It was my first international workshop I taught and it was in Italy!!

First off  I want to thank Kristin and Bill Steiner from Adventures in Italy for hosting my workshop in Orvieto. If you don't think dreams come true, in which I am always skeptical, they do. I discovered Kristin and Bill several years ago through an article in one of the Stampington Magazines. The article featured a lovely artist I admire. She had just returned from a workshop she taught in Italy and was working on a new online class. Ok I want to do that. Five years ago that seed was planted. Now dreams do come true, but you do have to do the footwork which I did. Kristin and Bill accepted my proposal enthusiastically. We worked over a year together planning my workshop.Over the year and a half there was some doubt it wouldn't happen but I kept trudging away and yes it happened and I will always be so grateful to Bill and Kristin ,
There were so many wonderful and meaningful moments in Orvieto. Our lovely studio in the spiritual holy space within the Convent B&B which was a former palace, San Lodovico.

Here are some of the student work. So much talent and fun memories in the studio

Here are the girls:

I have to say one of my most memorable moment happened when I entered the Duomo in Orvieto. I have been studying this church and its incredibly powerful fresco painter, Luca Signorelli. It was a stunning visual experience as well as a deeply personal spiritual awakening. I went with the group and had to go back on my own to experience again and look at every inch of Signorelli's fresco. In the cathedral I noticed an old fashioned confessional. The sign read confession in progress. I saw the light on and went in. I talked to the priest about my mother who is deceased. It was a special moment since I rediscovered my Catholic religion again a year ago. I know talking religion isn't the easiest issue to talk but I had to share it here because this is why this experience was so powerful to me. I later sat at the back of the church and absorbed the magnificent splendor of this powerful church. The reason the church was built was due to a miracle that happened in 1263. As a priest celebrated a mass in Orvieto, he was saying the prayer of consecration when the host started to bleed. The pope made the decision to build this church. I do believe in miracles but there is also scientific evidence proving this. Either way I find this stuff extremely interesting to read about. .

When we arrived in Rome we were walking in the Piazza near our hotel and this is the first thing I heard. Oh my God, I burst into tears. He was incredible and at that moment I realized I was in Italy and experiencing this beautiful music. This is just a bit of the experience

My traveling buddies in Rome. This was the one and only day we stayed in Rome. Yes I want to go back. I loved the big city vibe and all the beautiful people. The Italians are gorgeous both men and women...oh lala. The people watching was delicious!! We did go to the Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel. Glynda was able to sneak this shot of the Sistine Chapel.  So often when I see very famous paintings I am a bit underwhelmed when I see them in person, but not Michelangelo. I could sit here  for hours.

So one of places I have studied over the years was the Ponte Sant'Angelo. My fracturedangel work lead me to this. Truly another moment I manifested several years ago.

It was a crazy crazy day and we got lost over and over. I really need to go back there and spend a full week. My friend Lorri and I went out that night to a local saturday night hang out. Love was in the air. Beautiful couples walking everywhere and enjoying life. Oh would this have been a different experience for me if I would have traveled here in my 20's. But I was able to take in the wonderful energy of the night and enjoy. I was opening myself up to the city and feeling alive, really alive!

We spent a couple days in Florence. My biggest moment there was climbing the 496 steep winding steps to the top of the Duomo in Florence. Did I ever take this moment in!

I have more travel pictures on my Facebook group. I just wanted to share more about how I felt while there. It is the moments where there were no cameras or videos just me experiencing and taking in which is where the big stuff happened. Being clear and present during each moment. I think that is why travel is so important. It is a time for me to go into an active meditation and treasuring and experience every single moment.

So now I am back in the studio with about a week of down time. Coming back I realize I need to make some changes in my career. I wasn't sure what they were to be but allowing my mind to be open during my trip gave room to new ideas and answers. Now it is time to do the work.....

Oh, I just got news....I will be returning to Orvieto to teach Sept. 2018!!!

Paint your Heart and Soul 2017 online class promo

Paint Your Heart and Soul 2017
Dear friend,
I’m very excited to let you know that I’m teaching at a brand new course: Paint your Heart and Soul 2017, hosted by our fellow artist Olga Furman from OlgaFurmanArt.com
The “Paint your heart and Soul 2017” is a year-long collaborative course with 17 other amazing teachers, mostly concentrated on Portraiture and Figurative Story Telling, narrative art. By joining this course you will learn to create art in different styles as well as use a variety of different mediums and other art supplies.
The course is for beginners and for experienced artists, both will find it effective and inspirational.
I’m especially excited about this opportunity because this course’s theme is something that is represented in my art.
To find out more about this course click here Click here to view more details

GIVEAWAY

I'm also very excited to be able to give away a FREE spot in this amaziug course to one of you!

To enter the Giveaway do any one or all of the actions below

1. Share this link on Facebook   (Click here to view more details
2. Share the same link on Instagram or other social media, if you have an account there.
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3. Purchase this course by clicking the link  Click here to view more details.
If you are going to win the course you will be refunded the full price.
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***Multiple entries are encouraged***
If you do all three, you have 3 times the chance of winning your free spot!
Don't forget to leave a comment, saying where you shared my link or if you bought the course!
The winner of the FREE spot will be announced on this site by
(Nov 30) at (noon)

.

