All posts tagged: featured

The Droplets Series / A collection of new artwork available now!

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I am so proud to be showing you the start of a new body of artwork that I have been working on, an ongoing series of paintings called Droplets. This work is incredibly meaningful to me and symbolises some really important changes moving on in 2020.  This type of artwork has been something I often toyed with in my mind, but never executed onto canvas. I was recently called to produce this work and the effects personally were somewhat cathartic. The paintings within the Droplets series balances on the ridge between parallels. The surrealist scenes of wildlife and nature blend between areas of calm, and intermittent chaos. Using traditional application of oil paints, with no digital intervention, this artwork toes the line between contemporary and traditional art. My subjects amplify the natural world as you have never seen it, bringing together the bountiful nature of life on Earth, and the fine line between abundance and pain. There is a bitter sweetness to these paintings, an acidity to the delicate paintwork. With these subjects steeped in …

Original Painting Auction to Raise Funds for WIRES

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I have a piece named ‘SOS’ up for auction on eBayin aid of WIRES (NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service) which is currently in crisis due to the bushfires raging through Australia. WIRES actively rehbailitate and preserve Australian wildlife, and will be inundated and working tirelessly at this time. 23 people have lost their lives, 12 million acres of land has been devastated, large scale evacuations are taking place, and half a billion wildlife has perished. They fear that the worst is still to come. In many rural areas, volunteers are working with little resources, risking their lives and health to keep the fires at bay and keep people safe. Teams are working to help slow moving wildlife and get them to safety, treating burns and wounds and caring for them when they have nowhere to escape. The original painting is based on a well loved piece named Glory which celebrates the bountiful abundance of out beautiful natural world. The gold leaf droplets symbolise the nourishment that nature gifts us. This abstract and surrealist piece …

2020 Announcement!

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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

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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, …

Monthly female artist appreciation

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Every month I am going to showcase the work of a number of female artists from around the world. For a number of years now I have inadvertently been compiling a list of inspiring female artists. What is the point in having such a rich and amazing list without sharing and showcasing with as many people as possible the inspiring work and voices of women from so many backgrounds. I hold this tiny art space, in this little corner of the internet and while I hold your attention I would like to bring forward female creators, their work and their words. From famous and known globally to women who create for fun and love of making. Every first day of the month starting next month will be to showcase and pass the mic to female artists. If you have any suggestions, or want to submit your own art, please email katyjadedobson@mail.com

Working from home with a baby/toddler – Adapting.

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As a little human moves from infant, to baby to toddler, the way you parent changes and adapts alongside. Fitting in work alongside this is quite the juggle and means your work life is also under the same pressure to adapt. Only the adaptable survive according to Darwin, and at times I didn’t think my career could survive. It wasn’t until I let go of structure (something that would always be a challenge for me) and expectations, and more importantly, my previous style of working. I have been self employed and working from home since my early twenties. Before this I worked in bars/restaurants/office/warehouse/shop fronts and back. This level of freedom was something I had aimed for, worked for and achieved with many sacrifices along the way and I appreciated every second of it, and enjoyed each day of feeling free. So when a baby came along this freedom was gone. In Reuben’s case he did not want to sleep. He has been a curious, energised and spirited soul right from being an infant, one …

Hunt Slonem – Art to make you happy

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The art of Hunt Slonem makes me happy. Hunt Slonem is an American Neo-Expressionist artist who is very much loved and celebrated for his distinct animal paintings, most famed for his bunny paintings in particular. I personally love his bird paintings. He finds inspiration from his many rescued exotic birds, over 60 which live in a beautiful large avery. With such a strong spiritual connection to his subjects, his paintings depict the auras of the animals he admires so much. As a child growing up in Hawaii his passion for exotic birds in particular deepened then during his time in Central America. Slonem has travelled the globe with much sensitivity to other cultures and the natural world around him. So much so, his paintings express an ongoing scene of constant stimulation from a world he so clearly admires for its beauty and energy. What strikes me the most about Slonem’s paintings is that they’re so beautifully unpretentious, naive at face value, but so intricately and diligently executed at a further glance. At first sight, the textures …

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

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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 …

Some of what I have worked on in 2018

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2018 has kicked off to quite an eventful start, as I work on a collection, I have meanwhile worked on some smaller pieces that has helped me correct some of my skills with intricate details. I love to work large scale, and often find it difficult to change technique to fit a smaller canvas. Time for me has been particularly limited and there are certainly not enough hours in the day, but when I can I am painting, and trying to keep up the challenge of changing things up to better myself. This in part isn’t just trying new techniques, compositions and styles, but revising old ones and improving upon them! Here are just a few of what I have worked on this year, as well as commissions, great (white shark) and small! Each piece below is oil on wood panel, this is the way I mostly work! For any further information on any of my works, contact info@wishboneart.co.uk to be directed to a gallery near you! I also recently asked for what you would …

How I began selling my Art

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Selling artwork is not always an artist’s perogative. However not everyone has the luxury of creating for the joy. Of course that is where it has stemmed from for me, but in my early painting days getting the money for materials to work with was an important factor in actually being able to leisurely produce the work I was so inspired to do. I was working in a small coffee shop when I picked up on painting for the first time in years. University had left me a trembling mess of an artist, the soul crushing deadlines and inspiration stifling guidelines to follow for your work to be valid within the perimeters of that semester’s course had left me not wanting to even look at a paintbrush again. I loved working at the coffee shop and had the opportunity to talk to so many people on laid back shifts or quiet mornings. I had talked at length to a regular about art which left me wanting to use what little money I had left that …