really long time – I think the last one was back in January 2011 (and ironically, that post is all about how my new year’s resolution was to participate in prompts more often. Whoops.) I decided to participate this week because the topic is one that really suits my painting style.

One of my favourite things to do is represent people as trees, showing the relationships between the people using colour, size, spacing and other elements.

Night Romance - original watercolour painting of two heart trees by KL Bailey Art — “Night Romance”

In one of my most recent paintings, I used two trees to represent the love of a couple. I represented the theme of ‘love’ in a variety of ways. Firstly, the trees themselves are shaped like hearts. You will also notice many hearts in the swirls of the leaves if you look closely. I painted the trees very close together, overlapping. I also deliberately allowed the paint to run and mix at the point where the trees touched – I wanted to convey the way that in a close relationship, people become part of one another. I used the a mix of the red and blue in the colours of the sky to also show this connection.

You can purchase this original painting from my Etsy Store or my Facebook page. Prints and art products available at RedBubble and Society6.

Posted on June 16, 2017June 16, 2017 by Kirsten

Win a $50 KL Bailey Art Voucher

I’m having a competition over on my Facebook page, where you can win a $50 voucher to spend on any of my paintings. You can even use it to commission a brand new personalised painting! Supporters over on Patreon get a bonus 5 entries. I will draw the competition on Saturday 1st July. Best of luck!

Posted on June 13, 2017 by Kirsten

A family portrait with a difference!

Many people are looking for interesting art for their walls to represent their families. I myself have grand plans for a family feature wall in our next house.

I can create a work of art for you that represents your family in a unique way. In my family tree portraits, I represent the family using a number of my signature swirly trees.

Little Family - Original watercolour painting by Kirsten Bailey — “Little Family”

In the portrait, I represent each parent in a different primary colour. I then represent the children as a secondary colour that is a blend of the two parents’ colours, to represent that the children are a blending of the two parents. I also use hearts to represent the love the family shares. I can do any variation on this theme you like, including creating a portrait for blended families with stepchildren. It is a great way to have an artwork on your wall that uniquely represents your family. These paintings can be created as anything from small watercolours on paper to large acrylic paintings on canvas.

Another way your family can be uniquely represented on your wall is in a painting like this:

In this painting, only a couple are represented – however, smaller birds could be added to represent children. Once again, a painting like this can be commissioned as anything from a small watercolour to a large canvas. I have plans to create a painting like this for my own family – but I think I might make the background more like this one:

Under the Milky Way - original watercolour painting by Kirsten Bailey — Under the Milky Way

If you’d like to commission a painting that represents your family in a unique way, please contact me!

Posted on June 7, 2017June 7, 2017 by Kirsten

Abstract watercolours

I love painting in watercolours – it’s definitely my favourite medium. My watercolours are a bit unusual compared to many I’ve seen, as many of them are abstract or naive in style. I love making abstract watercolours because it gives me a chance to let the paint have a ‘mind of its own’.

Many of my favourite abstract watercolours are inspired by science, like my ‘Moons of Jupiter’ series:

Some more ‘space’ inspired works:

Red Planet - abstract watercolour painting of Mars by KL Bailey Art — “Red Planet”

From the very big to the very small – some of my other abstract watercolours are inspired by microscopic images:

"Filtered" red and blue abstract watercolour painting by kirsten bailey — “Filtered”

"Needle" - original abstract watercolour painting by kirsten bailey — “Needle”

But I think my favourite overall is this one – it’s only a tiny painting, but it has a lot of detail:

Subterranean - original abstract watercolour painting by Kirsten Bailey — “Subterranean”

Posted on June 3, 2017June 6, 2017 by Kirsten

Don’t Forget to be Awesome

So I haven’t posted here in a while, for a lot of reasons – I haven’t had much time for creating since I had my kids, and I’ve had even less time for the more tedious aspect to having an art business: promotion. I’ve completed a few paintings since I last posted, but just didn’t get around to putting them up here. I’m also hoping for a long-overdue overhaul of this website, but I’ve decided not to wait until that’s done before I start getting organised again.

My latest painting is called DFTBA, and I think it’s very fitting that this is the beginning of my creative revival. I hope you like it!

Don't forget to be awesome - space painting by KL Bailey Art — Don’t forget to be awesome

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 November 7, 2009November 16, 2009 by Kirsten — 7 Comments

Inspire Me Thursday – Spain

This week’s prompt on Inspire Me Thursday is “Spain”. Having never had the opportunity to visit Spain, this was a tricky one for me – I was forced to resort to Google.

I typed “Spain scenery” into Google, and this is the first image that I really loved:

This photograph was taken by Graham Pritchard. You can see some of his other photographs here.

I used this photograph as inspiration to paint a watercolour of this beautiful scenery.

As you can see, the painting is not exactly the same as the photograph – I used the photo as a jumping-off point, and let the painting develop in whatever directions felt right to me.

Posted on November 5, 2009November 16, 2009 by Kirsten

An Interview

I’m excited to tell you that I’ve been interviewed by Courtney at Green and Pretty as the Artist of the Week!

Head on over to her blog to check it out – she also writes about fashion and home decor, so the blog is well worth a visit.

Don’t forget I also have 2010 calendars for sale, and to become a fan on my brand new Facebook fan page.

I might have some other exciting news in a few days too… I’ll keep you posted!