Summer of 2016 is over.....onto Italy in fall!

It has been a long time since I last blogged. This summer flew by. The month of June I spent teaching in Calif. I taught at 3 different venues, spent a week with my dear friend, Lorri Scott. She showed me how to eco dye. Stayed with another girlfriend and we laughed and gossiped and had a great time. I took planes, trains and automobiles and everything went as smooth as could be. With so many changes and places I was nervous how it was all going to turn out and I was so surprised how it just flowed. I was also nervous about going back to Calif, in particular So Cal because that was my home for 30 years. I had a love hate relationship with the place but ended up loving living in Pasadena with the love of my life. Circumstances happened, like the crash of 2008, which turned our lives upside down. We were able to land softly and gently in Charlotte, NC where we have lived for the past 6 years. So going back to my old stomping grounds ,I wasn't sure of my reaction. To my relief  I realized that was my home but now I have created roots back in the South. I have to admit, that edgy creative vibe you can feel everywhere, anticipation that anything could happen any second that would change your life, I did miss a bit. But that is the energy for the young and so my time has passed. The cool thing is I have become what I have dreamed about being, it just didn't happen till I moved away from there.
So my next teaching trip was in Phoenix. Now that trip I thought would be a breeze because it was one location in and out.....done! Well, I was wrong. We were flying into Phoenix airport and all of a sudden there was all this tension on the plane. The pilot announces that everyone needs to get in their seats now and must not get up....rocky conditions ahead. Then another announcement that 'there was an incident near the Phoenix Airport' no more information than that. Then another announcement that we couldn't land because the airport was closed so we along with several other planes circle above the airport till the 'incident' subsided. Another announcement that we were going to land in Tuscan!! The incident was a mansoon and here is what it looked like

We finally got on the plane to fly into Phoenix. Instead of arriving at 5:00pm we arrived at 1:30am
I had to get up in 5 hours to prepare to teach. The lesson is that although this was insane I didn't lose my cool, found some humor and showed up for my job! Here is one of the book classes I taught

The middle of the summer I took a week long class at Random Arts in Saluda, NC with the amazing Stanka Kordic. She teaches oil painting and it was a portrait class using a live model. I haven't painted from a live model since my college days and I always hated it. It felt like a performance and I got stage fright. I never felt comfortable and was much better at working from a photograph. Six years ago I picked up painting again and mainly worked from photographs. So taking Stanka's class was a big intimidating jump for me because of that but also because Stanka is an incredible classically trained artist. She was far from intimidating. She is a great teacher, she can be light and very funny but then when it is time to work you work. We all got to know her as a person and we all loved her and will be studying under her again next year.
So back to the work, I was painting this model and she looked nothing like the model. That was always ok for me before but I started to think, it is not a bad idea to paint a likeness of someone. I mean that is what she was teaching us. I had to really look and see the gradual changes of warm and cool and focus on achieving the essence of the model. My first attempt was not good. I made it good by working my style and doing what I usually do. I needed to save face !  Expressive and pretty but not the model. My second attempt was much more successful. Now I don't want to be a portrait artist but going back to classic fundamentals of art making is a good thing and a good practice. Here is what I did, the first one was my normal Kate painting , the second more the likeness and the third was a study I worked on at home.

I was looking at some of my older work and some I really liked. The little faces I used to paint that were tighter than my style now but there was something there that I wanted back that has been missing in my work. It took me a long time to get looser and all my students tell me that is what they want to learn from me, how to get looser. I wanted to tighten up a little bit, at least for awhile and when I tried I couldn't do it! After a week of doing bad art, my creative self esteem told me to quit torturing myself and walk away. Do something less intimidating so I cleaned and organized my studio. As I am going through stuff I find this tube of casein paint. I forgot all about casein paint and realized that was the missing ingredient to these little tighter faces. Casein paint is derived from milk casein (milk protein). Casein paint has been used since ancient Egyptian times as a form of distemper paint ( an early form of whitewash) Casein paint resembles oil painting more than most other water based paints. All of this I didn't know when I bought a tube of the white. It just sounded cool and something I never used before. So I went back to the drawing board. I started with my walnut inks to put in the darks and applied the casein paint for the highlights. I did a couple of these paintings and will probably do some more. They were fun and I like the look.

I am also starting to form a new online class. Abstract environments and collage with images. I am just now formulating but this is some of the exercises I am thinking about.

I started to do some art journaling. I am taking a class with Erin Faith Allen whose work I adore. She has a year long online journaling class and here is one of my spreads.

Paint Your Heart and Soul 2017
Dear friend,
I’m very excited to let you know that I’m teaching at a brand new course: Paint your Heart and Soul 2017, hosted by our fellow artist Olga Furman from OlgaFurmanArt.com
The “Paint your heart and Soul 2017” is a year-long collaborative course with 17 other amazing teachers, mostly concentrated on Portraiture and Figurative Story Telling, narrative art. By joining this course you will learn to create art in different styles as well as use a variety of different mediums and other art supplies.
The course is for beginners and for experienced artists, both will find it effective and inspirational.
I’m especially excited about this opportunity because this course’s theme is something that is represented in my art.
To find out more about this course click here Click here to view more details