2018 was a busy year for me. I mentored the Corvallis High School Robotics team for the second build season early in the year, and started into my third year of mentoring this fall. I love working with these teenagers! They are smart and funny and hard-working and caring. They are future creators and innovators and leaders.

I took a break from art fairs and workshops this year, only doing a couple of local things. That gave me more time for family and outdoor activities. My husband and I rediscovered canoeing, taking several trips on the Willamette River. We are lucky to have such a beautiful waterway so close to home!

We camped and hiked. I served on a jury for a local trial. I had piece of art in a state-wide juried exhibit. I played with watercolors.

Late summer brought a big change, with a promotion at work. I am now a section manager – a manager of managers – and I’m enjoying it. It’s more responsibility, takes more time, but also more opportunity to influence in a positive way. I feel very privileged to work in an environment where I encouraged to continue growing. Even after a career of 26 years, I still see so much opportunity for the future.

Late summer also brought a vacation to Colorado, college visits, and my son starting his senior year in high school. And yes, I took his senior portraits. Isn’t he so grown up?

My husband and I celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary this summer and took a fall trip to Kuaui, Hawaii. The first time to Hawaii, and the first time for a trip with just the two of us since my son was born. It was relaxing and fun and a wonderful trip. And I tried new things… Ziplining and snorkeling. LOVED both. We ended up snorkeling multiple times and are plotting more snorkeling trips in the future. (I must get a waterproof housing for my iPhone!)

And fall turned into winter… I participated in Philomath Open Studios Tour, relaxed on a weekend yoga retreat with my sister, and met up with my family in Arizona for Thanksgiving. I survived the craziness that is December to have a lovely time off from Christmas to New Year’s. This is my time for house projects. My studio is finally back in order after my Open Studio event, the holiday decorations are down and I am ready for the new year.

So here I am, at the very end of 2018, looking ahead to 2019. It is a year of big change for us, with my son graduating from high school in June and starting college in the fall. My sister just got engaged and will be getting married next fall too – probably in Cancun (more snorkeling!). And I am still mentoring the robotics team, and getting used to my new job.

I want to be present for this momentous year, which means scaling back in some areas. I am taking a year off of the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap – no swap for 2019. I won’t be doing art fairs, but I do have one weekend workshop scheduled for September 2019 at Sitka Center for Art & Ecology. Watch for registration to open in the Spring.

These were hard decisions but they feel right. I need the break, I need to breathe, I need less on my plate. I have been focusing my energy in other places than art this last couple of years but I’ve still tried to keep things going. It’s been too much.

If there is one thing I have learned with my art, it is that it will change. There will be productive times and there will be quiet times. I don’t know what is coming next, but I know that taking some time off and focusing in other areas will allow new things to bloom.

Have a great 2019. I am planning to.

The post Where in the world is Kat? first appeared on Kat Eye Studio.

Wow! We had another fantastic year of sharing art in the 8th Annual Liberate Your Art postcard swap. Here are this year’s stats:

It was a crazy year for me personally, since the swap coincided with the FIRST Robotics Competition season, and we are heavily involved with my son’s team. We completed the season at Pacific Northwest District Championships in Portland, OR last weekend, and we are completing the postcard swap this weekend. Whatever will I do with my free time??

But no matter what is going on with me, this postcard swap is all about YOU. The swap is really made great by the active participation of all of the artists, and you were a wonderfully active bunch in the Facebook Event Group this year! Thank you for continuing the fun of getting happy mail by reaching out to the artists who created your postcards and sharing the postcards you received online.

As always, a theme emerges from each year which inspires the special edition art I create at the end of the swap. This year’s message, Art brings Light to the World, was inspired by a comment one of my swap helpers made on swap day. As we were sticking on labels and stamps, Kate said, “Wow, there is so much positive energy in this mail!” Such a great observation! Collectively, the art and personal messages of inspiration and encouragement you all liberate into the world is positive and powerful. Your art is a light in a world which is often characterized as fraught with conflict and division. Keep liberating!

