Impasto Variations and More Ant Fun

I have been painting for more years than I care to admit to and it is always a new experience.  It is amazing how paintings like to push the artist around instead of the artist controlling the work.  As I have said before, it is a balancing act between control and accident.  I can't imagine using any kind of formula.  I know some artists do and all I can say is "to each their own" but it is not for me.  I sort of know what I am doing, but I always allow for things to happen that I didn't plan which makes for a perpetually exciting experience.  Right now I am modifying the impasto method I have been using for years so that the elevation of the painting is barely there.  At one time I was practically putting it on with a spoon but I am now using  a subtle impasto effect and incorporating many different warm and cool colors with each brushstroke.  Keeps me going!  Dancers have a saying that they must dance or die well I must paint or die.  I hope I have a paint brush in my hand when I go.  If I have mentioned that before it is because it is the truth.

On the home front the ants are back in the kitchen.  We are still seeing a few in the bathrooms but now there are quite a lot in the kitchen.  Time to get more ant traps and try to keep them out of things.  There weren't too many this evening.  I usually put the pudding away and my husband gets it out again.  Tonight I got mine and told him he had better hurry before the ants get it.  He said he got there just as they were hitching their wagon to the bowl!  He got it away from them just in the nick of time!  The war is on for the warm weather.

Be sure to check out my specials for the week!  Just click on Limited Time on Fine Art America.  I will have three starting Thursday morning.  Mine are usually on the first or second page.

Pushing the Clay Around and Sheldon and the Corpse...

It is hard for me to believe two things these days. I can't believe I ever thought oil paint didn't cost that much and that our grocery bill was ever less than outrageous. I am not happy if I use the traditional thin to thick glazes of oil paint. The paint isn't that expensive if one uses that method. I push it around like a sculptor does clay on an armature. Sometimes I sink back into the old method and immediately go back to slathering it on and pulling expressive forms out of it. I can't get my unique color style or expression any other way so, yes, oil paint is very expensive. Not as expensive as our groceries but it is up there.

I don't watch a lot of TV for two reasons. I don't have the time and I am a movie buff. It usually takes me days to watch one movie but there are no commercials and the ones I watch seem to have much better acting and dialog then what I see on TV. The only show I like to watch is The Big Bang Theory and so does my husband. More and more the plots seem to be centered around the fact that Sheldon is an obnoxious know-it-all who drives the others crazy. My husband said Sheldon would drive a corpse crazy. No doubt.

Be sure to check out my Limited Time promotions on Fine Art America. I have three specials on canvas prints of popular paintings at about 40% off.

I do not Have Time for the Pain and Statue of Limitations

 I know.  My life sounds like an old Carly Simon song right now.

I am one unhappy workaholic right now.  I am spending way too much time trying to keep from being in pain.  The MRI did not show anything out of the ordinary so I guess it is up to me to figure out how to stop my leg and hip from hurting.  If I just go about trying to do a zillion things in one day I am in so much pain it wakes me up at night and I wake up in pain.  The pain is usually gone after exercise but it keeps coming back so I have to keep stopping and stretching out the muscles.  If I don't get back to painting soon I will flip.  I have a number of large paintings I want to start and I will start them soon.  The physical therapy was useless so I think I will look into some sort of class that may help. Also, I will take Marlene's advice and have some blood work done.  I HATE BEING SLOWED DOWN!

My husband has noticed that a lot of people these days are saying statue of limitations instead of statute of limitations.  Do you think they are talking about the unfinished statue of St. Matthew by Michelangelo?

Sold Two More Prints and My Fat Missed Me

I can't complain about this week-end even though I worked almost every minute of it on art, housework, or taking care of a sick kid. I used to brag about my great feet that never hurt. Those days are over. Sold a print on Friday and one today so that sweetens up a mostly sour week-end. It is great to be appreciated.

