Author: Karen Hilliard Art

Peppermints

Red and white swirl together mixed with peppermint flavor and fond memories of my childhood. The scent of these hard candies on my Grandmother’s breath as she kissed my cheek and smiled when she held my face will live in my heart forever. A bowl of peppermints always sat on her table and they were continuously shared with love. Whenever I see a peppermint candy, or smell the flavoring of the plant, I think fondly of my Grandmother. With all of this in mind during the holiday season, and needing to find inspiration during commissions or competition paintings…the thought came to mind to make ornaments that looked like my memories. Placing them on my Christmas tree to photograph them for sale on my website was a true treat and a very special day. Painting them made my mind drift back into my past and several card games played with one of the most amazing ladies I have ever known.

Karen Hilliard Art | Ornament | Blissful Peppermint Number 1 — AVAILABLE CLICK HERE

One of the many things my lovely Grandmother did was work with adolescents who needed guidance. When one of them did not have anywhere to go for Christmas, she invited them to her family’s celebration. She was a remarkable woman and I am sure she shared her peppermints with the teens she shared the holidays with. No one was ever left out of her care or her love. Everyone who knew her, knew that they, themselves, were important. They knew they mattered. So these peppermint candy ornaments are my way of sharing this love and friendship with all of you. Reaching my hand out this Christmas and offering you my bowl filled with Peppermint Candies and loving memories. The true spirit of the season. Togetherness. I hope this blog finds you well and these ornaments bring happiness to your homes. Have a wonderful weekend and thank you for reading!

-Karen Hilliard

Tags New Blog

Thanksgiving in the Mountains

Grateful, thankful, blessed is an understatement for my family. Cousins truly make the best friends I could ever have imagined. Always welcoming and full of love. Thanksgiving this year was one I will treasure forever. Watching the children run around and figure out the stairs was entertaining. The food was excellent and every word spoken was kind while hilarious. There is so much to be thankful for and I feel so blessed to know these people. Being welcomed by them is one of the greatest feelings. We were fortunate enough to spend time with loved ones nestled in the snow covered mountains. The drive was wonderful as it did not snow during the trip and we had clear starry skies. When we arrived there was so much to do and explore.

We bundled the baby up like the child in the movie A Christmas Story and set out on adventures. The wind was gusty and lovely as it blew leaves around her, filling the day with pure enjoyment. The home owners had festive displays of pumpkins or Santa Claus and she loved seeing each home decorated with holiday spirit. The dog enjoyed all the new smells in the wind and the river was his favorite place to be. Many walks were taken and leaving stones along the path was beautiful. Reading other people’s messages on their stones was a wonderful experience. Painting Ornaments to say what we were thankful for created such a sweet memory we will cherish. Overall, an amazing time. I am so fortunate to call these people family. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and thank you for reading!

-Karen Hilliard

Tags New Blog

Holiday Crafts and More

What is your favorite craft to make during the holiday season? Do you do this for your own home, loved ones, or as gifts for others? In the midst of completing commissions before Christmas, I am also trying to get some craft projects finished. Some, I have yet to start. Personally, I love knitting, baking, cooking, and of course…painting. Recently, I have tried to dabble with a crochet hook and teach myself to learn this task. I also have started sewing a few projects for our daughter. Yes, sewing!! I absolutely love making my own things and looking at items in a store and thinking, I want to try to attempt that. The gifts I purchase are ones that speak to me, I know how much time it would take me to make it, or I think…wow…I cannot make that. Those special handmade gifts that really stand out and are altogether super impressive to myself. So, this time of year holds many happy memories for me. Gift giving would have to be my favorite and I love doing this year round. Holidays just make it a bit more special when decorations are added to the mix. Not to mention all the amazing food and drinks we all get to consume.

Do you have any favorite recipes you would like to share in the comments? Or, any favorite food/drinks you personally love? My family really enjoys Gingerbread items during December and Pumpkin treats October through December. Our pumpkins lasted until March last year so we enjoyed them for a longer amount of time, and this year we plan on freezing the purees so we can eat the squash year round. Pumpkin has so many healing properties and when combined with the spices just tastes delectable. If any of you would like some recipes please contact me! While cooking up a storm, we are also crafting daily. Yesterday we turned some toilet paper rolls into Nutcrackers just for fun and whimsy. The music has been playing throughout the house lately and leaving us in a very spirited mood. Also, ornaments have started. Commissions as well as fun child oriented ornaments involving googly eyes, gemstones, and such. What a fun time of year this is! Wishing you all a wonderful weekend and hopefully time to catch up on something special you are trying to finish. Thank you for reading.

