Organic Abstraction with Values and Color

Nature’s Genius will be your Field of Inspiration. Working with handmade value scale tools, your abstract painting compositions will develop by finding the underlying simple shapes, patterns, and grouping value masses together for strong designs. Kelly will demonstrate ink and water based mixed media underpainting techniques that guide you into responsive translations in luminous encaustic color. Paint with limited palettes, layered surfaces, glazing, strong and sinuous brushstrokes, and reflecting along the way.

Kelly works and teaches in a variety of media, among them water-based & ink-based paints, pastel, and mixed-media-sculpture; with a particular love of (and expertise in) this retreat’s focus: creative encaustic.  In addition to private mentoring and instruction in her seacoast New England studio, Kelly serves as Artist Instructor for the International Encaustic Conference at Truro Center for the Arts in Massachusetts, and for the International Association of Pastel Societies in New Mexico, where she holds a Pastel Masters Circle title.  Kelly is a frequent national contributor in museum programming, private retreats, corporate creativity and team-building programs, and her résumé includes international bio-tech science residencies, and a residency with the well-known interior design firm Taste Design of Rhode Island.

Kelly is past President of the Providence Art Club, and the Founding President (Emerita) for South Coast Artists of Rhode Island & Massachusetts.  Her story, studio, and artwork have been featured in prestigious publications, such as New England Home, IAPS Globes, Sotheby’s 401, Artscope, The Pastel Journal, and Newport Life; and in books such as 100 New England Artists; Best of American Pastel, Artists’ Homes & Studios, and The Cortland Review.  In addition to profiles and highlights, Kelly’s held solo exhibitions The Ronald Reagan International Forum in Washington, The Regenerative Medicine International Forum in Berkeley California, and the Palm Beach Photographic Centre of Florida.  Her work has featured prominently at international art fairs such as Red Dot Miami and Boston International Art Fair; and she boasts a list of awarded works purchased and held by national museums, international private and corporate collections.

Kelly aesthetic leans toward the abstract, and she is process driven—which underpins her skills as a mentor and instructor of both groups and individuals.  But it is her abiding curiosity for new experiences, deeper knowledge, vibrant materials, and new ways to wander, combined with her love of people, science and the natural world, that provide Kelly with the perception that places her—as both teacher and practicing artist—in a class of her own.