I have had to watch my weight my whole life. I was never very overweight but there were times I did have some extra. Fortunately my mother could have founded Weight Watchers. She cooked meals that are just like what you see in Weight Watcher menus. None of us are overweight and I have managed to keep the extra pounds off since I left home many years ago. I have a number of friends that are still fighting the battle of the bulge and keep trying this diet or that. They want to insist I am just one of those people that doesn't have to worry but it isn't true. I tell them Weight Watchers is the group to join. One of my friends lost quite a bit of extra weight and then slowly put it on over a period of a couple of years. She told her husband, "My fat missed me".

This Would Not Happen if I had Time and The Only Alien I am going to see

I'm sure all artists that don't make their living off of their artwork can understand this problem. I make part of my living at it and I will never give up on getting paid for what I consider to be my job but I need that rich patron to support my efforts so I don't have to stop in the middle of my work. I wish I could spend as much time as I want on my paintings. There are so many other things I have to do that I am frustrated with all the starting and stopping. Still whining for extra hours to the day...

My husband and I were talking about movies with aliens in them. I have seen so few and really don't like alien movies. Some of them are so gruesome and some of them are so frightening that I avoid them. I have enough nightmares. My husband is not that interested in them either. He said the only alien he is going to see is the one staring back at him from the mirror

I have to Cover Them and I Hope the Multi taskers are not...

My studio is a room that my brother-in-law attached to our house many years ago. Then he got married and had five kids and we haven't seen him since! Just joking. Anyway, I can see my easel from my bedroom and I used to study my paintings from a distance during the day. Now they have become so complicated and intense that I have to cover them when I am not working on them. Every change in light makes such a difference and I can't work on them all day long. Now I understand why the famous 20th century artist Pierre Bonnard would turn them to the wall so he wouldn't become too involved in them. I tell my students that when you are analyzing every square inch and making decisions on whether or not that section looks right and whether or not it looks right with the rest of the work then you are into heavy duty art. It doesn't matter whether it is looks like something or not, there are zillions of visual decisions to be made. What a fascinating experience!

I am becoming more and more concerned with other drivers. I think it much more likely to be in an accident these days than when I was young. I am now much aware of what is going on around me. I just hope that all the multi taskers that eat, talk on a cell phone, watch a movie, read, and check their hair in the mirror are not multi stupid.

The Final Brush Marks and Frances is just Too Nice

It is always so hard to know when to quit on a painting. I have learned over the years to let them alone for a while before deciding if they are really done but it is so difficult to stop. Often times I feel like I should push one a little more before I quit but that usually just creates more problems to solve and perfection is always out of reach. Since my work is representational people that don't understand abstract art are always trying to get me to explain it to them. I tell them that I can't explain what all artists do. I believe the only way people that only understand art as a picture of something can understand how all art is abstract is for them to take it up themselves. Whether the artwork has specific shapes from nature or not there are a multitude of decisions to be made based on how it looks as a work of art created by one personality.

Just put the last marks on one I am pleased with. It's not exactly what I want but it is close.

Our dog Frances is just too nice. The other day we saw her about two feet from her dish. She was calmly watching a cat eat her dog food. She didn't bark or go after the stray cat. I guess the natural animosity between dogs and cats is not always true. She is still periodically staring at the neighbor's dogs as they bard like mad at her. She never barks back or bares her teeth at them. Sweet old dog.

It is Paint and Can We be Friends?

When I was young I didn't understand the phrase artistic license. I thought that it was an excuse for the inability to reasonably reproduce things. Like many young artists I was working on my drawing and painting skills and had no idea what artists that understood the phrase meant by it. When a teacher would try to explain to me that all art is an abstraction from life I would smile politely and think the teacher was either nuts or making up some nonsense.

Now I talk exactly the same way to students and I don't think I have flipped. When critics of Manet's portrait of Emile Zola said the pants didn't look like pants he said in so many words they are not pants. It's paint! Regardless of whether the painting looks like something or not it is an arrangement by the artist that is in some way an abstraction from life. My work is a visual arrangement of my feelings for the natural world and I am thrilled when people understand the "license" in my paintings.

