KIM-LEE KHO
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Cheap & Cheerful Art Supplies: Stencils

9/5/2020

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Stencils among my favourite things to work with, whether for painting or printmaking, working flat, blended or atmospheric, or creating impasto effects.

Anybody who's taken one of my classes knows that I love – and encourage – making custom stencils, because they are personal and show the hand of the artist.

But that doesn't mean I don't love a good commercial stencil, because I do! If only my wallet were fatter, so would my collection of bought stencils be (maybe you can relate!).

Good commercial stencils have wonderful, sometimes intricate, designs, are sturdy, and can last indefinitely if cared for. They will also be translucent so you position the design exactly where you want it onto a prepared surface for example.

This blog post isn't about those high quality and at least somewhat expensive stencils though!

Instead I'd like to introduce you to the world of dollar store stencils.

Pictured above are collections I have purchased at Dollarama and at Dollar Tree. I didn't buy all of the sets available, but both places offered a few.  (Continued below.)
VIDEO: When I get new stencils, I make reference prints using black ink. I like to use my gel plate so I can pull positive and negative prints, but you can also use a sponge, stomp or stencil brush directly onto paper. Finally I like to try a few simple prints just to get acquainted with the stencils.
The Dollar Tree stencils come one per package, are cleanly and fully punched out, their shapes are good and classic, the plastic is smooth, flexible, transparent but thinner than I'd prefer. 

Dollarama's  come with four designs per package, which are nicely illustrated on the packaging so you can preview your selection, or to help put them back in the correct package after use. They are less well made than Dollar Tree's (I had to finish punching out a number of the shapes myself), but  plastic is thicker and somewhat stiffer, a different kind of plastic that feels more durable. They are also opaque, which makes them less easy to position precisely.

Both are roughly 6" x 6" in size, suitable for small gel plates for example, or used as accents in larger work.

Whatever the drawbacks, the price is hard to beat for someone on a very tight budget, or feeding a stencil habit they need to keep the costs down on! You may also just find the designs useful.

Dollar Tree's are $1 for a single stencil (but always with many variations on an image theme!).
Dollarama's are $1.25 for a 4-pack of various patterns.

If you don't find them at your local store, you may have to try another location. What's available at any given location can vary quite a lot in general I find.

Who doesn't love saving a little money on art or craft supplies? Let me know in the comments if you've tried any of these out. Also what's been your favourite cheap & cheerful art or craft supply?

Prices are in Canadian dollars.
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Life in a Pandemic: Anxious Times

3/26/2020

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This is a time for hearts,
for big hearts, growing hearts,
open hearts.

Hearts too big to fit into this picture.


​Let’s take good care of everyone,
​including ourselves.
Life during a pandemic, even in countries like Canada which is still in the early stages, is full of anxiety. We're thrown off balance so we have trouble finding our footing. It's like the ground keeps moving.

It's not just that we are having to learn new practices to stay healthy, it's also the fact that the situation is constantly changing, close at hand, and around the world.


Some people have reached out to me, each experiencing some degree of distress. Some are experiencing a lot of fear – of the virus, for the future – and the 24/7 news cycle has become a vortex that infects us with fear.

There are others for whom the loss of normalcy, the rhythms and routines of their ordinary life, is the biggest issue. Losing so much so suddenly, they find themselves wading through grief for their life pre-pandemic. The suddenness can hit us hard.

I have been fortunate in finding meaning and purpose in the new things I have taken on, directly in response to the crisis, to help people get through the isolation and disquiet, and doing that has given me a little comfort. 
Before I tell you about that though, I want to share with you some thoughts I wrote to someone who needed help and emotional support through her distress at feeling unable to focus, unable to work, unable to settle. I feel it too. So many of us do, even if not all the time. So here is what I would like to say to you:

Nothing is normal right now. Nothing. So be gentle on yourself for not being able to work, and for feeling scattered. That is a natural response to feeling the anxiety of our crisis situation and even trauma and grief at the loss of normality.

We humans adapt to amazing things but to stay healthy in the full sense it is important to do gentle things that nourish, calm and ground you. That will ease the transition to the new normal, and you will feel better for it. 

Activities that get you focused on your body are especially beneficial: movement of any kind and focusing on your senses instead of your thoughts whenever you can, or for part of each day.

