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

Nikki Kinne and I have a lot in common besides a love of watercolor, nature,  and helping others find their creative voices.  We are both people inclined to be a little over committed.  This comes through in Nikki’s description for her thirty-first painting.

The painting is about  “Just running too fast.  When I closed my eyes I saw the pit with white circles getting smaller and smaller.  This painting had more of a playful feeling than the image I saw.  In fact, in the painting of the black pit of white circles I started feeling better. ”

Slowing down to spend time painting is a good way to center ourselves and notice what really matters.

To create this piece I used one of the  techniques I teach in my watercolor workshops to get the wonderful textures of the water.   To create it I start with a wet surface and then drop colors into the water and let them blend on their own.  I took a few liberties with the subject. While I did drip yellow onto the surface to blend I really hadn’t intended to include Koi fish in the painting (actually we call them ‘Carp’ in Wisconsin).  However, when the paint dried I could see them circling just under the surface so, after contemplating the painting for a while,  I defined them just enough to make them more visible.

Thank you for joining us as we share our creative thinking through collaborative sharing.

I am now making my daily works for this project available for sale online in my Meylah shop here: http://meylah.com/HelenKlebesadel  I post them each day after they are posted in the blog.