Just in time for hygge season, it's a 25% off sale!

Hygge (pronounced hue-gah) is the Danish word for the idea of inside winter coziness - you know the sort of thing: warm socks, afghans, fires in the fireplaces, and snuggling. It's like hunkering down, but perhaps without the sort of isolated bunker-mentality that sometimes elicits. As you can see from the photo below, my cat Kismet has this down to an art form:

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Autumn - overlooked my knitting -

Speaking of art forms (were we not?), I've been making slow progress on some larger pieces as well as on a few literary collages. Above is one that I completed not long ago - it features text from an Emily Dickinson poem, "Autumn--overlooked my knitting--".  It's now available in the "Literary Collage" section on my website, if you're interested, at a cost of $150. (25% off from now until end of December.)

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Ooh!

These are actual building plans.

For a brand-new art studio here at my house.

In this season of hygge, I am about to endure weeks of daily assault on my quiet and sanity. On the plus side, in the end, I'm going to have a wonderful new art studio to work in. In the meantime, I'm going to have to move a lot of . . . STUFF . . . in our current living room in order to safeguard it from the work area. And that means I'd really, truly like to sell some finished art. Not just to make money (though who doesn't like money), but because our relatively small house is going to be really hard to navigate if I have to move all this artwork into the hallway and other rooms.

In light of the foregoing, I am offering a HUGE incentive to collectors: TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT (25%) OFF of any piece here on my website. And I'll give you free shipping to addresses in the US as well. 

Why not add to the feeling of hygge in your home by adding some new artwork, while I'm unable to enjoy much of the quite and cozy for a while?

When you don't have designated studio space...

Making art is messy, yo. And that is abundantly on display here at our house.

A tarp, a table, an easel, a cart . . .

There's a canvas tarp folded in half and spread beneath my entire working space. A small folding sewing table that I inherited from my grandmother. It is covered with newspaper, pencils, pens, brushes, some in-process works and more. A lovely new easel that my husband bought me to support me in my work, literally. A teal IKEA cart that holds some of my supplies - stamping stuff on the bottom tier, oil and chalk pastels plus bubble wrap in the middle, gel mediums and other items up top. 

The chair is one I bought at a flea market 25 years ago for $1. There are stacks of canvases in various states of completion leaning against furniture and walls. Boxes full of mark-making tools (foam brushes, rollers, stencils and more), paints (Golden paints in bottles and tubes in one, FW Daler & Rowney acrylic inks and Liquitex soft body acrylics in another). A rattan trunk full of papers for collage. A basket of ribbons for "decorative trim". All of it quite literally in the middle of the living room, as you can see.

I can't work whenever I want

You can see last week's Eagles-Giants game on the screen in the background. I'm an Eagles fan, but my husband is a much bigger one. And since he tolerates my mess, I don't work when they play, because I'd be blocking his view of the screen, and that would be unfair.

Buddha

Buddha reminds me to keep calm. You can see him on the floor at the left of the above photo, but here is what he looks like just now. This colorful canvas whispered that it wanted a face, and it turned out it wanted a Buddha face. It is not *quite* done yet, but it's getting very close. And it is a nice reminded to keep calm while I carry on making my artwork.

New items

What I just started working on is a new series of autumn-themed pieces that include layers written in pencil, which are from the poems of Emily Dickinson. "If you were coming in the fall" and "Autumn—overlooked my knitting—".

IT'S A CONTEST!

At present, I have 10 people signed up for the newsletter here on my website. You can sign up on my home page using the form at the bottom of the page. 

When I get to 30 subscribers, I am going to pull a name from among all my subscribers and the winner will receive this print of my Raven piece.

It's a signed 8"x10" print and will arrive to you rolled in a mailing tube. (The print is seen above weighted by a mug on the left and some pistachios in a jar on the right. Mug and pistachios not included in raffle.)

Doing the work

This week, I've completed a collage/mixed media piece using handmade marbled paper and begun several new pieces.

Copyright Kelly Ramsdell 2017

Isn't this little bird cute? He's hand-cut from handmade marbleized paper, and collaged onto an 8"x10" canvas. He's moving into the "Art for Sale" gallery this evening.

The above images aren't full-sized (heck, it's a 24"x30" canvas), but they show the progression of the first four layers of a new larger work in progress. Below are two smaller pieces - the pastel smears are over top of a completed project on an 18"x24" canvas that really wasn't working for me. I already like it so much better than when it started. And the other is on a 9"x12" canvas board, showing the first two layers on a new collage. Those bright splashes were made by applying paint to actual maple leaves.

It's so much fun working with both summer and autumn palettes at the same time!

Rainy Days and Mondays I & II

On a rainy Monday a few weeks back, I began a new piece using acrylic inks and acrylic paints in lush greens and blues based on what I was seeing outside through the rain-drenched window. Over a four- to five-day period, I kept coming back to it, adding new layers and bits, and eventually adding a bit of white gel pen, too, because it seemed to want it. In the end, Rainy Days and Mondays looked like this:

Rainy Days & Mondays I (Copyright Kelly R. Ramsdell 2017)

Imagine my surprise the following Monday when it was again a rainy morning. I started a new canvas to reflect the yummy rainy day outside, and called it Rainy Days & Mondays II. This one is more blue than green, though of course it has greens and browns in it.

Rainy Days & Mondays II (Copyright Kelly R. Ramsdell 2017)

"What I feel has come and gone before
No need to talk it out
We know what it's all about"

Rainy Days & Mondays rarely get me down.

Tour of my "studio" space

I don't know about you, but if you are anything at all like me, you are interested in seeing where artists work. In my case, at present, it is in the middle of our living room. And yes, it means I have an exceptionally tolerant and supportive husband - especially since if left to his own devices, everything would be exceedingly tidy. Instead, it looks like this:

Copyright Kelly R. Ramsdell 2017

As you can see, there's nothing tidy about the entire situation. 

Some of my supplies are stored in boxes, and some of those boxes fit under a nearby piece of furniture. Others . . . don't. Some of my supplies are stored in a swell teal cart from IKEA. Some are jammed behind pieces of furniture or stored in an entirely separate room.

My workspace, which you can see a closeup of below, consists of a collapsible sewing table that I inherited from my grandmother, which is set on top of a large tarp that also houses the swell new easel that my sweetheart purchased for me recently as a gift. The table usually holds my butcher tray palette, a container of water, spray bottles, pencils, paint markers, brushes, and occasionally gel medium, as well as whatever paints I'm using at the moment. 

Copyright Kelly R. Ramsdell 2017

You can see a copy of in-progress pieces on the left there. The bird is cut and collaged from marbleized paper that I made in a workshop a while back. Isn't he cheery?

Farewell, my lovely

A couple weeks ago, I began a painting that I call EXPLORE, my first really big painting at 30x40" in size. It began looking a bit like this: 

Eventually, after many additional layers of acrylic paints and inks, it looked like this:

Finished

And now, it's getting packed up and shipped off to California, because it sold right off my easel just that fast.