Karen Mack

My studio is a disaster and currently looks like: 🫯 Amazon exploded 🫯 my trash can puked a unicorn 🫯 unfinished paintings everywhere 🫯 cords trying to strangle me 🫯 and Mini Me is currently buried in papers with only her little feet sticking out 😂 (can you find her?) This is NOT the beautifully curated artist studio people imagine or that I usually share with you. I am walking the walk here. This is: 📍 creating 📍 experimenting 📍 teaching 📍 filming 📍 building kits 📍 repainting 📍 thinking 📍 trying new things 📍 working hard I think creativity is often a little messy but I don’t always work this way. I do think of myself as more organized in my brain than this temporary chaos that you see here. Honestly, it’s a little uncomfortable for me to share this with you. So now I want to see YOUR imperfect thing this week. Your space, A project Even a conversation Something from this week that is: 🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟 🫟 🫟 Crooked 🫟 Weird 🫟 Half finished 🫟 Burnt 🫟 Messy 🫟 Chaotic 🫟 Barely held together with spite 🫟 🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟 We start with being ok with messy imperfections. Drop your imperfect thing below. You can do this.

New comment 9m ago

Karen Mack

2 likes • 9h

Is this a messy picture contest? I've got entries galore. This is this morning. Not sure why I snapped this pic. We are doing some customizing in the RV. These are three recliners that made the larger sofa. I've been sleeping on it because the full size bed is just not big enough for the both of us. We discovered the shorter sofa is actually a sofa bed. Who knows why. It would completely block the main door if used where it currently sits. Why do the chairs look so ragged? I'm glad you asked. This was a very expensive RV that we didn't buy PTL. The sofas appear to be leather. But they aren't even pleather. If you have ever encountered the material, you will know exactly what I mean. There is a thin skin of something rather delicate that appears to be leather. under that easily disrupted exterior layer is a suede like cloth that quickly sheds once exposed. And then you are down to the stuffing. Oddly, the mechanisms in these sofas are quite robust. We often discuss the vagaries of our current buildling models. Don't get me started. I once lived in a house that the exterior was built out of what was really glorified cardboard. Seriously, particle board is more robust. Happily I think it was since discarded as a home building material. I watched acres of Mcmansions thrown up in the Charlotte area (the county I lived in was the fastest growing county in the entire country for a time) that won't last 30 years. I have strong opinions about that!

Karen Mack

1 like • 30m

OKay I had to post this. Husband has done an amazing job today and it has come out better than we imagined!!! And the floor went all the way under that sofa which is very helpful. The RV actually has good lights, those two are very bright and can be turned on individually. Plenty of room for us both to have space. Or, as I told dear heart, loads of room for me if/when he creates an office in another trailer. hahahaha When we move it to the 4 acres, I'm putting it where I can have a hummingbird feeder right there at that window. And develop a bird/bee garden around it! He salvaged the counter material from the wonderful "boneyard" his cousin keeps. It is from a govt restroom unit never used. It is the stall material, the doors and dividers. Very strong, smooth and cleanable! And the color goes right in this RV like it belongs there.

Michelle Cyr

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Mar 11 •

Home Room - no spitballs

The results are IN! 👀

You all overwhelmingly voted for the zoomed out image. This teaches me a lot about you all. You have a desire for DETAIL. YAYYYY!!! 🎉 🙌🏻 🍸 This helps with realism. But as a new artist, we start asking “What will make a better painting?” 🖼️ We consider these things: EMPHASIS of peppers LOCATION of peppers EMPTY SPACE around the peppers LESS peppers IS better composition A NEW lesson about Composition is HERE: Have a look. Then go back to your images you submitted in this post and pick the one that best fits what you learned about composition. YOU CAN enter brand new images too! Enter as many as you like! We are setting you up for an AMAZING first painting!

New comment 20m ago

Karen Mack

1 like • 48m

@Michelle Cyr I had 32 cages in Texas. Those had to house everything including the kits after weaning. I culled down to my very favorite/best breeders and brought 16 rabbits to Georgia. Those videos were from the first breeding here. I only got in two breedings. When the coccidiosis was done, I had four does and two bucks left and four of those were aging out (I had only been breeding 5 years - was only just starting to lose breeders to age). The two that were still productive were not a good pairing. I traded them to friends I made here for a trio I had promised a cousin. The trio is still here but I'm not breeding them. Three of the four of my breeders left have passed. I still have the littlest oldest doe named Florence who is featured in one of those videos. I'm tickled you enjoyed them. I had to stop myself from watching more of them myself!

Karen Mack

1 like • 41m

@Michelle Cyr So the breed is a composite of New Zealand Red, New Zealand White, Californian, Siamese Satin, Dutch, Champagne d'Argent, Harlequin and Havana. So many color genes. There are no broken colors and no Vienna blue eyes. It was developed to be a good backyard breeder rabbit and the temperament is almost universally good, excellent mothers and good heat tolerance. But lots of variation. Folks are trying to keep lines going but its a challenge. Yes, Viola was a beautiful chinchilla color. Love chinchilla colors! I had one pair of Rex rabbits. Oh that fur! I was buying out a lady that had to sell her rabbits fast. Didn't intend to keep those but husband fell in love with the castor buck - such a rich color. Yah, I miss them terribly.

