All posts tagged: art

It’s been a few years…

What has happened since 2020? That was the year the world stopped, and for me writing blog posts stopped entirely. My last post on this blog was back in 2020, the year I took myself from being a managed artists to an independent one. Following almost a decade of blogging my art journey, after initially setting up this page as part of a university project, I then an almost 3 year hiatus from writing. Why did I stop and what’s been happening since?? One reason I stopped writing blog posts was because of taking on the management side of my artwork and how it meant that I immediately wore every hat that the business entailed. I went from working with a large team, to deciding to work alone! I wasn’t just the painter and artist anymore, I was the admin, the technician, the graphic designer, the packer and shipper. The other reasons is the slow, painful death of blogging! It pained me to watch the social media landscape turn away from blogging, (and pained me …

My Decade in Review!

I took this time to reflect on the past 10 years, and I started writing about it privately, and thought what the hell, share it with the world! So here are the last 10 year in almost Tolkein-esque like detail (minus the elves) Enjoy! 2010 I was 21. This was the year I graduated with a BA Honours in Fine Art. A course that has incredibly little to do with what I do now, but probably valuable in terms of the theoretical side of art, which I excelled at for the essays. Ironically, studio time and physically creating the art was not my forte on this course. I completed the final half of my final year at University, a 10 000 word dissertation on how the studio environment affects the outcome of the art. I also struggled with crippling anxiety, panic attacks almost on a weekly, sometimes daily basis, and the impending dread of post-university life. Once graduated I got a job back in my hometown, and would get the train on weekends to visit …

2020 Announcement!

If you’ve been following my work all this time (and it has been a while now since I started this blog) and you have kept up to do date recently on my artwork, then you may have noticed a bit of a change. After 5 great years with Wishbone Publishing I will be changing direction and working and trading as an independent artist. This has been a couple of months in the works in order to keep the transition as smooth as possible! Joining Wishbone was life changing for me and my work, I had hustled and grafted for almost 2 years before reaching out to Wishbone for representation, and the way they managed my work for the next few years was life altering. Alongside this fantastic opportunity they became family. Jack began working there around the same time that I signed, and he is now one of my best friends and stuck with me for life. (Sorry Jack.) As 2019 began to draw to a close I knew that a change was in order …

Women’s Art – Inspiring female artists from around the world – #1

The art of women is not a category of its own. The art of women through history and around the world is part of the tapestry of art history in its own right, blended in and out of the more predominantly highlighted male artists for sure, but is there and is bold and vital. Highlighting female artists in particular as a series for blog posts is to take up that extra bit of space that women have been denied, to give that little bit of internet over to the women and fill up that space with what they have to say and create. Researching artists for this little segment on my little blog has been the biggest pleasure and more important personal work than I first anticipated. To be able to step closer to the women whose work I admired from afar and take a closer look at their ‘why’ and ‘how’ has been dreamy. I had to open the first of the series with my own favourite, kicking off with 4 very different artists, …

Book! A collection of collections – Katy Jade Dobson

I have a book! For over two years this has been in the works. I knew very specifically how I wanted this book to look and feel. It was going to house years of artwork after all. The title Phosphenes comes from the name for the sensation of spots of colours and light that you see when you rub your eyes. A phenomena of seeing without light entering the eye. A title that inspired an earlier collection, and a word I find truly beautiful. At a huge 224 pages, simple hardback cover design with coloured hot foil pressed lettering emblazoned on the front and spine, aesthetically making this book a perfect coffee table book. Inside, the content design (by Ash Dowie) is sleek and minimal to offer more attention for the intricate and boldly colourful works that my signature style focuses on. It is separated into chapters and subchapters to collate my varying subject groups and styles as well as focuses on materials and colours also. I have introduced each chapter with my thoughts and …

The Entanglement Collection – Katy Jade Dobson

The Entanglement Collection I am so incredibly proud and excited to show you my new collection in full. Named after my love for quantum physics and the beautiful phenomenon of entangled particles reacting as one even at great distances, the notion that inspired my collection after noticing the patterns of evolution that a body of work takes. As I work on one idea, I find that I bring these marks and textures onto another. The collection laces together and binds. In my excitement to experience this again I took enthusiastically to a new collection. After studying the science of pigments in great detail, and really learning about the history and culture of colour usage I was compelled to start a collection of work that began from a love of colour and blossomed out into dreamlike abstract works. I worked from gut instinct and hoped to dispel my pre-planning ways in order to let the compositions form themselves as my hands intuitively glide. I wanted to create a new experience for myself in creating this artwork …

Keep your art practices sacred. You’ll never look back.

A love note from me to all the creatives, who work from the soul and have succumbed at times to the negative chatter around them. A lot of what people do, which we are all guilty of at some time or another, is resting too much consideration on the opinions of those around us. Our ego is so hugely interlinked with our art practices, we are laying out our talents and often our thoughts and feelings in order to showcase what we can do. Two things that cannot co-exist for your creative practices is the ego alongside the freedom of self expression. It is too volatile. People put others down to their face, or behind their back. Both equally as cutting. It can be their way of a cheap win. A quick rush of feeling better and above someone else. If they cannot or do not care to go out and create themselves it is the only way they can involve themselves in a way they feel on top. In order to protect your creativity …

Adam Handling Chelsea – The Art Of Belmond

Last year I began a project that could only be described as a dream come true. To create bespoke artwork for an impossibly beautiful hotel in the heart of London. In a complete whirlwind of compositional sketches, late night note jotting, ideas bursting at the seams, scouring the internet for historical records and deciphering latin names for all kinds of botanical specimens… I set to work on a creating bespoke commissioned original oil paintings for the newly renovated building that would become one of the most lavish, expensive and artistically drenched hotels imaginable. The Belmond group have renovated a building, where the room marked 118 is famously the room where Oscar Wilde was arrested. The hotel is owned by the Cadogan family, a lineage steeped in rich history as the ancestors of Hans Sloane, the 18th century physician, naturalist, adventurer and collector noted for bequeathing his collection of 71 000 items to the British nation, thus providing the foundation of the British Museum, the British Library and the Natural History Museum. He traveled to Jamaica …

Creative block – When your art doesn’t look how you want it to!

I love this topic. But I think there is another side to the conversation of creative blocks that doesn’t get mentioned. Maybe because it’s not about free creative expression and letting your brush work the canvas without a care or thought. Its logical. Its creation, but its not whimsical or freedom. I am talking about when your physical capabilities block the way you want your art to look. The subject of creative blocks and physical capabilities are intertwined but worlds apart. I don’t get creative blocks. I may have a day once in a blue moon where my paintings don’t come together as they usually would, or writing doesn’t flow out onto a keyboard like it often does. In fact I am so heavily flooded with ideas that I sometimes worry that I won’t have enough hours in my lifetime to create all the things I want to. I do understand creative blocks though, because I used to experience them in a way that symptomatically showed itself as frustration at life.  I know many people …

Lets stay connected

Lets stay connected. You and I have been connected for a little while. You actually see into every corner of my soul, if you do in fact look at my artwork. Scary. Sharing my sacred art space has been something I have felt more strongly towards for a long time now! From starting communities on FaceBook to trying to share more information on the how behind my artwork, for anyone interested in the creating side of my art. Whilst also adding additional information for the people who just enjoy the viewing or the more theoretical side. I know from my own experience that when I had made the decision to make my art more of a prominent feature in my life, the social media profiles of other artists were my biggest source of inspiration and drive. I waited for their next post, and I hoped for more information of the how. Be it how they created, how they marketed, anything! Because of the ever changing social media landscape and the difficulty staying connected to the …