Do something with your hands, go outside for a walk if you are healthy (and keep your distance from others). Above all, have patience with yourself and those around you... even for the times that you – or they – lose patience :-)

.  .  .  .  .

On March 20, I started holding Virtual Studio Parties online, via YouTube livestream so that anyone with high-speed internet, no matter how unconfident with their computer, could take part.

It’s a no-cost creative gathering for anyone who’s missing the experience of community, is feeling isolated or anxious, or wants to have some gentle fun in the real-time, virtual, company of others.

People have said it's really helped them and it's something they look forward to now.

If this sounds like it might help you, or just be fun, visit my Virtual Studio Parties page.

​Do you have a suggestion for self-care during stressful times? Please share in the comments.
​
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My Hearts in Place Installation, Part Two

12/16/2018

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A screenshot from the video below showing an early stage of the installation process. Artwork: Kim-Lee Kho. Video: Nettie Seip 2018
Instead of writing more in this second blog post about my installation at the In Situ 2018 festival, (to see part one click here), I will speak to you via the video below, shot and edited by my charming colleague photographer/videographer Nettie Seip, to whom I owe many thanks!

You'll see me on-site in the room during the early stages of installation as I talk about the work and my intentions for it. Then you get to tour through it at night with it fully installed while the festival was in progress.

​Please take a look and let me know what you think! 

Perhaps after the holidays I will put together some time-lapse video shot over the three nights I spent drawing the Hearts in Place mural in front of the festival audience. I will upload it to my YouTube channel – please click on the link and if you like it, consider subscribing :-)
Video shot and edited by Nettie Seip, www.nettiephotography.com
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Whether Art or Ornament, the Universal Fascination of Miniatures

8/20/2017

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Whether you have a long-dormant love of model railroads or can't resist dollhouses and their tiny furnishings, you're far from alone in loving miniatures. I grew up with my own dollhouse made of printed steel, but rather jealous of my cousin who had a big table in his basement devoted to his model railroad, set in a landscape he'd made and populated by exquisitely detailed buildings and street scenes.

A couple of years ago in pursuit of materials for some miniature projects (still on the drawing board) I visited, on my friend Fred's recommendation, The Credit Valley Railway Company, a truly amazing place with aisle upon aisle of trains, other vehicles, and buildings of different eras, human figures, street furniture, vegetation – even different kinds of grasses! Investigating those aisles was such an engrossing way to spend a couple of afternoons.

Plenty of artists love miniatures, miniature painting is quite a tradition, particularly in south Asia and Iran to my knowledge, but some artists either create dimensional miniatures or use the kind I drooled over at the store as their raw material.

Sculptor Kim Adams, 2014 winner of a Governor General's Award in Visual Art (click to view his award page), is one such artist whose work I particularly admire. His elaborate installations a few years ago at the Art Gallery of Ontario (click to view a slideshow from that work) were fascinating.
What got me thinking about this topic recently was an article in The Guardian about sculptor/miniature artist Randy Hage who has done a whole series in which he has re-created old New York City storefronts with amazing detail, right down to the litter, the papered-over windows and the inevitable graffiti.

​On his site (click to link to it) you can see side-by-side comparison photos of the shot he took of the actual storefront and his 1/12 scale miniature. Beautiful work! Below is a time-lapse as he makes one storefront “Ideal Hosiery”.
Finally there's an epic miniature museum project in Mississauga/Oakville called Our Home & Miniature Land where they are painstakingly re-creating Canada in miniature, starting with Toronto and Hamilton. Click here or on their name to check out their site. The project is not complete yet, though they have had a public open house, but the videos of their progress are amazing! Below are a couple of samples to whet your appetite. I can't wait to see it all in person!
How about you? Are you a miniatures geek whether secretly or proudly? Did you have a dollhouse or model railroad when you were growing up, or make other kinds of models?

​If so, please tell me about them in the comments below!
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Report: Live Painting Demo at My 'RADIANTS' Exhibition

5/21/2017

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We had an enthusiastic group at Saturday's painting demonstration at Otto Art gallery in Toronto. I showed how I approach painting two series: my 'Aroundeds' and the 'Radiants' series that gave the show its title.  I will continue to work on the 'Radiant' demo painting and post photo updates here when ready.
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Here I am just starting the demo of painting #2 which is part of the Radiants series.
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First stroke is complete and I'm listening to a question from the audience.
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Radiant #12? It will be if my continued work on it turns out all right!