My old dog was running back and forth at our fence while the very small dogs next door chased back and forth barking like mad. Now our dog, Frances, likes to just go to the fence and walk around a little. The dogs still bark like mad and bare their teeth. Frances just looks at them and never barks. If she could talk I'll bet she would say, "Can't we just be friends?"

Painting, More Painting, and When was the Last Time You saw a Green Heron?

I have been enjoying returning to some paintings that I haven't sold yet and working on them here and there. I rarely do this. Once I finish with a painting I move on to the next one and let the other one live. It is so easy to get too worked up over one. It is hard to return to a painting due to the fact that I am always changing my methods even though they always have my touch. I have to remember what it was that motivated me to do the painting in the first place and the particular approach I took then. My palette has lightened up over the years which is typical of many painters but recently I have returned to darker colors in current work. I go around in circles but they are all extensions of me. I love what I do!

My husband, Clyde Kessler, is a well-known naturalist in the New River Valley and has been asked to become part of a business venture to promote tourism and wildlife studies. He leads tours for a new group called Radbird and was an excellent guide this past week-end at Bike Virginia in Radford. What a wonderful float down the New River from River View Park to Bisset Park! This tour was called the Green Heron Tour as there are always a lot of Green Herons on this part of the river. We were all pleased to see many Green Herons, and a Great Blue Heron that showed up right on cue as did around 50 other species of birds. It is great have such a knowledgeable husband who dedicates so much of his time to educating the public about the wonders all around us. There are so many wonderful things to do that don't require batteries.

Paintings can become Old Friends and I miss my Big Stomach

Most of my paintings that I think are successful are out the door before I hardly have a chance to look at them. Some other paintings I think are successful go unnoticed and then some that I am not too pleased about are big hits with others. Either way I don't sell them all and I am quite prolific so I have paintings around me. Some of them have problems that bother me and some become old friends. Most of my paintings improve with age. I forget what it was that was bothering me and just see what is successful. I enjoy looking at the old friends and hope they will be bought eventually.

I have fought the battle of the bulge my whole life. I can remember being teased about being a little chubby when I was five years old. I won the battle in High School and have kept my weight down ever since. I love to eat but I can't stand to carry around extra weight. My husband was thin as a rail when we were married and gradually put on extra weight and became rather portly. Last year we finally found out why he has so much indigestion and pain in his abdomen. He is fructose intolerant and has had to cut out certain fruits, vegetable and wheat products. As a result he has lost thirty pounds and is slim again.

One night when we were lying in bed watching TV he said he missed his gut. Took him years to get it that way eating the foods he can no longer eat. I guess some people would rather have the extra weight than give up certain foods!

Almost to the Finish Line and So What if they are Little Shrimps?

I am almost to the end of a grueling painting. It is nice to achieve close to what I want which is all anyone can ever do. Painting is a never ending learning process and the next one will be perfect. Painters have to learn to live with all most and wait. They look much better later. Time to get back to work on one I was not at all happy with. I'm sure I know what to do now. Hope springs eternal.

Our neighbor has acquired a number of very small dogs. I'm not sure what breed they are but they sure can bark. We have an old medium sized labrador mutt and she seems to be getting into checking out the dogs at the fence. We have a shed that blocks off part of the fence. She goes to one part of the fence and they bark like mad. Then she runs to the other side and they bark like mad. My husband said she probably likes the company. So what if they are little shrimps? They are her own kind and she sure looks happy running back and forth.