-Karen Hilliard

Another Beautiful Day

Another beautiful backpacking experience through the desert near our home. We found multiple rocks and stones with different types of history intertwined within. Each one had various sediments and the stones were smoothed by wind and rain. Feeling the texture of the Earth beneath and through our fingertips was wonderful. Making shapes with our bodies with our shadows was entertaining. The shapes were followed by movement and flow with the wind. We got to watch a raven in flight and being held still in wind gusts. The fire preventative vehicles of Lake Mead drove the trail as well creating massive dust. They all waved at the baby and the dog sat while watching them pass. The gravel was deep like sand hills on a beach, for those of you that love the ocean or lakes, you know what I am talking about. It was a complete leg workout for sure. Having the dog on leash while carrying a toddler was an interesting experience.

We were fortunate to have a warming sun overhead and a cool breeze below. It was definitely hat and bundle up weather. Our favorite time to be outside for sure. The desert holds many marvelous transformations throughout the months. We went from massive heat waves to a drop in temperature quite quickly and are enjoying every minute of it. I recently made a reel, a post, with a video of the two little loves roaming about outside. I mentioned how all of us find a deep passion for the outdoors in our own ways. As an artist, I get motivated and find extreme inspiration for all my creative ventures. Motivation also pushes my ideas for knitting, crocheting, sewing, cooking, etc. Many talents to be explored for sure. I come home with so many ideas and hopefully carve out the time to complete a few. I wish you all a Wonderful Wednesday and hope you can get outside this week! Thank you for reading.

-Karen Hilliard

Tags New Blog

Backpacking

Stomach flu running through the whole family can take an entire two weeks out of a month. Our schedule has for sure been thrown off and blogs, painting, etc. were not even in the cards during this time. Now, with a clean bill of health all around, we are all back and ready to take on the day. After resting for what felt like a very long while, the baby and I decided to go for a backpacking trip. We had a quick out-and-back due to weakness and needing to build back up muscle strength in the Mama. She had been asking to go backpacking for several days and I did not want to disappoint. Lake Mead Recreation Area is a great place for quick out-and-backs. The trailheads are right off the road for most of the mild hikes. We found a lovely spot and went out just the two of us. Here is a little sketch from our book about what we did while out there.

A beautiful bird with blue on its tail feathers joined us for a short amount of time. It watched us from a perch in a hueco on the rock formation and then proceeded to fly low around us. The bird had a wonderful call or chirp. I love their specific communication calls and wish I could identify this little wonder. We collected rock sediments, dirt, and watched how they flowed through our fingers into the wind. A lovely textile experience and quite enjoyable for both of us. There was also much fascination with our shadows and creatures we created along the walk. The baby did a wonderful job walking some of the way and loved being in the backpack for the rest of the journey. I hope you have all been well and I look forward to writing this blog again now that we are feeling better. I wish you all a Terrific Thursday and thank you for reading!

-Karen Hilliard

Tags New Blog

“Juliet’s Fall”

Here they are! The new Tiny Painting Series, “Juliet’s Fall.” I wrote about these little color wonders in my previous blogs “Fall Season,” and in “Chestnuts” I gave a glimpse of one of the other paintings with Fall foliage. The colors of this series brought such joy to my studio and warmth to my home. I wrote in my Newsletter about how I envisioned knitting sweaters, hand warmers, and scarves while possibly sipping tea or coffee. Going from the “Pumpkins 2024 Series” to “Juliet’s Fall” was a wonderful transition from October to November for me. These new paintings focusing mainly on leaves and season changes reminded me of our last days at the Pumpkin Patch at Gilcrease Orchard. Watching the vines and leaves descend due to people choosing their pumpkins and also because of heat exhaustion, was an interesting change to experience from the year before. The pumpkin Patch was much cooler last year than this one and we could really see the difference in pumpkins this year from the year prior. They have been ripening sooner than expected and many meals have been made already! The Pumpkin paintings have filled my home with new colors thank the year before and inspired those deep orange hues for the new Fall pieces as well.

