Kat Eye Studio

by

Art wants to be Free

Liberate Your Art! It wants to be free. Don’t you agree?

There are so many envelopes arriving now for the Liberate Your Art postcard swap. As of Monday, 77 envelopes from 10 countries have arrived. We have a little more than two weeks until the receipt deadline so I know the flood of mail is still coming. So much fun!!

And of course, the mail art keeps coming too! This envelope came from Valerie-Jael, all the way from Germany. I love that thought bubble!

She also included a couple of gorgeous mixed media pieces for me to enjoy. You get to enjoy them here too! Thanks Valerie-Jael!

I had to smile at this lovely lady from Kathryn* in Illinois. Don’t you think a few post office employees got a smile from this too?

Cindy* in Arizona had a great idea on her envelope. Balloon mail! Wouldn’t that be a fun way to get mail?

And finally, I must thank Tina in Minnesota for the title of the blog post. Yes! Art DOES want to be free! Let’s liberate it!

It’s also time for Paint Party Friday, so I want to show the progress of my latest yellow-green piece. I have not had much time to paint this week, but I’ve made some progress and I know where it’s going next. It all comes down to making time.

Have a lovely creative weekend!

*I try to share website links for the mail art I share when I can find them, but many of the envelopes I’m receiving don’t have a website on the postcards. If this art is yours, let me know and I’ll link back to you!

by

Saving the Post Office!

The Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap is saving the post office, one postcard at a time! Sign up for the swap closed this week with just over 300 artists signed up. I’m so excited to see the postcards from all over the world! So far, 41 envelopes have arrived from participants in 7 countries. Many more are on their way, if the notes in the Facebook group are any indication!

This week brought some gorgeous art in the mail. My favorite is this one, from Amanda, a calligrapher in Washington. Is that calligraphy not the most beautiful thing ever?

She’s the one who inspired my leading line, since she wrote “Saving the USPO one postcard at a time” on her beautifully wrapped postcards. I hated to open them, for fear of messing up her work! Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a link for Amanda to share more of her work so you’ll just have to enjoy these photos.

Jane from California (again, no link, sorry!!) created a fun little mixed media piece on her envelope. I’ll share a tip I learned by observing what she did: Cover your mixed media envelope creations with clear packing tape, then the layers won’t peel off as it goes through the mail. Thanks Jane!

This week brought the first snail in the mail! This fun envelope zentangle is from Stacie in Oklahoma. Don’t we all love snail mail?

Finally, I’ll share a bit of my art for the week, for Paint Party Friday. I’m working on two paintings in shades of yellow and green. Last week I shared the first, and here’s the second work in progress. I’m actually working pretty exclusively on this one now, since I know where it’s going. I love it when that happens!

by

Jumpstart your Creativity this weekend!

It’s time to jumpstart your creativity! The Jumpstart Creativity Tour will be in Corvallis this Sunday, July 15. Join us from 7-9pm at the McMenamin’s on Monroe for this FREE artmaking event. You can register here. I’m looking forward to meeting Jess Greene of Seek Your Course and along with more people seeking creativity in my local area. I hope you will join us on Sunday, if you live nearby. And if you don’t, check out the Jumpstart Creativity Tour website to see if the tour is coming to a city near you!

For Paint Party Friday this week, I’ll share the new painting I’m currently layering up. I actually started this one last September, here’s what it looked like then:

It’s been sitting on my easel off and on since then, without any progress. When I finished my last painting I was finally ready to start playing with this one again. Using what I learned with Arriving, I am playing with circles, spirals and stamping to layer the paint. I’m liking it so far, we’ll see where it goes!

by

Mail Call!

It’s time for an update on the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap! As of this week, there are 181 people who have signed up, and I’ve received my first two envelopes. Yay! That may seem like I’ve reached my goal, but if last year is any indication, only about 70% of the artists who sign up will actually participate. That means I need a lot more people to join up to increase participation over last year! Can you help? Share about the swap on your blog, twitter or facebook page. I’ve even created a Facebook Event to make it easy to share with your creative friends, click here.

Won’t it be great to have all of that art reaching mailboxes around the world? I can’t wait!

