A sketch of my Grandma (when she was young, sitting on the beach) I gave my mom for her birthday yesterday. Gram passed away last year, day after my mom’s birthday.

Finalized #4 of WRECKED and using the same heated transparent tones added into the big figurative “Rebirth”. The sun WAS about then disappeared again 😫

Done”, I am actually naming it that. 48x48 •WRECKED• series. The brick is what I have left from the fireplace. I kept one for my brother too. #fireplace #forest #fire #forestfire #art #painting #breakingthrough #california #wrecked #modernart #contemporaryart #artist #artstudio 

Final touching 3 of the •WRECKED• series. About to start submitting them. If your curious what my biographical series is about dm me. #memoir #biography #wrecked #forestfire 

 #3 of •WRECKED• final tweaking done. Go to my IG for more updates on new work Kellie Thomas-Walker

Sketching in Sahara with paint/charcoal. When I was little my parents were all set to buy a retired Race Horse named Sahara Shizad. We had a coral for her. She wasn’t white but I’m going to paint her white. They didn’t end up buying her. I was so sad. I always wondered where she went, if she was still alive. I would have taken such good care of her. The corralmay be burned downthis past summer. But I can sure paint my memories •WRECKED• series 

Rework of “Had To” #3 of WRECKED

4ft x4ft “Had To” #3 in •WRECKED• series . I was almost done but yesterday I restructured her skin. I wanted her linesto be more muted, so I blended a transparent layer all over around her skin. She’s in water, I didn’t paint prominent reflective lines as I wanted an eerie morose beauty to arose from the piece. This piece is EXTREMELY hard to photograph as it has so many transparent layers that just can’t quite get captured on camera. I added more depth to her dress as well as the background. #art #painting #anatomystudy #interiordesign #artofinstagram #figurativeart #figurepainting #abstractart #artgallery #decor #artist #arte #losangeles #london #japan #ladyinthelake

Almost done with 48x48

48x48 Lady in the Lake (not the title) is almost done. 

Work on my lady in the lake

48x48, Adding in the blue tones and I grazed the texture with a hint of light grey to pop the texture. Sculpting her arm, hand and chest next. Then I’ll add subtle  eerie highlights all over. This is 4ft 

Sketch

Quick sketch. Any of my sketches and some of my paintings are available for prints. Just email me (website) for prices/dimensions #artprints #quicksketch #illustration #drawing #portrait #modernart #gallery #artofinstagram

Fire Series #5

Started painting the new 48x36 of my Fire Series. Working on her hand, flames and eyes today. Dm me for paint mixing 

Fire Series #5

Started painting the new 48x36 of my Fire Series. Working on her hand, flames and eyes today. Dm me for paint mixing 

quick start to #5 of the Fire Series, 48x36 Pic one is the sketch and I set it with white paint since I used vine charcoal which dusts of easily. Just the start, this one is going to be slight eerie-she’ll be holding fire with a constant look on her face. I’m going to do realistic detail to her hand. I’ve had a plan on this one and the next-which I just picked up a BIG 60x48 canvas today for the next. I’m really excited about this one #

When I paint hair or fabric (layered fabric) I used a long round tip brush with heavy body paint/gloss medium. Thin the paint out so that the long swipe of the brush can move smoothly. Oh her dress I had a spray bottle of water. After each swipe I would spray then swipe the brushwork with my fingers. I used a veridian green mixed with black then went back over with a sheer pale blue for highlights. Her hair since she’s laying down surrounded by glowing fire her hair shouldn’t be one hair color. Adding in heated tones that I premixed days ago, based on magenta, pyrole red, Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold and green gold bring out the glow. (Link in bio for backstory to Fire Series) Play with your mixtures to get your desired hues. I get my brushes (weekly lately) at Art Supply Warehousein Westminster 

Started paintingmy new ladyfloating in water with fire nearby/part #4 in my Fire Series 

Finished up adding neon green/glaze for an eerie element to my childhood fireplace and started some backgrounds for some drawings with ink/fluids. Happy rainy Monday! 

I whited out her face to restart it. I wanted the angle changed on how she was watching things. This is going to be quite visceral. But this series isn’t supposed to be all rainbows and sunshine. The big digger Pine trees I loved so much growing up are gone from the fire. I put them in her-ablaze. Art is supposed to bring out feeling and emotion. My challenge to all of you is to FEEL 

I know I keep posting the progress on this. Here’s some alternativeprospective shots showing depth/detail #abstractart #abstractpainting #figurativeart #portrait #art #painting #artistsoninstagram #california #femaleartist #losangeles #newyork #brushwork #surrealism #arts #artgallery #gallery #forestfires #series #interiordesign #modernart #contemporaryart

Thought the best thing for me was to battle this for the new year. It’s the fireplace from my childhood home that burnt down. We lost all three homes in that fire. Painting this was hard for me. I hit so many emotions. Multiple layers of paint including some flames with were muted later. In the end I feel ready. Ready to let go of my past, but keep it close as it should. My short story is posted with this on my blog/website. If you’re going through grief or rough patches I would love to help you. God saved me. He gave me art as a life raft. Without Him and without it I would be lost. Like I said shoot me and email or DM if you need some encouragement or just an ear or guidance into painting! Happy New Year friends. 

