Kimberly Winkle - Full Day Demo
About this event
What This Full-Day Demo Covers
We’re excited to welcome visiting artist Kimberly Winkle, a nationally recognized turner and surface designer whose work is celebrated for its bold colour, playful graphics, and lively sense of form. Kim is widely known for her inventive use of milk paint - layering colour, building pattern, and activating the surface in ways that have influenced turners across North America. She’ll begin the day by introducing the ideas and influences that shape her approach to form, structure, gesture, and surface.
Throughout the demonstration, Kim will show the complete process behind one of her signature small turned and painted stools, revealing how turning, repeatability, texture, colour, and mark-making work together to bring a piece to life. The session blends turning fundamentals with her energetic “From Drab to Pizzazz” approach to milk paint and surface embellishment, offering a rare opportunity to learn directly from an artist whose work exemplifies the creative potential of contemporary woodturning.
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Introduction to Her Work: Ideas, Influences & Approach
Kim begins by sharing the ideas and influences that guide her work - how she approaches form, proportion, gesture, and the interplay between structure and surface. This introduction sets the stage for understanding how her design decisions carry through the turning and painting process.
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Designing and Preparing the Stool Components
Kim discusses how she designs the stool’s proportions and stance, then demonstrates how she creates and uses templates for turning duplicates. These repeatability techniques apply to many multi-part projects, including candlesticks, chair legs, and banister railings.
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Spindle Turning the Legs
Kim demonstrates spindle turning techniques used to shape the stool’s legs, focusing on tool control, clean transitions, and consistency. She’ll show how to turn matching legs and explain how these same skills support any project requiring multiple identical components.
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Turning the Seat: Faceplate Techniques
Kim will demonstrate how she faceplate turns the seat - shaping both the top and underside and refining the gesture of the form. She’ll discuss how subtle shaping decisions influence proportion and the overall character of the stool.
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Milk Paint: From Drab to Pizzazz
Kim will demystify milk paint, showing how to mix it properly, build layered colour, and explore the wide range of visual possibilities it offers. She’ll demonstrate how milk paint can be used on practically any surface and how pattern, texture, and mark-making can activate a turned form. Her playful, graphic approach highlights how surface and structure work together.
Why You Need to Attend
A full-day demonstration with Kimberly Winkle is a rare opportunity to see an accomplished artist reveal the decisions, techniques, and design thinking behind her work. Watching her turn, shape, and paint in real time offers insights that simply can’t be captured in videos or written instructions.
But the value of the day goes far beyond the technical content. Guild events like this bring our community together—members learning side by side, sharing reactions, asking questions, and discovering new ideas through conversation. Whether you’re newer to turning or have years of experience, spending a day with fellow turners strengthens the connections that make our guild vibrant.
You’ll come away with fresh techniques, new perspectives on form and surface, and a deeper appreciation for how design choices shape a finished piece. Just as importantly, you’ll have the chance to build relationships, exchange ideas, and be part of a shared experience that energizes your own work.
Category
Demo & Class - Speaker
Registration Info
Registration is not Required
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