I can imagine some wonderful art coming to these rural mailboxes, can’t you? They were so cheery, with the riot of flowers surrounding them. I played around with the processing and created another Lightroom Preset called “Mail Call,” which you can download here. It’s got a similar feel to Your Art Here, but the result is a little bit warmer with less desaturation in the reds and greens. I like the sunny feel of it!

Today is also the day I’m sharing my painting progress this week for Paint Party Friday. I’ve continued both paintings from last week, but this is the one I’m happiest with at the moment. It has a definite aquatic feel and I’ve continued to maintain the wave shape that originally appeared on the canvas as I build the layers. I think I’ll add some white next and see what happens. Happy Paint Party Friday to all!

by

What? Me? Paint?

Yes, I’ve been known to paint once in a while. It’s just been a looooooong while. Months and months. I had to search my blog for the last time I painted, and it was September of last year! Yikes. But this whole time, my easel has been set up in my studio and my paints have been right there, ready and waiting. A few months ago I even primed some canvas. There they sat, ready and waiting too. What would it take for me to paint again?

Apparently, the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap is what I needed! I had a lot of participants in last year’s swap from Kristin and Eva’s Paint Party Friday link up, so I contacted Kristin to see if she would help me get the word out about this year’s swap to the Paint Party Friday participants. She suggested that I could be the “Featured Artist” for the week, and get the word out about the Liberate Your Art swap at the same time. Ack, I thought, but I haven’t painted in forever! She assured me that it was okay, but I might want to have some new painting to link in for the week. Hint, hint.

So here I am, with new paintings in progress on my easel. Leave it to Kristin, who encouraged me to paint more when I was in Italy, to get me back into it again. I think she must be my personal painting fairy godmother. So hello Paint Party Friday participants! I’m back! It looks like it’s grown a lot since I last participated, and I look forward to visiting you all this weekend.

And… I hope you will all join in the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap! You can find out more info and sign up here. There are ~130 people signed up so far… not nearly enough to reach my goal to increase over last year’s 170 participants but well on the way! Yay!

So here we go… two paintings in progress this week… it will be interesting to see where these go next!

For those of my readers who are not involved in Paint Party Friday, you can visit my “Featured Artist” interview here. Be sure to come back tomorrow to for the June Exploring with a Camera post. More creative fun!

by

Why We Need Art


I was so excited last weekend, visiting the Saturday Market here in town. I found the first American image for my market/wheels series! Yay!

When I applied the standard “seventies” processing used in the series to the image, I got chills. I had this amazing realization. This series transcends place and time. All over the world, farmers are bringing their delicious wares to markets on wheels. They always have, they always will. I can go anywhere in the world, anywhere, and find images for this series. I could be in the middle of rural China or my little town of Corvallis and I will find a market. In the market, I guarantee I will find wheels. Within this commonality, I can see the differences too. The unique elements that tell the viewer where I am.

This is why we need art. Art is a way to equalize. Artists find connections, and commonalities. We speak in a language that transcends words. Anyone, anywhere in the world can identify with a piece of visual art. It can move us, bring us together in a way that nothing else can. 

And each of us, with our unique vision of the world, has something to offer that conversation. Whether it’s with a camera or a paintbrush or pieces of glass. Each individual point of view adds depth and dimension to the world we live in. We share our differences, and in the process, find the similarities between us. Don’t you think, if the everyone in the world participated in the conversation this way, the world would be a better place? I think so. I hope you’re joining in too.

_________________________

















What’s going on around The Kat Eye View of the World…

  • Linking in to Paint Party Friday today, with these two works in progress started this week. I’m loving the colors! I’m picking up some new liquid acrylics in similar colors tomorrow at our new art supply store in town. (Check out the bottom of the page – I’m featured!!) I can’t wait to play with the new colors, and see where they go next.
  • The current Exploring with a Camera theme is The Color Wheel: Part 1. Check out the post and join in the exploration. 
  • Do you want find your unique vision of the world through photography? Registration for the fall series of the Find Your Eye e-course is open! Visit here for more info.
  • You can subscribe to the Kat Eye News to stay up-to-date on all the happenings.

Upcoming Events