Kat Eye Studio

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My Two-Wheeled Adventure

This week, I rode my scooter to work for the first time! The first time out of the neighborhood, in traffic, stoplights and all that. I was nervous, but I had plotted out a route that was mostly 25mph streets with just a couple of 35mph, so I didn’t have too much to cope with. I’m not one for posing in pictures, but I had my husband take a couple of photos of me when I got home just to prove that this scooter I’ve talked about is real and all!

A friend asked if I had all kinds of pics of the cute scooter in different places, and the answer is no. These are the first photos of it! I’ve been focusing so much on learning to ride it and practicing that I haven’t taken pics. You can expect to see this little Honda Metropolitan in more photos soon… I’ll have to find some good scenes to place it in just to get my scooter photo “fix” on a regular basis. Even though I have no cute photos of it yet, I’m linking in to our great new “Muse Mosaic” at Mortal Muses on the theme of TWO with my two-wheeled transportation. You can participate with your photos too!

And… we can’t forget it’s Paint Party Friday! I must be the slowest painter in the group. I posted this painting I started over a month ago and have had nothing to link in since then…

This week I added a couple more layers, purples and reds. I like the depth of the added colors but it needs more light/dark contrast so I’ll be working on that.

After looking at it for a while, I started to feel like it really goes this way. We shall see, more layers to come. I’m just having lots of fun!

Have a great weekend!

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The Possibilities of Emptiness

What do you see in this image? Maybe you see the empty room, and wonder what will go there. Maybe you see the red wall. Maybe you see the tree beyond the window, the world outside. To me, this room is not empty, it’s full of possibilities. Welcome to my studio. The Kat Eye Studio. Like a blank canvas, what will exist here is what I will create.

Kat Eye Studio has become real in more ways than one with my move home. First I have this room, what should be a “formal living room” is my physical studio, where my creative space will be. It has the best light in the house with the only south facing window, and it’s a nice big space. I’ve also officially created Kat Eye Studio, LLC as a registered business to offer my classes and whatever else I get inspired to do. I’m so excited to make the “studio” I’ve been dreaming of real in multiple ways!

This room is going to morph and change over time. During my assignment in Italy I’ve carefully thought through how I want to use this space for my creative endeavors, and now I get to execute the plan. The final incarnation is going to take a while to get to. I already plan to repaint the wall, and know what furniture I want to go here. The room is currently full of random bits and pieces as we get settled into our house, as you might expect.

But a studio is not much use if you don’t use it, and this week I took steps to move it beyond just a computer and storage room into a truly creative space. I painted! With a borrowed easel, a purchased drop cloth, the painting supplies I brought from Italy in my suitcase and a table and lamp in storage I’ve cobbled together the start of my painting space. I can’t tell you how great it felt to turn on the new Matt Nathanson CD (love his music!) and get messy with paint.

Here’s a pic of what I’ve got in progress. The blue canvas is the one I started this week (I was in a blue mood) and the other two were started in Italy before the move. I’m just adding layers right now, and am interested to see where these go. I don’t have any intention with painting right now, other than to find joy in the process. Happy Paint Party Friday! I’m back!!

Today I thought I would leave you with what I have going on “in the Studio” (I’ve been dying to say that for some time now, can you tell?):

  • Reflections in Glass is the current Exploring with a Camera theme and I’m loving the images being shared! I find reflections complex and interesting and worth seeking out.
  • Are you signed up for Superhero Summer Camp? If not, consider if it’s time to do something good for yourself. We have almost 400 participants – yay! If you’re signed up already, let me know what you think of it so far.
  • We have a wonderful group of people joining my July-August Find Your Eye series of classes. I’m so excited! Registration is open for the next week, and class starts August 24.
  • The Liberate Your Art postcard swap is bringing new mail to my mailbox every day. It’s quite amazing to see! If you missed my post Monday, head over to see a bit of the art that’s been arriving at my house. In the next two weeks that art will be liberated all over the world. So much fun!
Have a wonderful Friday and a fabulous weekend all!

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A Whole New World

Blooming Collaboratively, 30x30in, Acrylic on Canvas

Have you ever craved something, but didn’t know how to start? That’s painting for me. I’ve had the desire for two years now, to paint big, bold, bright paintings. Paintings that expressed something more than the reality around me. Something that would come from intuition and a place deep inside. I’ve dabbled in painting but on a small scale, and without getting to where I wanted to go.

