Kat

October 1, 2017 by Kat

Art with an iPhone Second Edition Available for Preorder!

It’s coming! The second edition of Art with an iPhone is now available for preorder on Amazon. Pop right over here to Amazon and preorder your copy today. The publication date is December 15, 2017 so it will be shipping in time for Christmas. Yay!

I’m so excited to get this second edition out in the world. Not only is it updated for app and technology changes, it includes lots of new art plus new techniques as well. My art has evolved since the first edition, so the book needed to evolve too. Even if you have the original book, there will be new things in the second edition for you.

Thanks in advance for your preorders! They really help the success of the book.

April 13, 2017 by Kat

Liberate Your Art 2017 Final Celebration

We did it! We are wrapping up another fantastic year of the Liberate Your Art postcard swap. This year was swap number seven!! Here are the stats for participation:

876 pieces of art liberated
146 artists participating
12 countries
30 US states and territories

As always, you are an enthusiastic bunch! I love the energy that shows up in the Facebook Event Group before and during the swap. I think this year the sharing of the postcards in their new home was especially creative. Thanks for stepping that up!

One of the goals of the swap since the very beginning has been to foster connections between artists in different places and mediums. The requirement to add an email or web address to the postcards was new this year, and I hope it encouraged you to reach out and connect with your fellow artists via email or online. Everyone likes to know where their postcards landed.

So, what theme came out for me this year? You saw it on my postcard, and you see it in the piece I created for the Final Celebration – these words kept coming back to me over and over:

Experiment, Create, Play & Liberate

Four simple words which are clues to an expressive, playful and free approach to making art. Let’s keep those four words with us over the next year as we make and share our art. I have a feeling that great things will come along if we do.

Now it’s time for the video! Let’s take a look at the art liberated in the swap. I received images from 100 of the artists in the swap for the video this year, so it’s still not everyone, but seeing this much art in one place is definitely inspiring.

Thanks to everyone for liberating your art this year! This swap is not possible without YOU.

Now, it’s time to HOP! I have a special bonus for the blog hop participants in the form of a giveaway drawing! At the end of the final celebration, by random drawing from all blog hop links, I will be giving away:

One 6×9″ fine art print of this year’s Final Celebration image “Experiment Create Play & Liberate” shown above. Having this image in your studio will be a reminder of a great way to approach your art.
Ten packets of postcards from other participants. You all were a generous bunch, and even after sharing them with the helpers on swap day, I have lots of extra postcards to share with the rest of you!

If you would like your own 6×9″ signed fine art print of this year’s image “Experiment Create Play & Liberate,” it is only available for purchase during the time of the final celebration. To order, click here if you are within the US and here if you are outside of the US. Postage is included in the purchase price. Thank you! Your orders help me defray the extra expenses I incur on behalf of the swap. (And don’t worry, if you purchase the print and then win the giveaway, I’ll refund your money.)

All right, are you ready? Let’s celebrate! Share your experiences with the 2017 swap. You can link in from a blog, Flickr, Facebook, even Instagram! Make sure your image is public, and you are good to go.

An InLinkz Link-up

April 2, 2017 by Kat

Getting caught up…

So there have been three things in my world since the start of the year… Work, the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap, and Robotics. Let’s get caught up a bit on how everything has been going!

In Robotics, the six week build season ended on February 18. The team successfully completed two robots, a Practice bot (left) and a Competition bot (right). The Competition robot has very strict rules on when it can be used, so the Practice robot gives a team more flexibility to continue to refine and improve the hardware, software and driving between competitions.

Last weekend we had our second District competition, and it looks like our team is headed to the District Championships next weekend at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Washington. Yay! Take a look at this great highlights video from last week’s competition to see the robots in action. Look for 997 on the robot and the kids – that’s our team! It’s pretty amazing what these kids achieve.

In the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap, we had a successful swap day on Sunday, March 19. (I squeezed swap day in between robotics competitions. Scheduling in my world is pretty tight these days.) I had four great helpers and we were an efficient bunch!

Art has been liberated for the last two weeks. One more week to go! The last mailing will be sent from the Robotics District Championships in Washington, a fun little overlap of my different projects.

The Final Celebration for Liberate Your Art 2017 is a blog hop on April 14-16. Party on the blog in two weeks!

March 16, 2017 by Kat

Last of the Mail Art

We are SOOOO close to the Liberate Your Art postcard swap deadline! Swap Day is just three days away. I have a crew of helpers lined up and I’m checking in the last few envelopes. You can always tell when the end is near… The envelopes start arriving expedited! 🙂

This is the last blog update of mail art from the 2017 swap. The next blog post will be about Swap Day and liberating the first of the art. Can’t wait!! Enjoy the last of this year’s mail art…

The first comes from Andrea in Austria. Her envelope was a little worse for the wear by the time it arrived here. Yikes! Close call! I have had envelopes arrive empty before, which is always very sad. Thankfully that didn’t happen here!

A little closer to home, Terry in Oregon created this lovely collage:

Tennille, another Oregonian, created this lovely envelope-scape! One of my favs this week. Thanks Tennille!

Neha in Florida collaged the envelope front and back. Here’s the back:

This one, from Cathy in Virginia, is painted and stitched. Love this color combo!

Natasha in California created a lovely design in colored pen. I think Natasha’s envelope has made it on the blog just about every year she’s participated!

Regina in Virginia caught my attention with her fun monster. Yes, life is a CIRCUS. For me right now, anyway…

Amy in Nashville created her envelope with the same art as her postcards. Very nice!

Fast in Virginia created this lovely piece and then printed it onto the envelope. Clever!

And we finish up this year’s mail art sharing with this envelope from Scott in Illinois. Rock on!

Thank you ALL for sharing your art with every person who handled your envelope. I’ve seen the smiles they bring. You’ve already liberated your art! The postcards are bonus, at this point. And they will be liberated MONDAY!!

March 5, 2017 by Kat

Mail Art = Happiness

It’s getting down to the wire in the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap. The swap receipt deadline is two weeks from yesterday (Saturday March 18), and swap day is two weeks from today (Sunday March 19). That means art is liberated two weeks from tomorrow! Woohoo!

And of course, as we get closer, mail art keeps arriving! Here are this week’s favorites…

Val from Canada did some fun papercuts. I love the dimension! (Survival through the mail is sometimes hit or miss though…)

Another Canadian! Lynn stitched this lovely envelope…

…and added some cool ink art on the back.

Longtime participant Sheila from Arizona painted what looks to me like a field of blooming wildflowers. I don’t know if that’s what you meant Sheila, but that’s what I see!

Diane from Australia converted a kraft envelope into an explosion of bubbly color…

Deanie in Arizona shows the way to Liberate Your Art!

TWO WEEKS to go! Coming soon…

February 26, 2017 by Kat

Fast and Furious Comes the Mail

The envelopes for the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap are arriving fast and furious! It’s an exciting time, just three weeks until swap day.

Here are a few of the gorgeous envelopes I’ve received over the last couple of weeks. Things are getting busy enough I can’t show all of the decorated envelopes, so forgive me if yours is not featured. Enjoy these wonderful pieces of mail art!

We’ll start out with Julia from Washington, a beautiful painted piece:

Paula in Virginia created this lovely one. She knows the way to my heart… Put a cat on it!

Lisa in North Carolina created this lovely collage of red, gold and purple…

Anne from Australia created an envelope with great energy:

Vicki from New York created one of my favorite envelopes to date. The collage and color is just wonderful. There is a quote on the back: You are never too old to dream a new dream. So true!