It feels like most of this year for me revolved around my hysterectomy I haven't fell like myself for almost two years and functioning on low batteries for these last few months after being put on a waiting list in February really took a toll on me and it was all I could think about. 

Somehow I still found the energy to explore and experiment with my art and tried a few things. I started this piece pre-surgery. I wanted to create something that would include my love of paint, plants and thread. Like many, during Covid, I started to collect plants and being highly inspired by them. I want to share with you the journey of this piece the many changes it went through before becoming one of my favourite thing I created so far.

​I hadn't use acrylic paint in a while, wanted to create something soft and realistic while remaining a tad abstract and painterly. That was the first step and I was please with the results. I always forget how much I enjoy working with paint and how easy it is to fix a mishap or change direction. 
My favourite category of plants being vines of all kinds, filling the background with philodendron was a given. At first, I painted philodendron Mican, they have a coppery undertone to their green leaves and it's simply stunning but I change my mind later on.

The first idea was to weave her shirt and embroidery some of the background details, I did it before for another painting and it had turned out great but instead of doing different directions I went one big piece and that was not working for me. It was tacky, it wasn't fitting the colours team, in an attempt to fix it the Mican became some sort of Pink Princess.  At that point, I loved the colour but the weaving had to go.
I slowly unstitched all of it adding paint in the back to feel the tiny hole left behind all along I was thinking of adding some embroidery to her shirt instead but once I was done removing the weave it as clear to me that a dark shirt was the way to go and the Pink Princess Philodendron was the element that needed my attention.

​Side note looking at your painting upside down really help finding what works or not in your composition, in this case the dark shirt create a negative space that helps the piece "breathing". It balances the busy upper part of it. 

In the beginning, I was going to do 2 or 3 leaves and let the others a painted version but as I stitch patiently and completed one leaf I thought to myself, well this is great! So I did another one and thought maybe I could do incomplete embroidery on all of them probably as a way to make my life easier :) but I kept going leaf after leaf.

​Knowing myself it was a challenge not to just put it aside and work on something else and I committed to not begin another project before finishing this one. 

I'm very proud to have kept that promise. This piece was a project of hope and new beginnings. My illness wasn't life-threatening but it has taken a toll on my quality of life and I am happy to put it  behind me and focus on art, joy and everything that has been put on hold. 

Stitch by stitch I've healed my creative soul.

PS I need to take better pictures of her but today was cloudy and I was too excited to share her with you. :) I hope you can forgive me. She is available for adoption and will be added in the shop as soon as I can have proper pictures of her. She comes framed ready to hang and I will offer a lay away option since she's as bigger piece involves many hours of work and supplies. 

Hey there,
if you follow me on any social media you know that I've been dealing with some health issues and was on a waiting list for a surgery, well it's happening tomorrow November 23rd. Keep me in mind if you can, I'm optimistic while nervous and I have to admit scare about it all but it's what I wanted and I know it will all be better on the other side of it. Without going too much into the details I will have a partial hysterectomy, it's a complicated case but I have complete trust in my surgeon. 

Once Im back from the hospital I hope to finish this project that is taking me forever but is so rewarding. I'll write a poste about its journey and the process.

I know I will be missing some of the big sales happening this time of the years but I promise that once I'm on the other side of this  I will have once to celebrate a new beginning.

I love you all and appreciate your support.
Cheers to a new beginning and take care of yourself!
​Karine

I'm very happy to announce a brand new class on pet portraits with Lee-Anne Washburn!!
If you follow Lee-Anne on Facebook you know that she has a way to give her portraits great personality! When I ask her if she wanted to create another class for Kabostudio she jumped on board right away. She kept busy in the last few months feeding me with these great lessons providing you with all the tools to create any pet you want. Click the button below to learn all the details or scroll below to learn how to participate in the giveaway.

As the host I'm happy to offer 2 spots in this fabulous class. Pets are fantastic and fun to paint, they make great gift and once you master them they are great addition to your offering if you are taking commissions and are looking to sell your painting.
While the lessons mostly focus on dogs and cats the principles can be applied to other animal making the possible infinite! 

The class will go on sale Monday September 14th and go live on October 17th!
Perfect timing to stay in and create pet portraits that will melt everyone heart!

Here are the rules to participate. 
we need help to share the class and reach as many people as we can. each public share will give you one entry

1. You can share this post on any social (facebook/pinterest/twitter, instagram) make sure it's public, I will check!

2. To share on instagram you can save the square picture bellow and tag me @kabostudio mentioning this blog and that the link to this post will be in my bio.

3. Come back here and let me know where you have share in the comments

Back in 2014 I created this painting that I called Guardians of souls. It was summer and I was having a phase of everything albinos after a long period of bright and vivid colours. She's a big one, 24 x 30 inches (61 x 70 cm) She was a mix of collage from vintage books, acrylic and pencils and we spent quite a few hours together. Back then cradled wood panel were super heavy I figured it would cost so much to ship it that it would never sell so I hanged her on my bedroom wall where everything hang randomly  depending on what sells or not. I loved her for a while and as my skills were getting better I started noticing things… the eyes were too big the nose too long but still she's stayed there because I still loved her innocence and softness and I needed that at the time. 

But as the year when by my style and life evolved as it always does, constant movement and about 2 weeks ago I wanted to start painting with acrylic again, I was sitting on the couch pondering what would be the perfect project to do so as you see I realized that I hadn't used acrylic since I finished painting for Ladybird and that was almost 2 years ago! Life gets so busy, I haven't stopped creating but I was busy elsewhere. Acrylic takes time, it's one of my first love but I keep neglecting it to watercolour. Anyway all that to say that I looked at this girl hanging as a headboard and figured out it was time to upgrade her

At first, I simply wanted to fix her features but keep her essence so I applied a coat of clear gesso, let it cured and when to work. Working on top of old painting offers its challenges, you can't help but be influence by what's underneath. After a long night painting until the early morning, she had a new face and I when to bed liking her but something was nagging at me. 
When I woke up later that morning eager to paint again I looked at her again and I knew I had to start over. To help me figure out what was bugging me so much I took a picture of her and superpose a couple of reference pictures with the same pose on top of her and bang I could see that the eyes were too high and at a slightly wrong angle. So I went to work again and gave her not only a second but a third face over. Covering the eyes section with white gesso made it easier to start fresh and finally get her where I wanted it to.

After I finally figured out her face, my next challenge was the background. At first, she has a gold halo to replace the drip from before. 
Drips were quite a thing in 2014 but it just didn't work with her face anymore… somehow her hair also changed a few time, I started to add flowers and loved the contrast with the darker muted grey background.

It's hard to know when to stop so at one point I took her in photoshop again to scribble more flowers and see if I should make her pupils bigger. I decided against that even if I think her eyes are a bit awkward, they just work for her.

At some point, I wanted to add flowers outline in gold leaf but couldn't find my stash so that idea was tossed away. 

Overall I love this painting while I'm not quite sure what possessed me to go in that direction. I didn't rework the skunk as I already love him but one thing I notice after it all now that her face is more realistic than the first version is that somehow it seems like she's holding him to high, the proportion is a bit off. It would be interesting in a while to create a new version of this starting afresh and see where it takes me but for now, I got work to do. She was a welcome and much-needed distraction to help me get focus again and get the creative juice flow through my veins once more. 

Have you ever try reworking an old piece? I highly recommend it just so you realized how much you evolved since you finished it.

Until next time! (I'm really trying to be more regular at this blog thing)
​Karine