Thank you to everyone who participated this year. Enjoy the video of the art from ~70 participants who send me images. It’s always amazing to see the range of creativity in this group of artists!

Now, it’s time to HOP! I have a special bonus for the blog hop participants in the form of a giveaway drawing! At the end of the final celebration, by random drawing from all blog hop links, I will be giving away:

• One 6×9″ fine art print of this year’s Final Celebration image “Art brings Light to the World” shown above. Having this image in your studio will remind you to keep liberating that art to make the world a better place.
• One copy of the second edition of my book, Art with an iPhone: A Photographer’s Guide to Creating Altered Realities, which was published at the end of 2017. Sharing my process is another piece of the art I liberate in the world!
• Eight packets of postcards from other participants. You all were a generous bunch, and even after sharing them with the helpers on swap day, I have extra postcards to share with the rest of you! 

If you would like your own 6×9″ signed fine art print of this year’s image “Art brings Light to the World,” it is only available for purchase during the time of the final celebration. To order, click here if you are within the US and here if you are outside of the US. Postage is included in the purchase price. Thank you! Your orders help me defray the extra expenses I incur on behalf of the swap. (And don’t worry, if you purchase the print and then win the giveaway, I’ll refund your money.)

All right, are you ready? Let’s celebrate! Share your experiences with this year’s swap. You can link in from a blog, Flickr, Facebook, even Instagram! Make sure your image is public, and you are good to go.

The post Liberate Your Art 2018 Final Celebration first appeared on Kat Eye Studio.

A pen and a template is all you need to great some fun doodle art! From Allen, in Canada.

A lovely crane on a background of my favorite color blue, from Anne in Australia.

Gloria in California sent this lovely painted piece. Do you know how cool painted envelopes feel? I love the texture!

Here’s a gorgeous hand-drawn and colored garden, from Regina in Virginia.

Suzette in Utah layered this envelope with a lovely stamp collage. Very reminiscent of the art on her postcards, too!

Something shiny arrived in the mail from Linda in California. Love the foil layers on this collaged envelope!

Sheila in Arizona always shares such lovely flowers in her mail art!

Mary Jane in Canada brightened my day with this colorful piece:

Catherine in Michigan created this amazing painted, layered and stitched envelope. I wish you could feel these textures!

The back was just as gorgeous as the front.

Even my cat Roman wanted to check it out…

Thank you all for sharing such gorgeous mail art with us this year! The countdown has begun. Not too much longer and there will be postcard art arriving in your mail box, too.

The post All Wrapped Up with Art first appeared on Kat Eye Studio.

Let’s dive in, starting with Stephanie in Southwest Florida…

…and another Florida envelope, from Kelly. She decorated wallpaper to make the envelope. Great upcycle!

This envelope from Diane in Australia has some lovely colored pencil birds. Front…

…and back!

This happy, bright envelope is from Bethany in Florida. Her envelope proclaims her a member of IUOMA: International Union of Mail Artists. Check it out!

Djuna from New Jersey included this lovely quote:

Lovely lettering really makes this envelope, by Kate in Illinois…

…and this one from Crissa in New Jersey.

A fun collage from Michele in Michigan…

A beautiful tree from Sea in Canada…

This awesome envelope made it’s way across the Atlantic, from Debbie in the UK.

Lisa in North Carolina liberated this beautiful butterfly…

Jeannette in Washington sent a great message to us…

Local artist friend Jen in Oregon made this fun design…

Anne in Maine uses gel pens to dress up a manilla envelope…

Johna in Montana created this gorgeously textured piece…

…the back too!!

Lynne in Pennsylvania created this lovely, soft piece incorporating one of the staples of the swap… The butterfly stamp!

And celebrated Liberate Your Art, for those in the know, on the back.

Peggy in New York sent this fabulous envelope which just begs to be colored… Maybe that’s because she has created her own adult coloring book called Lotus Trip, and she sent me a copy. Thanks Peggy!