After the pics is my short back story:  

Sometimes I still feel the loss in the pit of my stomach. Like I was punched. There’s no more going back, or visiting the walls of my childhood. The tangible evidence that served as my adolescent sanctuary is gone for good. It’s so hard to wrap my head around. I visit my house, my old life in my dreams. Touching the walls, walking through it’s long halls. I like to think of my house as alive. Like it’s trapped in the Upside Down as my brother in law said. Like it’s waiting for me and my siblings in another place. Waiting for us to come home.

When I was a young  18, married a Marine who was my brother’s friend in Boot Camp at USMC, San Diego. We married in the little  church next to my father’s house in Old Shasta. Amazingly the church survived the Carr Fire. The firefighters used the water from my father’s pool to save the church. I’m happy they did. Even though that marriage was doomed and didn’t endure, I still like the feeling that something from my past still stands.

  I’m going to give a brief summation on our father without defaming his name. I don’t want to do that. We we’re raised by both our mom and dad. Our dad worked as a respiratory therapist at Redding Medical and Redbluff Hospitals. He was barely at home. When he was he was at arms length, distant, and often played mind games. I didn’t realize what a “real” father was supposed to be like until my second husband Dean filled his role remarkably with our four daughters.

So back to when I was 18. My husband and I moved down to San Clemente because he was stationed at Pendleton.  Then I h

  My ex husband and I came home to visit after visiting his home in Denver. I was so homesick on that trip. My sister had given birth to my second niece Danika, and I missed it. I felt such longing to retrieve my hometown, my friends, just to hike in the hilly woods behind my house. It was nighttime When we drove over the mountains from Reno and as we came over the mountain and saw Redding’s lights shining like a beacon of hope, my heart sunk. Could I go back? I felt like it was all right there in front of me, but I couldn’t go back. That single memory will live with me forever.

  I had to come stay with my parents during my first year of marriage to my ex because he went on a six month deployment overseas. I didn’t know that going back home would make me feel so displaced. Like I was in limbo. My dad and I had an altercation during this time over his same mind games. For the first time I stood up to him. I had realized after being away how abusive he was. My mom has to step between us as my dad came at me with fury in his eyes. Later that night my mom came to my room and said she was finally ready to leave him. All her kids were grown and she couldn’t live like this anymore.  So, we packed up a small uhaul and I helped her leave my dad. She left him without telling him. I left a note for him. My mom moved in with me in San Clemente whole my ex was overseas. I kept in contact with my dad until the following year. He came down but I never felt comfortable, and he was still controlling. I talked to my sister and I decided to cut ties with my father. My brother and sister did one a year later and the other followed after many altercations.

Speeding forward, my family confronted me about my marriage to my first was abusive. I had married someone like my father. With help from my mom I loved away to Seal Beach to be near my mom and her new husband.

My sister wanted me to move back to Redding, but how could I go? I had a failed marriage. I missed my home, my house. Our father stilled lives there. With his new family. He married a woman just a few years older than my sister. She had kids. I tried not to have resentment because we all cut ties. We left. But I did.

When the fire started I kept in constant contact with my sister about where it was. I remember it being in French Gulch. I expressed to my sis what if it comes to Old Shasta? No one thought it would. My sweet Old Shasta. I adored growing up there. Walking to J’s Market to buy Jolly Rancher Sticks with my brother. Playing “army” with my over zealous brother near the cemetery about Shasta Elementary. Picking berries for pancakes along Middle Creek for Saturday morning pancakes. Hanging out stockings on the fireplace while laying under the Christmas tree. That fireplace was my favorite place.

My brother in law is a Shasta County Sheriff. He sent me and my sis photos of the structure after the fire. What will always haunt me is seeing the fireplace still there standing among the rubble. Like it was saying “I’m still here”. When my family and I came up on Thanksgiving my sister and brother in law took us to see the properties. Well we went to see all three houses we lived in that all three burned down. The last one was the one we lived in the longest. All of the rubble had been cleared. It looked son different from what I remembered. We took a fireplace brick. I look at it everyday.

I decided to paint a new expressionist figurative series that displays embodiment with fire in the background. With the fire I feel like I can let go now. I can move on from my past. It also brought me home. I rarely visited up there anymore, but after the fire hit; there’s a longing I cannot shake. I plan to visit Redding often. It’s in my blood.

My new Art pieces are under review from New York, LA, London, and Santa Monica. I’m hoping I can bring some light to my sweet town. I know it’s not really a “town” but a city now. I like to think of it as a town. It’s more dear to me.

So this is my short story of my love for my town rekindled. Reborn from the ashes.

My camera phone is having trouble catching the heated tones on this. Almost finished with 1st in my Fire series