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By Southern Oregon Artists Resource, 1558 contributed posts
View all Southern Oregon Artists Resource's posts. About the author: SOAR: The Southern Oregon Artist's Resource is a directory of Southern Oregon artists, artisans and those who serve them and calendar of their art events, and Art Matters!, our blog posting Southern Oregon art events and matters of interest to artists, enthusiasts and patrons of the arts near and far. SOAR was created and is maintained by art advocate and web designer Hannah West in Jacksonville, Oregon to promote our diverse and talented arts community to our visitors and the rest of the world.
Artful Gathering begins on June 6th!
I would love for you to join me in my first Online class, through Artful Gathering.
Class begins on June 6th, but registration is open until June 22nd.
I will be available for live support during class.
All registered students will be entered to win an original painting at the close of class on July 17.
I hope you will consider joining me!
By Karen O'Brien, 58 contributed posts
View all Karen O'Brien's posts. About the author: I am an artmaker, pathfinder, teacher and storyteller. I use whatever materials inspire me to begin my journey. My style is a blend of Folk and Fantasy Art. It is a fusion of what I see everyday, dream and imagine. My paintings evolve over many layers, using paint, marks and intuition to find the soulful, imaginary characters I call my "urban folk." See her artist listing at SOAR!
Karen is a self taught mixed media artist and teacher who began her creative journey as teddy bear and doll artist. She added collage and paint over 10 years ago and is still inspired with the infinite possibilities of combining her favorite materials. Her approach to her art and teaching is: "no mistakes, just dive in and see what happens." Karen art has been published in Somerset Studio, Art Journaling, Art Doll Quarterly. She is a featured artist in Incite: The Best of Mixed Media, Incite: Color Passions and a guest artist in Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals by Carla Sonheim. Karen strives to provide her students with a fun, inspiring classroom environment where they feel free to take creative risks and enjoy the results. View Karen's teaching listing at SOAR
Fresh from my retreat at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, I am ready to get back to teaching. I have decided to do a series of classes on Mixed Media Acrylic Painting. The first two will be all about expressive fun painting, no drawing or drama! Eventually, I have hopes to get a basic acrylic painting series going, so let me know if there is interest. Her are a few teaser photos. You can get the scoop on the classes by clicking on Studio Workshops to the Right…..
By Southern Oregon Artists Resource, 1558 contributed posts
View all Southern Oregon Artists Resource's posts. About the author: SOAR: The Southern Oregon Artist's Resource is a directory of Southern Oregon artists, artisans and those who serve them and calendar of their art events, and Art Matters!, our blog posting Southern Oregon art events and matters of interest to artists, enthusiasts and patrons of the arts near and far. SOAR was created and is maintained by art advocate and web designer Hannah West in Jacksonville, Oregon to promote our diverse and talented arts community to our visitors and the rest of the world.
Stuff of Dreams, New Online Class with Karen O’Brien
In case you have not heard, I am teaching my first online course “Stuff of Dreams” in the Summer Session for Artful Gathering 2017. If you click on this link: Artful Gathering, it will take you to all the information on registration, the class description and a short video, which contains a slide show of my studio! Stuff of Dreams is jam packed with techniques including painting, faces, creating a pattern and doll making. I hope you will consider joining me!
Teaching on the Road
I will be teaching in New Mexico in the fall …
Urban Folk Primitives
New Tricks Studio in Albuquerque, New Mexico Sept.30-Oct 3, 2017
You can get the information on my blog.
Here is the link: Urban Folk Primitives
If you are not familiar with New Tricks, you can check out their Facebook page here
Other Happenings in the Studio
For those of you in the Pacific Northwest, I will be the featured artist for the month of May at Gallery One in Grants Pass Oregon. I have been doing a lot of mixed media fabric creations lately and my show includes paintings, art dolls and fabric collage pieces.
I will also have a piece in the Firehouse Gallery in Grants Pass. “Wandering,” on the right, won first place at the Josephine County Artist Association Spring Show.
I am also in the planning stages for some pop-up workshops at my studio. So stay tuned to my blog: karenobrien.blogspot.com and my Facebook Page for information.
Pictured at left is one of my “art quilts.” I would never have created this if I had not followed my primary rule:
By Karen O'Brien, 58 contributed posts
View all Karen O'Brien's posts. About the author: I am an artmaker, pathfinder, teacher and storyteller. I use whatever materials inspire me to begin my journey. My style is a blend of Folk and Fantasy Art. It is a fusion of what I see everyday, dream and imagine. My paintings evolve over many layers, using paint, marks and intuition to find the soulful, imaginary characters I call my "urban folk." See her artist listing at SOAR!