Sandra Otto, the gallerist, shot video of most of the event, which you can watch below in two parts.

As for the 'Arounded' painting, here are progress shots of the drying process so you can see how the painting reveals itself over time as it dries. I will continue to post more until it is pretty much 100% clear.
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Fresh! The wet new 'Arounded' painting.
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Several hours later the thinnest parts are already starting to clarify.
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Two days + some hours later, more drying progress: still plenty of white but it's less opaque than before.
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Four days + some hours after the demo and you can see translucency in all of the gel. The thickest parts will take more time, the thinnest are totally clear and there is lots that's in-between.
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Here is a detail view after four days.
Please check back for even more updates/photos and links!
And if you found this at all interesting, please give this post a like or a tweet – it helps a lot, thanks!
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Watching Paint Dry Is Fun (Really!)

5/16/2017

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Last week I gave a talk with a demonstration component to members of the Oshawa Art Association. My main demo was of the process I use to make my 'Arounded' acrylic paintings. A magical part of the process is watching the painting emerge as the paint dries.

At the talk I promised that I would share photos of the drying process because the changes are so dramatic as the gel portion dries, due to the nature of acrylics: when wet, the gel or mediums are milky white; they dry clear (more or less, depending on medium and other factors).

Spots with the very thickest applications can take a considerable time to dry fully. Extremely thick applications done all at once may never truly clarify.

Although there are small remaining gel "peaks" that are not yet clear, this sequence gives you a good look at the drying effects over time.
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#1: 'Arounded' painting a few hours after the demo on May 10. Virtually all of the acrylic gel is still wet & white.
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#4: 'Arounded' painting on May 14, a further 35 hours after the demo. Only the thickest spots of the gel layer remain white(ish).
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#2: 'Arounded' painting on May 12, more than 18 hours after the demo. All the thinner areas have clarified.
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Detail of #4: 'Arounded' painting May 14.
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#3: 'Arounded' painting on May 13 – an additional 25 hours after the demo. The centre has mostly clarified (dried).
If you'd like to be kept informed of future events like this talk and demo in Oshawa, please subscribe to my email Update newsletter using the form at right or my contact form above, including the word "subscribe" at the top.
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Which Comes First: the Artwork or the Space?

10/13/2016

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For the past several weeks I have been working on a new, ambitious installation for In Situ, an event I wrote about in more detail here (click to open).

What I want to focus on in this post is the relationship between artworks and their space, in a deeper sense than "does this painting go with my couch?"

I leapt at the chance to be part of In Situ even though it would cost me money I don't have, even though there was not enough time to prepare, all because of the space!

​Soaring ceilings, tiny welder's booths, classic windows, exposed pipes, industrial fixtures, peeling paint... what's not to love?
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Part of the main factory space at the Small Arms Building in Mississauga, Ontario, where the In Situ arts festival will be held Oct 27, 28 and 29, 2016. All photo by me, Kim-Lee Kho, except as indicated.
The Small Arms Building is a wonderful network of spaces in a gorgeous state of neglect, the perfect location to stage artworks (not just visual but also performance-based) that relate to this remarkable, untamed space.

As an artist working on projects in an imaginative-but-real world, I wear a number of hats. I put a couple on right away when first touring the space: the Practical Hat (the one that wants me to sleep 8 hours every night, not get up to my eyeballs in debt, see my friends and family more often and regularly, eat well and work out, you know the one) – it thinks about what work I already have that could work in this space; the Dreamer Hat looks at the vast potential of all the spaces in the building and imagines a fantastic array of mostly-impossible (for me in these circumstances at least) ways to transform them and create remarkable experiences.

I am grateful to both Hats: one for keeping me alive (more or less, depending!); the other for enticing me to stretch and attempt things that while less-than-sensible have been glorious to thinking about, to see realized, to watch people interact with and to talk with some of them about.
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Visitors looking at 'Double Happiness, Three's a Crowd' giant scrolls (another gloriously immoderate project) which I showed at the Clarke Hall event in Port Credit earlier this year. They had previously only been shown in the Vancouver area. Photo-digital mixed media printed onto fabric and fashioned into scrolls, 16ft x 4ft each. Photo: Sandra Robson 2016
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"My" room at the Small Arms Building for the In Situ festival. I will have other pieces elsewhere in the building as well.
The photo above shows the space that will be all mine (insert evil laugh here). The room is 20ft by 50ft. A dance performance and its audience will need a pathway through it to the next room, but allowing for that I can do what I want!

