Kat Eye Studio

by

A Morning at the Museum

Art on a rainy morning, what could be better? While in Chicago, I had a morning free to visit the Art Institute of Chicago. A wonderful place! The first major art museum I’ve visited since returning back to the US. I enjoyed the opportunity to see some new works of some of the painters I came to appreciate while in Europe, and learn more about American artists as well. The museum allows photos too – a very happy day for me!! My experience of art is always deepened if I can capture it with my camera.

Since I had limited time and I know what periods of art I like, I focused my visit on specific areas. American Modern Art (1900-1950), European Modern Art (1900-1950), and Contemporary Art (1945-1960). I also popped through Contemporary Art (1960 and later), Architecture and Design (special exhibit on Bertrand Goldberg), and Photography (although they were resetting the photography exhibit and most of it wasn’t open – sad!).

As always, I was drawn to abstracts with bright colors. Paintings that highlight gradations and transitions between color in unusual ways attract me. A new find this trip was German painter Franz Marc, I loved this painting called The Bewitched Mill. Very much like my favorite Italian Futurists of a similar time. I am always drawn to the art of 1900-1920 or so.

I just loved his use of color! Isn’t it gorgeous?

It was also fabulous to see more of Georgia O’Keefe’s work in the American section, she has a style that has always appealed to me. I was pleasantly surprised by how large the museum’s Impressionist collection was! It was great to see more of Monet’s water lilies, and Cezanne’s still lifes, among many others. I also very much enjoyed seeing these two paintings by Mary Cassatt. I’ve seen them before in texts but they are beautiful in person. She had such an amazing way of portraying everyday moments.
I left the museum refreshed and inspired. There is something about art, specifically painting, that just speaks to my soul. What a wonderful opportunity to connect with this again!

Emily, this last one is just for you. (Bueller… ? Bueller… ?)

PS – Lightroom 3 Update: I edited all of these in Lightroom this morning! I’ve had absolutely no instruction (books are on their way!) but I’m finding it intuitive to use and in some ways much simpler than Photoshop Elements. I will keep you posted as I progress!

by

Inspired by…

I’ve been wanting to share how my studio is shaping up, with some lovely art to inspire me. It is so exciting to get things up on the wall, making the whole space more complete.

The top painting is by Diana Mulder, a mixed media artist I met online over a year ago. She created this work of art from a photo I took, you can read the story about it here. I am enchanted by this piece for many reasons. It is from an image of my son, which endears it to me, but also for the connection it represents with Diana and other artists I’ve met online. I love how she took my original photo and added brighter colors. This image does not do it justice, there is a lot more texture and layers than is visible here. How perfect the color scheme fits right into my studio, too!

The middle painting is by local artist Jennifer Lommers. I found her at the Corvallis Fall Festival, a wonderful local arts festival held every September here in town. It turns out, Jennifer lives in my neighborhood and knows my son from the school bus stop. Small world! I am entranced by her colorful, swirly style. I absolutely loved the large original of this peacock, but settled on the print for now. I am happy to have it framed and gracing my creative space.

The bottom painting is an original watercolor, purchased in Burano, Italy. As Burano is my favorite place for color, this was a perfect add to my studio as well. Other little bits of inspiration on the shelves are a Murano-glass clock, a cute cat figurine purchased in San Marino, and a little die cast scooter I purchased for my son on my first business trip to Italy, before we ever thought about moving there. Everything in this space is a source of inspiration.

Do you have a creative space? Do you fill it with things that bring you joy?

Linking in to Paint Party Friday, to share the art of these inspiring painters with others this week! Kristin and Eva, I hope that’s ok.

 

by

Finished!