Karen is a self taught mixed media artist and teacher who began her creative journey as teddy bear and doll artist. She added collage and paint over 10 years ago and is still inspired with the infinite possibilities of combining her favorite materials. Her approach to her art and teaching is: "no mistakes, just dive in and see what happens." Karen art has been published in Somerset Studio, Art Journaling, Art Doll Quarterly. She is a featured artist in Incite: The Best of Mixed Media, Incite: Color Passions and a guest artist in Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals by Carla Sonheim. Karen strives to provide her students with a fun, inspiring classroom environment where they feel free to take creative risks and enjoy the results. View Karen's teaching listing at SOAR
I am so excited to be part of the Artful Gathering 2017 Workshops. This will be my first official online class and it is PACKED full of info, explorations and techniques. Both painting and doll making!
By Karen O'Brien, 58 contributed posts
View all Karen O'Brien's posts. About the author: I am an artmaker, pathfinder, teacher and storyteller. I use whatever materials inspire me to begin my journey. My style is a blend of Folk and Fantasy Art. It is a fusion of what I see everyday, dream and imagine. My paintings evolve over many layers, using paint, marks and intuition to find the soulful, imaginary characters I call my "urban folk." See her artist listing at SOAR!
Karen is a self taught mixed media artist and teacher who began her creative journey as teddy bear and doll artist. She added collage and paint over 10 years ago and is still inspired with the infinite possibilities of combining her favorite materials. Her approach to her art and teaching is: "no mistakes, just dive in and see what happens." Karen art has been published in Somerset Studio, Art Journaling, Art Doll Quarterly. She is a featured artist in Incite: The Best of Mixed Media, Incite: Color Passions and a guest artist in Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals by Carla Sonheim. Karen strives to provide her students with a fun, inspiring classroom environment where they feel free to take creative risks and enjoy the results. View Karen's teaching listing at SOAR
I am so excited to be part of the Artful Gathering 2017 Workshops. This will be my first official online class and it is PACKED full of info, explorations and techniques. Both painting and doll making!
By Karen O'Brien, 58 contributed posts
View all Karen O'Brien's posts. About the author: I am an artmaker, pathfinder, teacher and storyteller. I use whatever materials inspire me to begin my journey. My style is a blend of Folk and Fantasy Art. It is a fusion of what I see everyday, dream and imagine. My paintings evolve over many layers, using paint, marks and intuition to find the soulful, imaginary characters I call my "urban folk." See her artist listing at SOAR!
Karen is a self taught mixed media artist and teacher who began her creative journey as teddy bear and doll artist. She added collage and paint over 10 years ago and is still inspired with the infinite possibilities of combining her favorite materials. Her approach to her art and teaching is: "no mistakes, just dive in and see what happens." Karen art has been published in Somerset Studio, Art Journaling, Art Doll Quarterly. She is a featured artist in Incite: The Best of Mixed Media, Incite: Color Passions and a guest artist in Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals by Carla Sonheim. Karen strives to provide her students with a fun, inspiring classroom environment where they feel free to take creative risks and enjoy the results. View Karen's teaching listing at SOAR
I have set a goal this year to expand my mixed media work by returning to my first love….fabric! I am lucky enough to join a local “journal quilt” group which meets monthly. Journal quilts are generally small – often A4 size or 12” x 12”, are made regularly – weekly, monthly etc and are used as a way to experiment and to document. No rules except the size.
My first journal quilt was last December. I shared the results in my last post, but I could not stop myself from using the shape to make a doll. Here is my finished quilt:
and here is the doll:
And a “series” is born!
For 2017 our theme is colors and January was Grey.
Here are photos of my process…..
Playing with ideas…
Things are taking shape
Faces done on vintage paper that is collaged to muslin so I can sew them on.
Ready for hand stitching….
And here is the final piece….
I just could not bear to cover up the beautiful hankie so…..
Here are photos of the doll I made, inspired by the quilt
The bear was made from an old grain sack and the sweater is a sleeve from an old sweater I felted.
The sweater had holes, so I made them a feature!
A quilt, a doll and now I think, a painting inspired by them….
By Karen O'Brien, 58 contributed posts
View all Karen O'Brien's posts. About the author: I am an artmaker, pathfinder, teacher and storyteller. I use whatever materials inspire me to begin my journey. My style is a blend of Folk and Fantasy Art. It is a fusion of what I see everyday, dream and imagine. My paintings evolve over many layers, using paint, marks and intuition to find the soulful, imaginary characters I call my "urban folk." See her artist listing at SOAR!