Be sure to check out my Limited Time Promotion on two popular paintings at kendall-kessler.artistwebsites.com

It is not Just a Paint Job and Mom always said I was Crazy

I was working away at a difficult, intense painting today and, as always, thoughts from various teachers were going through my mind. I remember one teacher said that when he got the idea for the painting, the rest was just a paint job. For me, nothing could be further from the truth. My paintings go through many stages and I use so many colors and textures that the complexity of visual information is overwhelming. I don't think the average person can understand what I am talking about, but I think it is safe to say that for most artists it is not what you paint but how you paint it. My work is a unique interpretation of what is in front of me. Hopefully people can see the intense feeling that I put into every painting through the colors and brushwork.

My mother, whom I dearly love, often told me I was crazy. She is my greatest supporter and a wonderful person. She encouraged me to be an artist when many parents discourage children to pursue art. She is a fantastic pianist so she understands what it is to be an artist. My energy, my ways of doing things, and my unusual views on life are the reason she called me crazy. She is right but I wouldn't be any other way! Thanks Mom!

The Painting is Working and Why People Say Swear Like a Sailor

I live to paint but it is a serious discipline. Over the years I have discovered so many personal directions that my abilities are stretched every time I paint. As most painters will tell you, what worked for one painting doesn't necessarily work for another painting. I have only discovered one absolute direction for all paintings and that is to not let much time go between each session. It is like playing a musical instrument. I have to be at it everyday. If I miss a day then I seem to lose my place in a painting. Years ago I discussed this with Dorothy Gillespie when she graciously taught a course at Radford University. She certainly agreed. My current painting is working out but I have to get in there and keep going.

Last night I was thinking about the saying "Swear like a Sailor". In my experience, that has been true but I wonder why we have that saying. My husband said if you had to spend all that time on a boat with no place else to go what do you think you would say? I mean no dis-respect to sailors. My father was a medical officer in the Navy during WWII and I miss him and his sometimes colorful language very much.

Coming Along and Breathing for Dummies

My current painting is intimidating to say the least. It will be the featured painting for my next show in November. I live to paint but sometimes it is an agonizing process. It is so easy to be too controlling and then the painting can't talk back. I have to let the magic happen so the result is something that can't be reproduced. My paintings have become so visually complex that I can't stand to see them when I'm not working on them. There better not be any barking dogs today.

My writer husband and I were talking about all the self-help books that you see everywhere now. He decided he is going to write "Breathing for Dummies". I think that would catch on like wildfire. LOL

My promotion on "Marsh View on Pawleys Island" is still on. Be sure to check it out in the Limited Time Only section on Fineartamerica.com

Better Day in the Studio and Why My Marraige Works

Yesterday I arm wrestled a painting down. Still not happy about it but it is much better. Now is the time to let it live for a while and then see if I want to go back into it. I'm back on the balance beam but still shaky. Painting will drive me crazy if I let it. I refuse to let that happen. Too much else to do.

New promotion on one of my favorite paintings, "Marsh View, Pawleys Island"! I have 20"x24" canvas prints for sale until June 18th. The price is $136.00 which is about 30% off. Just check out the Limited Time Only section on kendall-kessler.fineartamerica.com

My husband and I figured out why we hardly ever argue. I never listen to what he says and he never listens to what I say. Just a joke! Love you, sweetie!

Not my Favorite Day in the Studio and The Crystal Ball

Today is the last day for my Limited Time Only offer on "Breakers, Pawleys Island", "A Break in the Clouds", and "A Pair". Check it out!

Yesterday I had one of my difficult studio days. Good art is a balancing act and I fell off the beam. I am looking forward to fighting with the painting today. If it was easy and I could get exactly what I wanted out of a painting it would be boring. I love art because it is partly a magic act full of surprises.

When I was growing up I remember a saying my mother repeated often. She is extremely conscientious and is always bothered by hindsight. She grieves over making the wrong choice. The saying is no one has a crystal ball. Last month she decided to try out a month by month retirement home. It was a lot of trouble to move over there and get set up. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would not like it and move back home. Friday she moved back home. For once I had a crystal ball.

