Following the Muse with Katie Kendrick
Ever since we cleaned out her studio and moved most of her supplies out into a nifty new building built by her husband, Walter, Katie Kendrick has been madly painting. Not just small paintings, but very large ones and many at the same time. It's as if her creativity was unleashed by the openness and light in her studio. She's even made the time to create a new online course Grit & Grace, something she has wanted to do for a long time.
Every artist has his or her own language, and Katie is no exception. In her online course, she paints a very large painting and we witnessed her process and I have to admit, there were many times I gasped as she whipped out the gesso, white or black, and covered areas of the painting I thought were fabulous. The same thing happened in her recent Layers of Movement workshop I recently attended in Seattle. Katie strongly believes in following your muse which she does very successfully as seen below in this fabulous painting now owned by a friend of ours in Mexico City.
This following your muse exercise helped the Seattle workshop attendees from the very young and inexperienced, to the very practiced painters. Katie demonstrated how nothing is precious when you create, that your painting will change many times over the course of its creation. And with Katie, her spirit guides move her in different directions each time she paints and she never knows what she is going to end up with. It's a valuable lesson and one she will share with other artists on our trips in Amsterdam (May 21-29) and Spain (Sept. 17-27).
Here is a quick progression of the demo piece Katie drew in the Layers of Movement workshop.
I enjoyed Katie's process and it definitely influenced how many of us painted that weekend. My three paintings turned out to be very different from my usual paintings. They were all large (30"x30") which enabled me to use my whole body as I painted which I find very freeing. This one started out with two heads back to back and a shared spine on Saturday and then morphed into this the next day. There is a lot of marking making and some collage. I used acrylics, graphite, charcoal, pastels, and stabilos.
There are two opportunities to create with Katie this year with Bellissima Art Escapes. The first is Free Spirits in Amsterdam May 21-29 where we will be creating in this awesome studio. There are two openings for this trip. The wonderful, fabulous Judy Wise will also be teaching.
The second trip with 2 openings is in Spain – Journal With a Circle of Friends, September 17-27. We will stay in our own villa in the Catalonia region for 5 days and then spend time in Barcelona visiting Gaudi designed buildings, the Picasso and Miro museums and eating our way through the city. Judy will also teach in this workshop.
