Sampson & Judi, 5 x 6, watercolor, ©2011 Nikki Kinne

Welcome to day twenty-three in the 33 Paintings in 33 Days Project of Alaskan artist  Nikki Kinne and Wisconsin artist Helen Klebesadel.

Nikki’s twenty-third of her thirty-three paintings is a tribute to an artist and her subject.  As mentioned in earlier posts, Nikki is taking a watercolor class at the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival.   This week her instructor, Nikki, and 3 other students from the class went on a painting field trip to a friend’s goat farm to paint goats.  Nikki says of her painting.

“I had fun painting this small piece as a form of play.  Judi is known for painting goats, so I thought it would be interesting painting her painting goats.  Kind of an expression of the artist painting the artist that is painting the artist.  It might not communicate that concept, but I had fun playing with it. ”

Cardinal Rules, 4 1/2 x 6 1/2, watercolor, ©2011 Helen Klebesadel

For my twenty third painting I worked with a small texture sheet I had created as an experiment.  I was staring at the sheet, willing an image to emerge, while at the same time thinking about the phrase ‘Cardinal Rule,’ and wondering about where it came from.  The next thing I knew I had this little painting.  It feels like the cardinal is looking a us thinking “Now what are you going to do?” A good question.

By the way, the phrase ‘Cardinal Rule’ did not originate from the office of cardinal in the Catholic Church.  Rather, cardinal derives from Latin cardo “hinge”, so that something cardinal is important because all else hinges upon it.  Therefore, a cardinal rule is a fundamental rule; a cardinal direction is one of the principal directions: north, south, east or west.  The Catholic Cardinal’s name came from the idea that the clergy were the hinge to the church’s door through which people could enter.

The bird IS named after the Catholic church officer that shares its bright red garment color.  Thank you for coming with us as we allow our thoughts to meander and make art out of the results.

My daily works for this project available for sale online in my Meylah shop here: http://meylah.com/HelenKle​besadel  I post them each day after they are posted in the blog.