Last Day of Special Promotion and No Screetching Dog on Monday

Don't miss out on buying one of my three most popular prints at a greatly reduced price today! kendall-kessler.fineartamerica.com My work will light up any space. Over the years I have received numerous compliments from patrons regarding their purchase. One patron has my still life in her kitchen and she says it brings her so much joy as she begins her day.

I am so excited about my current painting. I am working on a simple rose study that won't be simple when I am done with it. It will reach out to the viewer with so much exciting color and texture that people will want to touch it. That is my favorite compliment. I want to touch your paintings. My paintings have exquisite surfaces with intense, emotional brushwork. The painting here is Bull Mountain.

Tomorrow my sweet, old dog will be at the groomers all day so I can work on photographing my work. I put her in the shade and she squeals and cries until I am done. I guess she just can't stand to be tethered anymore. She will feel a lot better when she gets that coat shaved. I don't think she will be around much longer. She is a very old dog that still acts like a puppy.

Last Two Days of Special Promotion and Claytor Lake

Just two more days of my special promotion on three of my most popular paintings! "A Break in the Clouds", "Breakers, Pawleys Island", and " A Pair" are in the Limited time section on Fine Art America. Don't miss this opportunity to get a canvas print at a greatly reduced price! Mountain lovers, beach lovers, and pear lovers need to check this out!

Yesterday this workaholic spent a few hours at Claytor Lake. I don't know why I love the water so much but I am as excited about getting in as I was when I was little. It is no wonder that many of my paintings have water. Shores, rivers, creeks, lakes and ponds. The look and feel of water is incredible!. I am so happy swimming and talking with my friend Patty. I'm so glad my mother insisted we all learn to swim. My husband never learned. He is missing so much!

Living with Autism the sale of Color Blast and the sales of two glicees

As any parent of an autistic child knows, it isn't easy living with mental illness. My husband and I love our son and always will but some days are so hard when he is extremely difficult to communicate with. I wish someone would find a cure for this illness. I do not agree with people that think there is nothing wrong with autism and the only problem is that the rest of us view it as a disorder. It is a handicap and I doubt whether he will be able to successfully live on his own. I'm not asking for sympathy. It is just good sometimes to vent a little. He is a good person and he does the best he can with his lot in life and we will continue to assist him until we are no longer around to do so.

I am so glad I am an artist. Everyday I am excited about whatever time I have to work at my art. It is such a wonderful experience and I love making part of my living at my sales. I will never give up on making it my only job but for now all sales are great. Recently, I sold the original painting entitled "Color Blast". This past week two giclees of Pawley's Island were sold to a patron in South Carolina. My visitors have doubled in the last few months and I look forward to future sales but the most important thing is to paint which I will be doing tomorrow morning as soon as the dishes are done.

Classes and the Sale of Wildflowers Near Fancy Gap

I am so pleased to have more freedom this semester as I only have two classes. It is great to have more time to work at what I live to do. I get depressed if I can't keep up my painting schedule. The process is much more complicated than the average person realizes. It isn't just a matter of picking up a brush when inspiration strikes. Art is an intense discipline and I can't go more than one day with out losing something that pertains to the particular technique I am using for each work. I have been building on a style that is unique to me even though people can see similarities to various established styles. I lose something and gain something with each painting. I have learned over the years how to let them live and not work them to death.

Control and accident. I have said this before but I think one has to be a serious painter to truly understand this difficult balancing act. As Dorothy Gillespie once said to me in so many words, "Painters always have this feeling that they are falling off a cliff when working." It is a job that is only partly thought out. The rest is a leap of faith.

As always I am so pleased that I recently sold one of my favorite paintings. "Wildflowers Near Fancy Gap" is one of my favorite paintings and I know the patron greatly appreciates it.

Currently I have paintings on ebay and always on ebay classified for Blacksburg, VA
Prints on clothing, paper products, and kitchen wares can be purchased at www.zazzle.com/newriverartist