Niki Gessler Artist

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United States
Gosport, IN
Niki Gessler Artist

Gosport, Indiana- based portrait painter and farmer Grey Dog Gallery is the working studio of portrait painter Niki Gessler.

07/10/2025

Who's ready for a watercolor class?!

I'm dreaming up a 30-minute, monochromatic, micro-portrait class at the Hoosier Artist Gallery in September!

I've been doing some work with my pallet so I figure I'll open my pro pallet to the public!

All you need is a cell phone with a source photo on it. No drawing skills required- this is just a 30-minute dip of your toes into the fun and exciting world of watercolor (for those new to it) or a refreshing 30-minute study using another fellow artist's pallet (if you're a watercolor painter, yourself)! We'll be tracing with tracing paper right from the little light box you keep in your pocket.

Make and take:
Tiny 4"x6" watercolor of your very own on Arches 300lb cold press paper with the finest pigments I've collected in my nearly 20 years of watercolor painting!

The best part? This class will be free! No need to sign up, just show up!

I'm still working on an official flyer. It'll be some Saturday in September.

For the examples, I painted my husband and he painted me. These WILL be framed; and you'll probably want to frame yours, too. Really.

06/17/2025

Before & After

This is my pallet and this took me 2 hours

I use watercolor tubes that i sq**rt into cups and rewet when i need them. I used to carry all the tubes around with me, with a mixing pallet. Dumb.

I had been feeling that my blue situation was lacking so I went and got some more options, which lead to refilling and cleaning up my pallet.

Initially, I got these little rectangular cups with magnets from eBay but they didn’t come with enough magnets so I had to cut some in half. And the sticky part of the magnets wouldn’t hold onto the cups 🙄 so I hot-glued them, which was the wrong choice. My cups had been slipping around in my little case ever since.

Today I finally took 100 grit sandpaper to the backs and superglued the magnets on. Seems like this will work.

You know what also works? Buying the right product in the first place 😆

Bloomington Fine Art Supply in Bloomington has the cups with the magnets and when I stopped in today, I bought all they had

And I still need more 😬

You may notice that one of these paints is not like the others! I’m trying out a new brand that I’ve been eyeing at BFA supply- Beam Paints

Let’s see how it goes!

06/16/2025

Here’s the whole image because instagram doesn’t like the dimension.

Are you even a friend of an artist if you haven’t been forced against your will to see a self portrait of them naked?

I won’t always be this hot so I might as well take advantage of it and use myself as a free source subject! 🤷🏾‍♀️ I have an idea for a whole series! This is my Alphonse Mucha portrait, and I’m not ashamed to say I’m a big Mucha fan.

06/16/2025

Niko: Goddess of Female Justice 14”x20” watercolor & ink- if you remember my painting ‘Dark Sister’, you saw ‘what I wish I wasn’t’ and now you can see the natural parallel- ‘what I wish I was’. Yes, it’s a fictitious character. It seems like it doesn’t exist. Crimes against women and girls seem to never have a satisfactory conclusion. If only we had Niko: Goddess of Female Justice 😪 Imagine the retribution. The vultures could feast like kings.

06/16/2025

I did a lazy color chart of my blue situation today because I got some new tubes of Daniel Smith. I was feeling that my blue options were lacking and coincidentally there was a buy one get one half off sale. My totall was still almost a hundred bucks 😬

Orange dots are new tubes

DS is Daniel Smith

W+N is Winsor & Newton

TM is Terry Madden’s, who was the host of a PBS show teaching viewers watercolor. Hobby Lobby used to sell his paints, which I acquired as a high school student. They’re not being manufactured anymore.

06/15/2025

Look at these handmade mosaic earrings from Christina Knipstine! Hoosier Artist Gallery in Nashville- These are just perfect.

But you can’t buy them!

Because I did!

Happy birthday to me! That’s the thing about one of a kind handmade things, it’s the only one in the world (just like you 😘) so when you see something you love, you gotta grab it! It might not wait for you.

Like I grabbed my husband when I found him 🙃

That’s art!

Even for us 2D artists- there’s only 1 original!

06/15/2025

Eat your heart out, AI.

Do you use AI to generate images?
Stop.

In case no one has told you, stop.

Generative AI is a Pandora’s box humanity never agreed to open. Consider the negative impacts and the potential damage.

Yes, AI has trouble with hands and feet NOW, but any day now it’ll figure it out and we won’t be able to tell a real image or video from a fake.

06/10/2025

I've been working on a special commission for a children's book- here's a sneak peak! This was a large project that took over a year. I can't wait to let you know how to pick up your copy!

02/17/2025

EDIT- only 1 spot left available!

Your skin is your body's largest organ. Do you want to learn how to make a very basic bar of cold-process goat milk and lard soap? Join me in my pretty-normal kitchen. It's not a laboratory, and its not a film set. Just a basic setting to help you learn the basics of making something we all use every day. Consider that soap was made in the household until only about a hundred years ago. Just another common skill lost in only a couple generations.

Stick around afterward for a farm tour, if you'd like. The class should take an hour or so.

Because cold-processed soap takes a month to cure, you'll be taking home a few bars of soap I've already made, instead of the soap we'll be making during the class.

No filming, please; though you're encouraged to take notes!

Address

Gosport, IN

Telephone

+18123255816

Website

https://venmo.com/u/nikigessler, https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/niki_gessler_artist/

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