I released the paintings in my Newsletter as well along with the New larger painting I have been working on, still a work in progress. You can find out more about that painting by signing up for my Newsletter…just an email from me to you every month with new artwork, and a friendly hello! In this blog, I am diving a bit deeper into the inspiration for these smaller works. Juliet, the photographer, is a wonderful person who fills the world with color and light. She is also an amazing mother with fantastic children who bring light to this world as well. Juliet is honest, hard working, brilliant, and has a warm glow about her. She can talk with anyone and treats everyone with respect. I wanted to honor her personality in these Tiny Paintings. It was a challenge to create smaller bits and pieces of this beautiful lady’s persona and hopefully you can feel her light shining through to all of you. I will be adding more paintings to this series, and they will all look different than the ones posted. Wishing you all a Fabulous Friday and thank you for reading!

-Karen Hilliard

Tags New Blog, watercolor painting

Trials and Tribulations

I have been through many trials and tribulations throughout my life and I am a huge fan of the trials. Focusing on the trying aspect of many ventures has helped me through any type of discomfort. If I am writing about art, since this is an art post, I would focus on the many attempts for each painting, drawing, sketch, etc. There is such a joy in the build up of what an art project will eventually turn into. Most of the time, I love to just start with a dot or a line and see where it will take me. There are many mess ups, mistakes, or as Bob Ross put it, “Happy Little Accidents.” Life boils down to how we look at things and what perspective we are seeing each moment with. The movie, “The Choice,” adapted from the book by Nicholas Sparks, explains this in a lovely way. Life comes down to choices. The mom in Bridgerton spoke to her daughter about love being a choice, which I find to be a wonderful description of life and love. We choose how we perceive everything that comes our way. How long to give it space in our thoughts, bodies, etc. A hard concept to wrap the mind around most of the time, but an amazing concept of confidence non the less. Sometimes working through things daily, hourly, minute by minute, can become a necessity. So…back to how this relates to art.

Karen Hilliard Art | Redwoods - Lighting the Way | Watercolor and Ink — **SOLD**

My mind can get caught up in details and lost in them at the same time. In the past, if something did not look just right, it weighed on my thought process. Now, I don’t really have the time for this circle or merry-go-round so to speak. With such a limited amount of time, I have to focus on what I want to accomplish minute by minute. The most important part of my day is now a tiny human and I do not have the luxury of getting lost in certain mindsets. I am grateful everyday for the new perspective of “slow down, enjoy it!” Each painting has now become more free and has a bit of air to them. Now, I let the paint tell me where it wants to go…even on a portrait which could be quite scary or nerve-wracking. A whole new thought process of choice. Choosing to let go and find comfort in the uncomfortable. I love my tight style of detail oriented pieces as well as my more recent loose ink and watercolor paintings I have been creating. They are still highly detailed as well, just a bit more play with water. Smaller works are more suitable for the time I have allotted presently. While I long to work on larger pieces, I am grateful for any moment at my art table. I had no idea where I was going with this post when I started to write. Trying to keep up with the consistency of my blog and social media is a whole different story for another time. As for now, I enjoy the trials of everyday life and look forward to lessons I can learn. Thank you for reading and have a wonderful Wednesday!

-Karen Hilliard

Tags New Blog, watercolor painting

Chestnuts

The title, “Chestnut Grove,” makes me think about a grove of chestnut trees in the middle of a beautiful field, sparkling and colorful in the fall. The leaves are moving in the wind and changing color, yellow with hints of brown creating a glitter of natural wonders. Along with chestnut trees, another that pops into my mind is a field of maple trees, oak trees, and birch, all changing color and losing their leaves this fall. Chestnut Grove Tea reminds me of being back in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan, and seeing the beautiful trees along the roadside as we drive, changing colors along the Fall Color Map. These beautiful states attract visitors from miles away just to drive the picturesque trails through valleys of color. As I sit here in Nevada, sipping this marvelous black tea, I am dreaming about Wisconsin. My new Tiny Painting Series is titled, “Juliet’s Fall,” and it will be released on my website this Friday! These paintings are a series of colorful wonders representative of the photographs taken by our cousin, Juliet. She loves the season of Fall and sent me lovely foliage photos as painting references. When I think about this time of year and the chill forming in the air, I quietly sip my tea and appreciate the changing of the season.

Karen Hilliard Art | Blog | Day Hike — Available SOON!!