At right (I hope it's that way for mobile users as well) is a shot showing a fraction of the drawers I have collected or had set aside for me so I can build my main new sculpture. I won't really know until they are in the space how many I will need, which is part of the fun (and also part of what tells me I have fully transitioned to being an artist now, as my designer self would have wanted to control every detail in advance!). 

In addition to drawers and boxes, I will be working with a lot of photo-digital image transfers, plexiglass and light. This work's roots are my 'Boxed In' figure drawings from 2010 and it will connect up to all of the 'Subject to Limitation' thematic work since.

I will be showing a few existing pieces, one reconfigured specifically for the space it will be in (not pictured here). One of the others has only been shown in BC back in 2012: "Turbulence" a 21ft long photo-digital mixed media piece comprised of six angled panels that will be hung high and look down on the people below. It should suit the main space very well!

So in answer to the question posed in the title of this post: both. I've had the idea for the drawers portion of the main sculpture piece for a few years now but other aspects of the installation that it will be part of were inspired by the context. Also the actual configuration and some of the details of the sculpture are responses to the space and particularities of the event.

​
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Drawers galore! Here is just a small sampling of all the drawers I'll be using for my main sculpture piece at 'In Situ'. Photos: Kim-Lee Kho
I make my work to be shared. With you.
Which is why, even as a one-woman operation, I do my best to share via my blog, social media and email newsletter.
Because I know everything I make is part of a larger story. Every thought I have as an artist is an opportunity to build meaning and to connect.

If you would like to support my projects – for as little as $10 or more – just click the link below and please accept my heartfelt thanks.

paypal.me/kimleekho
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The Magic of Watching a Master Craftsperson

7/24/2016

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It's a magical thing to watch a highly skilled or master craftsperson do their thing.

There is also something inherently magical about any of the spinning crafts, such as a potter's wheel or as in this case a wood lathe.

I came across this video and enjoyed it so much I thought I'd share it with you.

The craftsman is making traditional Japanese Kokeshi dolls, both fashioning the wood (I love how he connects the head to the body!) and painting the dolls with clean, deft strokes.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 
​

If you're wondering why I have fallen behind in my usually weekly blog posts, I have been away, both teaching and learning.

​I'm hard at work on some new blog posts, including a series about stepping outside of your comfort zone, which I hope you will enjoy – please re-visit my blog later this week and check them out!
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Preparations Underway

7/8/2016

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Hope you had a great holiday weekend (if you're in North America at least).

​I'm currently buried deep in preparations for the Acrylics: Explore, Express & Experiment course I teach every summer in Haliburton. So much still to do, not enough time to write a proper post, but I thought I would share a sample panel-in-progress with you (pictured above).

​I will update this post with the finished result... after the pour! Should be fun, fingers crossed :-)
Sample panel-in-progress by Kim Lee Kho 2016.
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The Need to Make Things

12/6/2015

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The decorative knots you see here were made years ago when I was too sick to do much of anything, even, most of the time, to make simple things, but I longed to, and every now and then I had a day when I could break through the thick, dense fog of illness to actually make something. Like these knots. 

I found these while going through stuff in my studio, trying to make space.

There's no practical reason to keep these, but they tug at me and remind me how far I've come, what a gift it is to be well.

They also remind me how powerful that urge to make is in many of us. Making time for it helps us become ourselves again.
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    Kim-Lee Kho

    As a visual artist I like nothing more than getting up to my elbows in paint or little plastic toys, or wading in at the deep end in pursuit of an idea. When I am not teaching others in a similar vein, you can find me researching, writing and noodling around in my studio, seeing where my latest lines of inquiry lead me.

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  • Home
  • Gallery
    • Burnt Offerings (2022) >
      • Sponsors: Thank you
    • My Father's Things (series)
    • Heartspace
    • A Full Heart
    • Subject to Limitation >
      • Boxed In
      • Expanding Media
      • Fences as Barriers
      • Containment
    • Skin
    • Face[t]s
    • [Un]Settled
    • Digital / Photo / Mixed
    • Painting
    • To See More
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    • Interior Life series
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