Karen is a self taught mixed media artist and teacher who began her creative journey as teddy bear and doll artist. She added collage and paint over 10 years ago and is still inspired with the infinite possibilities of combining her favorite materials. Her approach to her art and teaching is: "no mistakes, just dive in and see what happens." Karen art has been published in Somerset Studio, Art Journaling, Art Doll Quarterly. She is a featured artist in Incite: The Best of Mixed Media, Incite: Color Passions and a guest artist in Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals by Carla Sonheim. Karen strives to provide her students with a fun, inspiring classroom environment where they feel free to take creative risks and enjoy the results. View Karen's teaching listing at SOAR
I have set a goal this year to expand my mixed media work by returning to my first love….fabric! I am lucky enough to join a local “journal quilt” group which meets monthly. Journal quilts are generally small – often A4 size or 12” x 12”, are made regularly – weekly, monthly etc and are used as a way to experiment and to document. No rules except the size.
My first journal quilt was last December. I shared the results in my last post, but I could not stop myself from using the shape to make a doll. Here is my finished quilt:
and here is the doll:
And a “series” is born!
For 2017 our theme is colors and January was Grey.
Here are photos of my process…..
Playing with ideas…
Things are taking shape
Faces done on vintage paper that is collaged to muslin so I can sew them on.
Ready for hand stitching….
And here is the final piece….
I just could not bear to cover up the beautiful hankie so…..
Here are photos of the doll I made, inspired by the quilt
The bear was made from an old grain sack and the sweater is a sleeve from an old sweater I felted.
The sweater had holes, so I made them a feature!
A quilt, a doll and now I think, a painting inspired by them….
By Karen O'Brien, 58 contributed posts
View all Karen O'Brien's posts. About the author: I am an artmaker, pathfinder, teacher and storyteller. I use whatever materials inspire me to begin my journey. My style is a blend of Folk and Fantasy Art. It is a fusion of what I see everyday, dream and imagine. My paintings evolve over many layers, using paint, marks and intuition to find the soulful, imaginary characters I call my "urban folk." See her artist listing at SOAR!
Karen is a self taught mixed media artist and teacher who began her creative journey as teddy bear and doll artist. She added collage and paint over 10 years ago and is still inspired with the infinite possibilities of combining her favorite materials. Her approach to her art and teaching is: "no mistakes, just dive in and see what happens." Karen art has been published in Somerset Studio, Art Journaling, Art Doll Quarterly. She is a featured artist in Incite: The Best of Mixed Media, Incite: Color Passions and a guest artist in Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals by Carla Sonheim. Karen strives to provide her students with a fun, inspiring classroom environment where they feel free to take creative risks and enjoy the results. View Karen's teaching listing at SOAR
I always take time to review how things went during the year. I traveled alot. Santa Rosa, San Diego, Port Townsend, Whidbey Island, Phoenix, Denver to name a few. I met some amazing and inspiring students and artists. Visited wonderful museums and participated in an Open Studio weekend in my home town.
I am truly grateful, but tired! In the process of teaching and traveling, I can see I have neglected no only my blog, but also myself. I did not leave much room for silence, solitude, personal creative time or self care. This is why I am slowing down in 2017. I feel the pull to regroup and move into new challenges. This break will allow me to do some different and exciting “small” teaching venues and actually have time to paint and work on new techniques and classes.
With personal growth in mind, I have joined a local “journal quilt” group and I am excited to see where this takes me. I am thrilled to be working with my beloved fabric stash again! A journal quilt group sets parameters on size, monthly challenge and we usually pick out a fat quarter of fabric which may or may not be used in the monthly challenge. This was my first journal quilt inspired by Austrailia. I love the process of researching Australia and came across some amazing rock paintings done by the native aboriginal people. Click here to see to these amazing paintings. I gathered what I had in my stash, the challenge fabric (the dotted fabric in the left corner) and some vintage buttons and a key. I decided to rust the muslin to look more like a “rock” surface. This turned into a real mixed media challenge and I loved it.
I am currently in the process of filming my first online class that will be offered through Artful Gathering in the early summer. It is too early for the class offerings to be posted, but you can sign up for notification on the link here. This is a total learning experience and I am hoping after I am through, I will be able to do more filming and offer regular online classes. I will also be teaching at Annie Hooten’s New Tricks Art space in Albequerque, NM in late September. There will also be a SURPRISE announcement in February, of another exiting teaching venue happening late October, so stay tuned!
In the meantime….I have 2 local classes that are coming up. One at my studio in January and and one at the Grants Pass Art Museum in March. Click on the links above for more info and I hope you can join me if you are in the area.