I finally found a way to tap into that inner creative energy that’s been wanting to run free in Flora Bowley‘s Bloom True painting class last week at the Do What You Love retreat. A couple of days ago, I shared the process we learned over the three days to get to one finished painting. Today I’m sharing images of the three paintings I worked on in the class, in celebration of Paint Party Friday.

Painting #1 (above) I’ve titled “Blooming Collaboratively” because it is not wholly mine. Flora teaches a lot about non-attachment and using what “is.” She helped us work through our attachment issues by having us paint on each other’s canvases at the beginning of the first day. An even bigger lesson came mid-morning the second day, when we had to give one of the two paintings we were working on to the person on our left. Yep, a day and a half of painting on this canvas, and now it’s not ours. Big, big lesson in non-attachment.

This painting is partly done by Carissa, who was painting to my left. In the painting I received, I noticed the three bright orange and yellow dots. I had just been sketching flowers on the trees as part of our morning exercise, so the flowers just came, along with the circles. All of the painting you see in the middle of the flowers and circles is the original painting I received. I went from there with the background and details.

It’s interesting, I really like how this painting turned out, but I’m not attached to it. I don’t feel like I can really call it “mine.” It came so easily, it felt like cheating. Somewhere deep inside me there must be some self-inflicted rules I’m harboring that relate to this feeling, that need to get sorted out.

Leafing Out, 30x30in, Acrylic on Canvas

Painting #2: I wrote about the process to create this painting, start to finish, earlier this week. You can read that post here. I am more attached to this painting, because of the struggles I went through and what I learned on it, but I’m not sure I like it. I like the colors and the shapes, the brushstrokes, the individual elements. I struggled with the composition.

What I’ve realized is that composition in painting is very different than composition in photography. In my photography, composition comes naturally to me. My favorite type of photography is what I call “real life still life,” finding an existing scene and composing a photograph with the elements that are already there. Composition, in that case, is about eliminating what shouldn’t be in the frame so that my vision is clear. Painting is different. I’m creating the elements, adding them, subtracting them, combining them. There are just so many possibilities! I’ll have to work through this more, to find a compositional style in painting that comes intuitively.

Unlocked (unfinished), 30x30in, Acrylic on Canvas

Painting #3: This is the canvas we started from scratch on the third (and last) day. Using all of what we had learned so far, it was time to integrate and work independently. Boy, was it fun!! This one came very easily so far, but it’s not complete. Others have commented, “It looks complete to me!” I know in my heart that it is not. I see a few things that I want to do, when I next get my hands on it. The visual elements represent how I feel about painting after this class too, as if there is something that has been unlocked inside of me. Something I’ve been trying to get at, but didn’t know how.

It was great to get the opportunity to do this third canvas, start to (almost) finish. Flora’s classes are usually two days and so this third canvas is not part of the normal plan. It really helped me to integrate what I’ve learned and see what would come out in a work that was on my own. I find it so interesting, how some of the elements are the same in all three – the circles, organic curving shapes of flowers, leaves and vines, the colors of the last two – mostly cool with some warm popping through. Here I’ve hardly painted and a bit of style is emerging. I love it! Right up my alley as I’m passionate about everyone finding their unique vision of the world, regardless of the art form.

There you have it! Three paintings – bigger, bolder and quicker than I’ve ever painted. I’m filled with so much joy and excitement about painting, a whole new world has opened up. I am completely and totally smitten. Now, these canvases have been removed from the wood frames and are rolled up, ready to be shipped to Oregon in July when I move back home from Italy.

After writing this, I’m itching to paint again and am resolving to make the time to get to it before we move. Happy Paint Party Friday everyone!

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The Evolution of a Painting: A Thank You to Art

Yesterday I shared a tiny bit about the Do What You Love retreat, but honestly I was a bit at a loss for words. It was easier to let the photographs do the talking. How can you possibly explain the feeling of being in an environment where art and creativity, positive encouragement and infinite possibility are the norm for four days?