“Chestnut Grove,” black tea can be found at Sheffield Spice and Tea Company here in Henderson, Nevada. It is an adorable little shop filled with smells to awaken the senses any time one sets foot inside the doors. I chose a black tea of medium caffeine levels for this week’s blog and am combining it with my Monday blog about my new paintings. This glorious tea has kept me awake and the fires of inspiration have been burning as I smell the lovely chestnut aroma sifting through my studio. This tea contains ingredients such as Ceylon Black Tea with Natural Chestnut Flavor. The Antioxidant level is High and the description says to enjoy it in front of an open fire. Their words make me think about Frank Sinatra and my Grandfather singing, “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…” as he would roast chestnuts for us in his kitchen. This tea brings me back to fond memories of my loving grandpa once again and I am so happy to have these pictures in my mind, ears, and heart as I paint some fall foliage. I hope this blog entices your senses and I linked the tea if you are not local and would like to purchase it from their website. My paintings will be available soon and if you would like them sooner, please contact me here! Thank you for reading and have a Marvelous Monday.

-Karen Hilliard

Fall Season

Fall is a wonderful time of year. The weather starts to cool in the mornings and hopefully stays throughout the day. If you live in an area with changing seasons, then you can see some amazing variations of colors in the trees. Here in the desert we are lucky to have some oak trees which release their leaves and give a nice yellow hue before they blanket the ground and change to brown. My husband loves the smell of decomposing leaves and it reminds him of his childhood growing up in Wisconsin. His cousin recently sent me lovely photos of the changing leaves throughout the town where she lives and it has sparked my next series of Tiny Paintings. “Juliet’s Fall,” will be released in my Newsletter on November first in a little over a week. This series is about slowing down and taking time to appreciate everything around us. Nature is such a wonderful teacher in this retrospect as well as teaching us many other lessons to learn.

All things in nature take time to grow and develop, then run their course of living their individual existence. This series is about the leaves and the changing of the seasons, also reminding us that as humans, we go through many transformations in life. These changes become chapters in our book of life and our novels expand as we evolve. Trees are fascinating and see so much life pass around, above, inside, through, and beneath them. What would they tell us if we could listen or understand? These small pieces are meant to bring light and color into this world through the cool seasons leading into winter. Fall is a remarkable season filled with warmth from fires lit in the hearth of homes, soup made on people’s stoves to sip with merriment, hot chocolates, teas, and coffees consumed by many. The food of Fall brings everyone together and reminds us to give thanks for everything we hold dear. I love the constant reminder that where I am today, right now in this moment, I wished for it to happen in the past. This colorful series I am about to release heightens all of my senses and brings awareness for everything that is important to me. A very grateful feeling. I hope this Fall is a magical time of year for you as well. You can sign up for my Newsletter on my website or click this link and you will be directed to it. Have a Wonderful Wednesday and thank you for reading!

-Karen Hilliard

Click Play to watch me Painting the New Series, “Juliet’s Fall.” Releasing Soon!!

Pumpkin Patch

Days at the pumpkin patch have been filled with happiness and wonder. Walking into Holvrease and getting greeted by the staff with such joy is a great experience and sets the mood for a fun filled day! Meandering along the path to the pumpkins and choosing a wheelbarrow to collect our treasures also brings a smile to our faces. From the moment we enter to the moment we leave the Patch is full of possibilities. I love watching our daughter run her fingers through the dirt, collect it, and watch it float in the air through her fingertips. Children truly are fascinating. These years of wonder are filled with whimsy and a sparkling personality is being formed.

Karen Hilliard Art | Blog | Pumpkin Patch

Karen Hilliard Art | Pumpkins 2024 Number 10 — AVAILABLE CLICK HERE!

The pumpkin series holds so many meanings for me. Each one wrapped in my memories of where we picked the pumpkin, the weather during the day as it has been vastly different, and the people we were with upon choosing the pumpkin. We think of what good we will create when I finish a painting and the pumpkin is ready to carve. We have made soup, gnocchi, bread, and scones so far. Last year we attempted chocolate chip pumpkin cookies which came out nice but way different than the recipe. So each pumpkin in the “Pumpkins 2024 Series” holds a special place in my mind. Every painting I create does actually since most are from nature and an experience in my life. The memories of going to the Pumpkin Patch with sisters, nieces, friends, cousins, and our loved ones will live in these paintings for all time. I hope these pumpkins bring you joy and a bit of whimsy. What a wonderful world we live in. Thank you for reading and have a marvelous Monday!

-Karen Hilliard

Tags New Blog, Pumpkin Patch, watercolor painting