By Karen O'Brien, 58 contributed posts
View all Karen O'Brien's posts. About the author: I am an artmaker, pathfinder, teacher and storyteller. I use whatever materials inspire me to begin my journey. My style is a blend of Folk and Fantasy Art. It is a fusion of what I see everyday, dream and imagine. My paintings evolve over many layers, using paint, marks and intuition to find the soulful, imaginary characters I call my "urban folk." See her artist listing at SOAR!
Karen is a self taught mixed media artist and teacher who began her creative journey as teddy bear and doll artist. She added collage and paint over 10 years ago and is still inspired with the infinite possibilities of combining her favorite materials. Her approach to her art and teaching is: "no mistakes, just dive in and see what happens." Karen art has been published in Somerset Studio, Art Journaling, Art Doll Quarterly. She is a featured artist in Incite: The Best of Mixed Media, Incite: Color Passions and a guest artist in Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals by Carla Sonheim. Karen strives to provide her students with a fun, inspiring classroom environment where they feel free to take creative risks and enjoy the results. View Karen's teaching listing at SOAR
I always take time to review how things went during the year. I traveled alot. Santa Rosa, San Diego, Port Townsend, Whidbey Island, Phoenix, Denver to name a few. I met some amazing and inspiring students and artists. Visited wonderful museums and participated in an Open Studio weekend in my home town.
I am truly grateful, but tired! In the process of teaching and traveling, I can see I have neglected no only my blog, but also myself. I did not leave much room for silence, solitude, personal creative time or self care. This is why I am slowing down in 2017. I feel the pull to regroup and move into new challenges. This break will allow me to do some different and exciting “small” teaching venues and actually have time to paint and work on new techniques and classes.
With personal growth in mind, I have joined a local “journal quilt” group and I am excited to see where this takes me. I am thrilled to be working with my beloved fabric stash again! A journal quilt group sets parameters on size, monthly challenge and we usually pick out a fat quarter of fabric which may or may not be used in the monthly challenge. This was my first journal quilt inspired by Austrailia. I love the process of researching Australia and came across some amazing rock paintings done by the native aboriginal people. Click here to see to these amazing paintings. I gathered what I had in my stash, the challenge fabric (the dotted fabric in the left corner) and some vintage buttons and a key. I decided to rust the muslin to look more like a “rock” surface. This turned into a real mixed media challenge and I loved it.
I am currently in the process of filming my first online class that will be offered through Artful Gathering in the early summer. It is too early for the class offerings to be posted, but you can sign up for notification on the link here. This is a total learning experience and I am hoping after I am through, I will be able to do more filming and offer regular online classes. I will also be teaching at Annie Hooten’s New Tricks Art space in Albequerque, NM in late September. There will also be a SURPRISE announcement in February, of another exiting teaching venue happening late October, so stay tuned!
In the meantime….I have 2 local classes that are coming up. One at my studio in January and and one at the Grants Pass Art Museum in March. Click on the links above for more info and I hope you can join me if you are in the area.
By Southern Oregon Artists Resource, 1558 contributed posts
View all Southern Oregon Artists Resource's posts. About the author: SOAR: The Southern Oregon Artist's Resource is a directory of Southern Oregon artists, artisans and those who serve them and calendar of their art events, and Art Matters!, our blog posting Southern Oregon art events and matters of interest to artists, enthusiasts and patrons of the arts near and far. SOAR was created and is maintained by art advocate and web designer Hannah West in Jacksonville, Oregon to promote our diverse and talented arts community to our visitors and the rest of the world.
News from Karen O’Brien’s Studio
I am so excited to be back teaching in my home town of San Diego, California.Class will take place at Art on 30th, an amazing gallery, studio and workshop space in North Park. Please joinme for a fun day of play, drawing, painting and simple journal making. Make art while being inspired by the gallery and creative space.
I also have several other upcoming teaching events this Summer. It is not too early to sign up for my July and August classes. All are in amazing locations and remember, all of my classes are great for All Skill Levels:
Art Unraveled Phoenix, AZ Imaginary Character Journal August 7, 2016 – Only 5 seats left Fairy Noir, August 8, 2016 – take color out of your decision making and make amazing mixed media paintings using only black and white! You will be amazed at how this class will change your approach when you go back to adding color…
I will also be offering some classes at my studio in southern Oregon this summer. The first is:
News from Karen O’Brien’s Studio
Imaginary Characters: Mixed Media Painting Techniques for Figures and Faces is getting great reviews. Click on the link and check out what folks are saying on Amazon.