Today I thought I would share just a peek at some of what I experienced by showing the evolution of one of the paintings I created in Flora Bowley‘s class. Through showing you how it progressed through the three days and what I learned, I hope to give you an idea of what it was like. I created three paintings over the three days, and I’ll share the other two (one of which is pictured above, in progress) in Friday’s blog post. (I have to save something for Paint Party Friday, don’t I?)

The first day we quickly learned to get past the “blank canvas” syndrome. Flora’s painting technique starts with a lot of mark making. Using foam brushes, small paintbrushes, found objects, fingers, rags and a spray bottle we learned all sorts of ways to make marks on the canvas. We painted with our eyes closed, danced to the music, stopped for yoga stretches, just worked on releasing the tensions and expectations and using our whole body to paint.

One of the more interesting things we did early in the first day is paint on each other’s canvases. We rotated around the room, moving from canvas to canvas and Flora would tell us what kind of mark to make. We would practice that mark on the canvas we were at and then rotate to the next canvas to practice a new type of mark. The idea was to keep us from attaching too much to any one thing we painted. It definitely worked! It was very fun to see what our canvas looked like when we got back to it.

We spent the first day building up multiple layers of two of our 30×30″ canvases, painting in all of the colors of the rainbow. The idea was to give us lots of possibilities and directions the painting could go in terms of color, shape, subject. Here is the painting at the end of the first day:

Kind of wild, isn’t it? I definitely had lots of directions to go with this! I couldn’t really see how this was going to evolve into anything “beautiful” at this point. This was the canvas that everyone painted on, so it’s fun to know that the whole class had a part in creating this painting.

Here is the image again, rotated 90 degrees, in the orientation of the painting for later comparison. It’s interesting how you see different things when you rotate the painting, isn’t it? We did a lot of that, working from different directions.

We started the second day by writing a gratitude list and then sketching from nature. Flora encouraged us to look at both the broad vista and the close up for our sketches. We were in a beautiful place to do this! The Yorkshire countryside rolled along in front of us and the trees and flowers were in their spring bloom. She then showed us how she started to use what was working in the layers she had created, plus her sketches from the morning, to bring more out of the painting. She encouraged us to make a bold move, commit to something, not be afraid to cover up what was already there. You have to do this to make room for the new, great things that will come along.

That was probably the hardest lesson for me to learn in this class – covering up what was already there. I seemed to want to keep everything. I mean, what if it became important to the end work? It wasn’t until the end of this second day that I finally got this concept. It is only by truly committing and seriously covering up parts of the underpainting that the wonderful layers and textures begin to pop out. You need that contrast. (Interesting, isn’t it, that I’ve been exploring Visual Contrast in my photography.)

My “bold move” to start at the beginning of the second day was to paint the fern across the middle of the painting and then started to fill in around that. The other leaves and circles started to pop out and emerge, so I went with that. One of Flora’s mantras was to “go with what’s working.” Here is the painting at the end of the second day:

The color palette had emerged as mainly cool colors, green, blue and purple. I discovered I absolutely loved painting and mixing the dark and lights with my fingers, you can see that in the greens in the upper left corner. I really liked how the fern and the upper left corner were emerging, but was struggling with the bottom right. I hadn’t committed to anything there yet and had been reworking it. By the end of the day, I was just fried. I needed some time away from painting, so that I could get a better perspective and see what to do next. We had an evening off from the activities, so I drank wine and talked with my cabin-mates into the wee hours of the morning.
We started day three with writing an affirmation for the day. Taking a fear, or something we were struggling with, and turning it into a positive statement.  We taped this up on the wall of the painting tent, to remind us during the day if we got stuck. We also started with stretches, and had frequent breaks throughout the day for stretching, dancing, running around the field. Just keeping ourselves loose and having fun. Letting go. It was very funny, when Flora asked us as the beginning of the day if we wanted to start with a demo or if we wanted to just start painting, we enthusiastically answered that we wanted to paint!
When I stood back and looked at my painting in the morning of the third day, I had a very good idea what I wanted to do and just got on with it. I covered up some more of the bottom right area, bringing in the light greens from the upper left, and created some repetition with the black dots. 
I was struggling with the upper right area, the bright red. I liked the pops of red that were throughout the painting from the underpainting but that area wasn’t working for me. Flora suggested I pull the red through some other areas of the painting more, with little details. She didn’t tell me where or how to do it, just that it would help. What a great teacher! I’m sure she saw some things I could do but she didn’t tell me, she let me figure it out myself.
I finished the painting around the middle of the third day. Here is the finished work:

It is unlike anything I’ve ever done before. It is big, it is bold, it is unplanned. This isn’t necessarily my favorite of the three paintings, but this is definitely the one that I learned the most on. I struggled with things and broke through them. Flora’s experience, repeated many times to us, is that the paintings she struggles the most with are often her best work. She encouraged us to keep pushing through those barriers we found. To commit to bold moves. Look to nature for inspiration. Move our bodies. Go with what’s working. Reminding us that we made the marks that were there, we could always make them again.

It was a very emotional experience for many of us. It’s amazing how painting can be so connected to our core self, how much we can each individually struggle and the emotions it brings up. How we can attach ourselves to certain outcomes. How our inner voices can just destroy our confidence. There are so many parallels between painting, or any art, with our life. I learn this over and over again as I continue explore art and creativity. I have learned more about myself through art in the last couple of years than through anything else, ever.

Thank you to Flora, for being such a wonderful teacher. She gave us the tools and lessons but let us find the ways to make our painting an expression of our self. Thank you to my classmates, who provided all sorts of positive encouragement and support for each other along this journey, which was difficult at times. Thank you to Beth, for creating such a wonderful environment at the retreat that we could learn these amazing things about art and life. And thank you to art and creativity, for being the thing that makes me whole.

(Stephey Baker of Marked by the Muse is doing a “Thank You to Art” link up right now. What perfect timing! Visit her site to see more stories and link your “thank you” in.)

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For the Love of Blue + Postcard Giveaway and Swap Update

So, I go to Greece to take pictures of white houses and blue sea. Which I did, and I enjoyed. But as I shared in Monday’s post, the things that inspired me the most continued to be the places with texture, the colors, and little details like this door handle and lock. I captured this in the small town Megalochori when we rented a car one day and visited some of the smaller towns around the island of Santorini. Once you got out of the tourist zones where everything was postcard-perfect, Santorini was texture heaven. Just goes to show, style will always come through. You’ve probably heard the saying: “No matter where you go, there you are.” Even artistically, this is so true. (I’m linking this in to The Creative Exchange for that reason!)

Today I’ve also got a lot of little updates so hang on through the end if you are interested in a Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap update, my Paint Party Friday entry, entering a postcard giveaway and a quick newsletter tip.


Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap Update and Postcard Giveaway

I’m so excited with the response to the postcard swap. There are 87 people signed up for the swap so far. That’s 435 pieces of art that will be winging their way around the world come late July. Isn’t that awesome? And it’s all because you are helping me get the word out!  Thank you so much!

If you’re already signed up, you can expect an email this week with some more ideas and resources about making or printing your postcards. If you have some resources or tips you want to share with the group, send them to me and I’ll add them to the update. If you haven’t signed up yet, there’s plenty of time. Go here to sign up and get the details.

To thank you for the great response to the swap and your help with growing it, I’m doing a postcard giveaway, to liberate more art into the world.  There will be two winners. I’ll be giving away a set of my own “Favorite Flowers” postcards, as well as a set of “Superhero” postcards from my good friend Jenny Shih. Any one of these postcards is guaranteed to make the recipient smile.

 

Even better, you can have up to three entries into the pool. Here is what you need to do to enter:
1. Comment on this post for one entry. Just say hi and you are in!
2. If you are a signed up for the postcard swap, you get a second entry. Leave a second comment on this post that you are signed up, for your second entry. It’s not too late – sign up here and then come back and use this entry!
3. If you have helped get the word out on the postcard swap (a blog post, a tweet, putting the button on your blog sidebar, etc.), you get a third entry. Leave a third comment on this post telling us what you did to help get the word out, and provide a link if you have one, for your third entry. It’s not to late for this either – if you help get the word out between now and Monday, come back and comment again.

I will draw for the winners on Tuesday morning here in Italy, so you have until Monday night around midnight EST to leave your comments. Please make sure that there is a way for me to get at your email through your comment – either by a link back to your website where I can find it or commenting with a method that will allow me to reply. If you win and I can’t find your email to contact you for the address, I’ll re-draw for the prize.

