kellie charlton

2011-03-28T18:36:00.000-07:00

A little over a week ago Gia Canali, wedding photographer and all around great gal, stopped by and gave me two vintage process photos. (Pictures will be taken and posted very soon.) To thank her for being so lovely I gave her this painting:

Why do I love it?
It is loose and sort of unfinished, the colors are soft with a few darks thrown in and I love how the baby deer and little flying owl turned out. You could almost separate this into three different paintings and have very different stories.

Was it hard to not want to push it further?
Yes. I thought about finishing the deer on the left or covering the ink lines on the center deer but ultimately I thought it seemed fresh and left it alone.

Til next time,

Kellie

2010-12-16T00:28:00.000-08:00

Scenes From An After Party

I am excited to be the next featured artist at theBANQUET, in Brooklyn. Pam Johnston and Miranda Bennett put together this lovely place. You should take a look at their talents both in jewelry and clothing design. Anyhow, since it is my birthday and I love parties I created a series of paintings inspired by parties, specifically after parties.

If you are in NYC or Brooklyn this Saturday, December 18th then please stop by to view some art, celebrate birthdays and this wonderful holiday season.

Saturday, December 18th
7-11pm
360 Atlantic Avenue.

2010-07-27T22:19:00.001-07:00

Birds, birds, birds! I have been busy working at a start up company and getting married but have started to paint again. I painted these birds for escort cards at my wedding and used them in my invitations too. I also made a little bee that I pressed into name tags on honey jars, menus and other pieces of my invites... pretty fun.

Recently listed on Once Wed.

Photos are by Gia Canali, the best photographer ever. Seriously... look at her website or blog.
Save the dates were printed by my favorite printers, Night Owl Press.

2009-10-14T17:39:00.001-07:00

Loooooong time... no post... So I won a juror's choice award for Open Studio's this year, check out the painting @ http://artspan.org/bio/kellie-charlton. That was pretty exciting. For the event I painted a bunch of heads that I put in wooden square frames and mounted in a cluster on the wall, here are some of the heads. (check back for the other paintings that are more illustrative and in my typical style)

2008-10-05T17:16:00.000-07:00

I am participating in a benefit for the Gorilla Foundation and Koko, the gorilla. The benefit will be an art show and silent auction at 111 Minna on November 18th. I grew up in the 80s being very intrigued by Koko, her adopted brother, Michael and her kitten, All Ball.

Hope to see you there.
www.koko.org

2008-10-01T16:49:00.000-07:00

I think I will start posting again. Hmm... I did this painting a while ago and titled it Minerva's Task. For those of you who do not know the history of Minerva(Athena) she had an owl that was associated with her called the Owl of Minerva. The owl has since become the symbol of philosophy.

2008-04-04T17:31:00.000-07:00

In school I took a class, "quick studies," with Craig Nelson. A quick study is just a painting that you do typically in 30 minutes or less. Doing a fast painting allows you be free with your brush strokes and not too conscious of your color. I started doing these types of paintings recently when my friend Brett Amory told me that before he starts a big painting he will loosen up with a small one. These paintings are 5x5 and pretty fun. You finish quickly and feel accomplished which gets you in the right space to paint something more challenging! I think I will do a bunch more of these.

2008-01-18T11:54:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone. It has been a long time, but alas I have remembered my blog. Here are some paintings I did, very small, of Peru and Bernal. Yes, they are a little strange, but that is what I came up with to fit in these little frames. The paintings are about 3.5x2 ish.

2007-07-30T17:03:00.000-07:00

This picture is not really supposed to be a self-portrait. I wrote a story about "hope" and this page says, "seems like nothing will ever change... then something changes." In my life, at the time, it did seem that way so, the girl looks sort of like me and is in my city. Check back for the story and the other illustrations in the mini-book.

This is oil on wood.

2007-07-13T11:46:00.000-07:00

sweet cuteness... !

2007-07-10T12:25:00.000-07:00

I thought I would try a post for Illustration Friday. This weeks theme was "Geeky".

2007-07-05T21:19:00.000-07:00

2007-06-29T16:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I am bored and uncreative so I will copy(paint) a photo in photoshop... I like snow owls so I did a Google search and found a picture of one then painted it. I found the picture on this online game site, Wizard's Duel, that at a glance resembles D&D, if anyone dare play it please post a review and let me know what you think. In the meantime, here is my painting:

2007-06-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

More sketchbook stuff... this is a story I want to do about snails... not sure what inspired me to think about those guys but I want their land to be happy and fun with the obvious dangers of getting crushed by humans, dogs, and mechanical car like creatures...

2007-06-22T13:09:00.001-07:00

Isn't this guy the cutest? A friends boy, I was being minimal in my use of paint and I could of sanded the wood first, but I do love the colors. So blue, he is like a little smurf. Not really but kids generally are NOT blue.

2007-06-22T13:03:00.000-07:00

Thought I would upload some old sketches... I am the worst about updating and being proactive about this blog thing... more art to come soon.

2007-05-29T15:37:00.000-07:00

Hello... out there, I have been really slow moving to get this blog going... thus nobody is reading it or knows it is here. Maybe I am waiting until I post some really quality stuff to get excited about this blog stuff... Anyhow, here is a cute fish I painted for a friends preschool auction... cute.

I wish I was a fish.

2007-04-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

I just got back from our company's ground breaking event. Pretty cool. Willie Mays was there, he is a really nice, surprisingly funny guy. Gavin Newsom was supposed to be there also but apparently he had another more important event to attend. Anyhow, I obviously was too shy to walk up and ask for his autograph but snuck this little picture of him. Also, check out my sketchbook painting of his statue at Giant's Stadium. (I mean SBC park.)

Ahhh Willie.

2007-04-13T16:22:00.000-07:00

These are some mini gouache paintings of the big 4. Do you know who the big four are? They helped to found the Central Pacific Railroad that brought lots of riches to San Francisco, now many things are named after them. I bet you will think their names are familiar once I tell them to you. Left to right (Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker, Collis P. Huntington, and Mark Hopkins). Pretty cool, read more. I feel sorry for Theodore Judah who called them together. Why not the BIG 5?

2007-04-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

This is my first posting on my new blog. I am starting this blog because I seem to never get my website up and running. Although I have done EVERYONE elses website I never do mine. Check it out www.kelliecharlton.com, see, it is not done and is always "coming soon". Let me see if I can do something about that soon.

For now, I will be posting some art and making general silly comments about my funny life. Also, my friends just started a blog "girls who draw", if you are a girl and can draw you should add something to it. If you are not a girl, then you should still check it out! Andrea Wicklund is a member, and so is Angela Dominguez, they are both good and can draw.

Okay, next post should be with some pictures. But have to work now.