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

Whited out and repositioned her arms/hands. They’re hard to see here but the hands will have great definition. Rework of her stature 5ft almost to size #rework 

Boe’s in front of the weekly lineup🤣. Changed the The 5fter to skin tone, I’ll work on getting her a dynamic stance, a sense of movement tomorrow. “Rebirth” 60x48 

Chartreuse highlights, magenta and bright pink highs/lows on the 60x48 #5 of •WRECKED• #art #koifish #koi #koifishart #painting #brushwork #modernart #france #contemporaryart #gallery #artstudio #losangeles #belgium #madrid #newyork #london #interiordesign #decor #artcollector

Started a big New one 4ftx5ft. I’m going to add in geometric elements to this one as well as some neon. Her face is raw, no detail. Look closely there’s more than a woman’s face. This one is going to be a bit of a story

Kicking it up

Decided to start adding in some street art elements, because I looooove them.  I’ll add more transparent neon later. Her hand and face need more work...but my hand needs a break. #streetart #fashionar

I rarely post my old ones. But this 60x48 big abstract hangs in my bedroom. It’s still for sale and I’ve had offers but haven’t taken them because it has always brought me a peaceful feeling. So if I just part with it, it’s going to be for what I deem as a worthy amount. It’s an original not a print. I don’t have many left from when I was strictly abstract. #peacefulart #greenart #greenpainting 

Day 3, started painting her face which is extremely difficult due to the immense texture from the painting beneath it

I had to sculpt the koi with gel medium since there’s Pumice medium all over. Then I bled in some red. Setting with heat so the fish don’t get damaged. Tomorrow I’ll started painting over the koi with transparent hues. I want to keep this one edgy, visceral and abstract. #koifish #koilovers #koiart #abstractpainting #abstractart #art #largescaleart #redart #red #redpainting #edgy #artofinstagram #artwork #gallery #losangeles #interiordesign #japan #newyork #longbeach #highfluidacrylics #textureart

I’m seeing red. Don’t think you’ll see my face again. Don’t have much time for sympathy. ‘cause it never happened to me. -lyrics by Unwritten Law....

It was a red day for me. So this big boy is HEAVY. It’s an old one which has a ton of pumice stone medium mixed in. Probably weighs 10lbs. Not sure what I’ll do next. It’ll come to me-always does. 

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! 

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.

48x48 abstract Portraiture Done

I’m varnishing the rework of my abstract portrait/koi piece. This took a long time to get that dimension. It’s one of my favorites now. I switched from Gamvar varnish to Golden UVF, this one needs solid UV protectant. 

Follow me into the dark

This past summer my childhood home and the surrounding area burnt to the ground in the Carr Fire. It’s extremely hard for me to put my vulnerability out there, but I’ve realized in order to tamp into my true self I need to. What devasted me about losing this house is that I haven’t spoken to my father who raised us in this house in over 21 years. I’ve always been very guarded about the whole thing. My  dad still owned the house with his new family when it was lost. I left Redding when I was 18; I married young. Too young. I look back now and know I was trying to escape. Since I left I’ve only visited a few times. My sis and her family still live up there too. I couldn’t explain it until now why I couldn’t go home. I just knew it hurt too much. That town and house held so many memories for me. I guess I always thought I’d be able to see my old house, my room, my tree swing, the old cemetery me and my brother used to hike to in the hills of Old Shasta, my tree fort, Mr. Hardt’s Property where I pretended I was a professional cyclist-taking a tumbler in my bike that I still have the scar on my knee. But all of it is burned and gone. All the trees are gone. 

So, since the fire I have felt huge growth as an artist. Quite a big boom. I can see on all my old pieces what needs to be done. I cannot work fast enough. I know when I get blocked I just need to look at the photo my sister sent me of our old fireplace standing among the ruble. I started the layout of painting this old fireplace today. The one we hung out Christmas stockings on. The one I sat on a day before I left for my life in Southern California. I have the photo of me sitting on my brothers lap on it. So I’m painting this for me. As a reminder. A reminder that, that grief is a part of me. That I can go home still; even if I have no home. It’s still in my heart.  

Note: I am remarried, the first one didn’t work out  

This is just the start.... 

48x48 heavy texture  

Taking this 60x48 and popping all the images. Leftover paint pallet can go to waste...then work on an old one. #streetart #illustration #popart #painting #koi #modernart #contemporaryart #edgy #artist #art #decor #gallery #la #longbeach #interiordesign

Started working on figurative but too much coffee from my daughters 6am swim practice soooo I worked my old solar painting and Boe says “hi” #abstractart #orange #art #artagallery #modernart #americanartist #painting #artist #sun #solar #solarflare #interiordesign

I added in sheer violet. Heavy body paint ratio 1/2 paint to 1/2 Golden Gel medium. If you don’t have retarder you’re going to need to wet it down often as the gel dries fast I went around the Red and magenta borders with the violet to soften. Inner corner eye, bottom lip, outer rim of nostril, chin-then swipe down. Added violet around blooms. Over the whiteadded in water to my brush. Once I varnish it will really pop the colors #cherryblossom #cherrytree #geisha #modernart #art #painting #drawing #gallery #japan #americanartist #decor #interiordesign #arttutorial

Reworked Geisha 4 “Legend” 48x48. Subdued some of the cherry blossoms and popped her face more #art #geisha #cherryblossom #contemporaryart #modernart #japan #americanartist #gallery #artist #painting #interiordesign #artcollector #portrait #decor

A few retouched

Slight retouch of this koi 48x48, added in more dimension and bright contrasts. I like to think the koi I lost last month are living inside this piece. #abstractart #abstractthought #koi #contemporaryart #modernart #art #decor #gallery #exhibitionseries #americanartist #japan #largeart

Added gold leaf  to the outer edges  

this is a new ballerina I started 

Popped her kimono to a brighter green and pyrole red. Better call this was done ⛩ oh and three in a pic of my painting buddy. She loves her mama so much #artofinstagram #art #figurativeart #kimono #geisha #americanartist #painting #contemporaryart #kelliethomaswalker #modernart #gallery #interiordesign #artist #artwork #artwork #instaart