Quick Newsletter Tip


My newsletter will be going out on Sunday, with the Visual Contrast printable file I told you about in yesterday’s post. Be sure to add my email address to your address book so it doesn’t end up in your spam folder. If you signed up but don’t see it by Monday morning, or didn’t see the first one I sent a couple of weeks ago, check your spam folder.

Paint Party Friday!


I had so much fun participating in Paint Party Friday the first time a couple of weeks ago. That, along the wonderful blues I experienced in Greece last week, have motivated me to start another painting. This is a small 20x20cm canvas, painted in acrylics. I haven’t finished it yet, but thought I would share my progress.

Step One: I wanted to get a watery looking background so I used quite a bit of water with Cerulean blue paint to initially paint the background. Then I crumpled a paper towel and dabbed at the canvas to unevenly take paint away. It was an experiment, and I liked the results.

Step Two: I started painting a circle of Aquamarine, from the outside in. I still used quite a bit of water and overlapped as I went. Eventually I worked to the center and then spiraled out, darkening the places that seemed to be naturally dark. I had no intention with the subject, but the result at the end of this step look like a rose to me.

This is all I’ve done so far. Next I’m planning to go along with the emerging rose I see and add some highlights. We’ll see where this goes in future updates. It’s funny how both this painting and the last one I did have ended up looking like flowers, that was not intentional.

Have a great weekend!!

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Join me in the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap


What happens when you create your art? Does it make you happy? Do you find that you have an amazing boost of energy, of insight into life and self? Do you find that you feel centered and grounded, as if some piece of you has been completed for brief moment? I’ve discovered the act of creating, of making art of any kind, can have an amazing and transforming effect on me personally. I know I’m not alone.

Now, what happens when you share that art with world? You share a little bit of yourself, and add a little bit of beauty or joy or brightness into someone else’s day. When you share your art, that wonderful energy you gained in the act of creation is not gone, it is magnified. You will see it reflected back to you in different, positive ways.

That’s what the Liberate Your Art postcard swap is all about – sharing your art, liberating it out in the world, where it can do its greatest good. I’m so excited to officially launch this today and get the information to you, so you can get started on making your postcards! At the bottom of this post you can find a the sign up form to receive more details via email and a button to share on your site.

Here’s an overview of the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap:

WHO: Artists in any medium. Photography, painting, poetry, typography, jewelry, sculpture, knitting, cooking, illustration – you name it. If you can have an image of your art printed on a postcard, you are in! If you want to share a blog or website address, I’ll have a list of participants posted on the Liberate Your Art page so you can find each other.

WHAT: You will send 5 printed postcards of your original art to me, along with your address and return postage. I will then swap them around and you’ll receive 5 postcards from different artists mailed back to you over a period of a few weeks. (The email you receive once you sign up will have all of the details on what to do.)

WHERE: You don’t have to go anywhere, and participants from all over the world are welcome! You will send your postcards to me in the US (I’ll be moved back by then) and I’ll mail them back out from there. Details for international participants will be included in the email.

WHEN: The postcards will need to arrive at my US address between July 5 and July 15.

WHY: To liberate your art into the world, where it can do the most good!

I’ve set a personal, crazy-big goal for this swap – I would love to have 200 participants from all over the world. Can you imagine, 1000 postcards of wonderful art, winging their way around the world? I can! But I need your help. Please share about this swap on your blog, facebook page, tweet it and get your friends to sign up too. If we reach this goal, I am going to do something crazy too – send a personal post card to each and every person who participates. I get excited (and a little scared) just thinking about it!

The sign up form is below and can also be found on the Liberate Your Art page. Once you sign up, you will need to confirm your subscription to the list and you will receive the email with more details.

**sign up form removed, July 2011 swap closed**


Today I’m also linking up the painting I did for the blog button to Kristin and Eva‘s Paint Party Friday. I started painting in acrylics shortly after moving here to Italy, but my passion for photography has taken over and I haven’t painted in a while. Recently I emailed Kristin to ask her a question about one of her painting techniques and I shared a few of my paintings with her too. Since then, she’s been encouraging me to paint again so I wanted to share this with her to say, “See Kristin! I listened to you!” Thanks so much for the encouragement, Kristin. I’m sure there will be more paintings to come.