Michelle Cyr

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14h •

Home Room - no spitballs

😮😮😮 JUST WOW 😮😮😮

I had NO idea our little art game was going to explode like it did. You guys went full on Rabid Beaver with a damn Flame Thrower! The Stories. Laughter. Old artwork. AI debates. Pole dancing illustrations. Questions about the Glory Hole. Fucupcakes. German Shepards. Wood burning. Digital art. People reconnecting with parts of themselves they forgot about. Seriously impressive for a group that mostly feels they aren’t creative or artistic. 🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟 🫟 🫟 THIS is NOT just a space to teach painting. 🫟 But a space where 🫟 highly intelligent people 🫟 can discover what their creativity looks like 🫟 without feeling stupid or judged. 🫟 🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟 Watching you guys interact, encourage each other, joke around and actually LOOK at each other’s work was amazing. This isn’t social media BS! We are real PEOPLE. And THAT is what makes my heart explode! Like seriously I have tears of joy as I re-read this entire thread again. My promise of a FREE month of Premium goes to: 🔥 @LM Sharron 🔥 Girl… You brought humor, vulnerability, honesty, curiosity, conversation, and a whole mega fuckton of personality. Thank you. Thank ALL of you. This thread was one of my favorite things we’ve done here so far and I think yours too. We are DEFINITELY doing this again. I am putting on my creative brain to do more like this. And to leave you with a thoughtful question: Do you think that sharing creative work feels vulnerable because there’s no one correct answer? No absolute? Or…..?

New comment 4h ago

Karen Mack

1 like • 9h

@LM Sharron I was surprised because I typically don't like to play these games. I'm not sure why. I like games. I like community. Even on thinking about it, I can't...well...hmmmm...even though it's hard for me to follow a recipe, I am a rule follower by nature. So if the rules make it where I can't follow them "right," I tend to bypass. Unless it is a group like this. And what I mean by a group like this is a very high bar that is rarely hit for me. I also tend to freeze - in my recent workshop we were to bring a life story that we had told a lot. The kind that comes up in conversation and has been honed by feedback. I'm 64 years old and I definitely have those stories...could I think of any? One? Something? I finally came up with one. But when we were sharing them in class, I thought of dozens. All better, of course, than the one I extracted from my relunctant brain. It's very like those life moments where you think of twenty dozen things you COULD have said way after the moment has come and gone.

Michelle Cyr

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3d •

Home Room - no spitballs

Let’s play a game.

My beautiful friend @Heather Boers has taught me how wonderful games are. So we are going to dip our toe in the water so to speak with a game. Post an image. 🖼️. Any image. It can be a drawing, a wood burning, a painting, your diamond art or even a 10 second pig stick figure. The rest of us must guess if that image is YOUR creation or not your creation. 👍🏻 - to vote if you think YES 👎🏻 - to vote if you think it’s NOT their art. ___________________ ‼️ HERE IS WHAT’s IMPORTANT ‼️ ‼️‼️YOUR VOTE‼️‼️ I will choose one winner that really participated who really voted on the others images. and they get a FREE month of Premium on me! That’s access to the painting library with the complete step-by-step instructions to paint the reference image of your choice.

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New comment 4h ago

Karen Mack

1 like • 11h

@Michelle Cyr Yes, quite a few communities do that, not typically to that level which is why I was surprised (not a negative or complaint) - why I didn't immediately check the levels. I'm not sure what the "critical mass" in Skool is for scamming - usually there is a size that just lends itself to scamming. I am ALL FOR squashing scamming. When I knew I was moving to Georgia, I started joining Facebook groups for area homesteaders, etc. [I have a love/HATE relationship with FB but unfortunately it still has advantages for some things]. I ended up taking over one and started booting scammers. But I had NO IDEA how bad it had gotten. I ended up getting the help of a lady who had become an expert on spotting livestock scammers. The group was about 7000 members. It is now under 4000. THAT is how bad it is and some are easy to recognize and some most definitely are not.

Karen Mack

1 like • 11h

@Michelle Cyr Oh wow, kudos on not being concerned about mentioning other groups. It is the one restriction I have to figure out both the stated and unstated rules in any community. Because I've created and managed groups, I want to follow those rules. But because I love to help people find community, I have to Shut my Mouth when it comes to recommending other groups to individuals I think would love them. I am all admiration!!

Karen Mack

2d •

Show and Tell

Paint my Image

Again I cheated. I took my sunflower into Grok Imagine and had it expand the negative space. First two attachments. And then I cropped one. Third image. What do you think of the final - third - image?

New comment 4h ago

Karen Mack

1 like • 1d

@Michelle Cyr That happens to me as well. No worries at all.

Karen Mack

1 like • 1d

@Michelle Cyr I tend to go from the bottom up in my notifications BUT this gets dicey when you are getting more like I imagine if you have a group. I pared down my groups when I came back. Wait, it doesn't do oldest first? Huh. I do wish there were a few sorting options. For example, once you go to a thread, you can read all that are there. I might be a little OCD about this kind of thing. Have to watch myself.

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Level 4 - HS Dropout

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Karen Mack

@karen-mack-7973

Possible new business in the germination stage

Active 26m ago

Joined May 1, 2026

Preston GA