The Garden
16×20″, Acrylic on Canvas

Finished! Two months in the making, this is my first finished painting, since returning home from Italy. It is my first finished painting since Flora Bowley’s workshop in May too, and really my first painting completely “on my own.” No teacher, no photo to guide me. Just me, paints and paintbrush. It feels good to get to this point, but I’m stretching out of my comfort zone here to actually lead with the painting as the main image of the post. Have you noticed how I usually lead with a photo, even when I share a painting? Photography is where I’m confident and secure, painting is not. I have so much to learn.

The recognition I have much to learn was brought home this week by my attendance of the Corvallis Art Guild meeting on Monday night. This art guild is for 2D, non-photography artists. (There is also a local Photo Arts Guild, which I’ve joined too.) I decided to join because I want to continue to learn about painting, and be part of the local artistic community. At the beginning of the meeting, some of the artists shared their work. It was amazing, the talent in that one row of people blew me away. It made me feel like a complete and total fraud to be there! I have so far to go. The meeting was inspiring and intimidating all at once. I don’t think I’ll be sharing in that front row for a quite a while. (Why is it I’m ok with sharing here and not there? Thought to ponder…)

Here’s the progression of the painting, from start to finish. I know I posted most of this before, but I’m posting it here to have it in one place.

At this point, it needed to be turned…

It was here my husband asked if I started a new painting, he didn’t recognize it…
And, done!

Happy Paint Party Friday! Have a great weekend.

_________________________

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

by

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.)

by

Doing What I Love…

Imagine spending five days in the gorgeous Yorkshire countryside, eating your meals in a tipi around a fire.

Staying in wonderful cabins, that feel like part of the surrounding forest, with the best cabin-mates ever.
Sleeping in a heavenly bed, in a room where the art is the natural world outside the window.
Juliette and Carissa
Meeting the most amazing people from all over the world. We didn’t know each other, but found instant connections. I felt like I had known these wonderful women my whole life.
Tara
Learning to paint from my intuition with the most amazing artist and teacher, Flora Bowley. Learning to go with what’s working, to go bold, to let go of attachment to a specific outcome and see what happens.
Finding my heart, in the midst of it all.
I got back late last night from the Do What You Love retreat, and I’m still processing all that went on. It was so, so wonderful! I will share more over time. Over the next few days I’ll be getting caught up on the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap, adding new participants to the link list. The swap is now at 172 participants – so close to my goal of 200 – thank you all for your help!! I will also be visiting the many people who have linked in to Exploring with a Camera: Visual Contrast in the last few days, you still have a day or two to link in if you would like to share your image. 
I’m full to bursting with all of the positive energy that happens when you get 40+ people together, all doing creative things they love. Who knows what will come out next…

(Linking in to The Creative Exchange and Creative Every Day today.)

by

My Day in the Sun

This image holds such a warm memory for me. As I shared the other day, I woke up before dawn this morning and watched the sunrise. I loved how the sun spilled over the edge of the mountains and clouds, and was happy to be able to capture the moment. It was such a warm morning, I sat out on the balcony in the sun and wrote my answers for Diana Mulder‘s interview series “Women Who Create Beautiful Things” which is posted on her site today. You can read about how I ended up in Italy, found my passion for photography, and what’s coming next for me.

It was a great experience to do this interview! I was nervous at first to put myself out there in this new way, but answering the questions helped me look at my story from a new perspective. Since I have enjoyed Diana’s art and her blog for nearly a year, I felt as if I was talking directly to her as I wrote.

Diana and I met during Kellie Rae Robert’s Flying Lessons course last summer, and connected to each other’s art immediately. Early on, she had looked at the photographs on my blog and asked me if she could paint this image of my son Brandon on the Oregon Coast.

I had forgotten about it until Diana sent me the list of questions for the interview, and attached her mixed media version of this image. I love what she did with it! She created a wonderful interpretation with the addition of the red and brighter colors. I also love that this painting links our art together, gives us a connection we wouldn’t have had otherwise. This is how artists inspire each other!

I hope you visit Diana’s blog to read the interview, and then stay a while to look around at her wonderful art! 

Upcoming Events