Finally, Janice from California asks this question…

Hopefully, your boots will take you to the mailbox, to mail your postcards if you haven’t already. Only THREE WEEKS to go!!

The post Mega Mail Art Update first appeared on Kat Eye Studio.

Yes, mail art has started arriving for the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap! It never fails to amaze me how quickly some of the postcards start to arrive. It’s almost like people have been waiting all year to send! It truly is a joy to get this kind of happy mail, and now I get to share it with you all, too.

The image above is from Hope in Michigan, and it’s a fitting introduction this year’s mail art, don’t you think?

Next up we have Lisa from Texas. Let’s definitely have coffee sometime Lisa!

One of our first international participants is Heidrun from Germany. I’m a sucker for stamps from other places, and what a great way to wrap up the postcards!

Here we have an amazing, colorful envelope by Imelda in California.

I always love getting an envelope from this lady! It’s Sherry, from Alaska. Isn’t it great what a little pen and marker can do for a white envelope?

This gorgeous blue envelope has heft and texture… can you feel it? This is from Val, although I’m not sure where she is from. She has a mailing address in Idaho and a business card from British Columbia…

Finally, we have Christine from here in Oregon. Hiya, neighbor! By the way, the owner of the UPS store felt so bad that his employee put a label on your envelope. He told me, “We don’t put labels on your envelopes, they are too pretty!” I think it still looks great.

Thank you all for the lovely envelopes! Whether or not you decorate your envelope, it’s great to see all of this art liberated. There is still time to join the swap if you haven’t already! The deadline is March 17. Sign up here.

The post All the Pretty Envelopes! first appeared on Kat Eye Studio.

It’s that time of year! The holiday decorations are coming down and the celebrations are wrapping up, but there is still something to look forward to…The 8th Annual Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap is just getting started! I’m excited to get the 2018 swap launched. You can learn more, sign up, and see info on past year’s swaps here. This year’s swap deadline is Saturday, March 17.

Chase away the dark and the cold with some great art and connections with other fun, likeminded participants. I hope you will join us this year!

The post New Year, New Postcard Swap! first appeared on Kat Eye Studio.

It’s coming! The second edition of Art with an iPhone is now available for preorder on Amazon. Pop right over here to Amazon and preorder your copy today. The publication date is December 15, 2017 so it will be shipping in time for Christmas. Yay!

I’m so excited to get this second edition out in the world. Not only is it updated for app and technology changes, it includes lots of new art plus new techniques as well. My art has evolved since the first edition, so the book needed to evolve too. Even if you have the original book, there will be new things in the second edition for you.

Thanks in advance for your preorders! They really help the success of the book.

The post Art with an iPhone Second Edition Available for Preorder! first appeared on Kat Eye Studio.

We did it! We are wrapping up another fantastic year of the Liberate Your Art postcard swap. This year was swap number seven!! Here are the stats for participation:

As always, you are an enthusiastic bunch! I love the energy that shows up in the Facebook Event Group before and during the swap. I think this year the sharing of the postcards in their new home was especially creative. Thanks for stepping that up!

One of the goals of the swap since the very beginning has been to foster connections between artists in different places and mediums. The requirement to add an email or web address to the postcards was new this year, and I hope it encouraged you to reach out and connect with your fellow artists via email or online. Everyone likes to know where their postcards landed.

So, what theme came out for me this year? You saw it on my postcard, and you see it in the piece I created for the Final Celebration – these words kept coming back to me over and over:

Now it’s time for the video! Let’s take a look at the art liberated in the swap. I received images from 100 of the artists in the swap for the video this year, so it’s still not everyone, but seeing this much art in one place is definitely inspiring.

Thanks to everyone for liberating your art this year! This swap is not possible without YOU.

Now, it’s time to HOP! I have a special bonus for the blog hop participants in the form of a giveaway drawing! At the end of the final celebration, by random drawing from all blog hop links, I will be giving away:

• One 6×9″ fine art print of this year’s Final Celebration image “Experiment Create Play & Liberate” shown above. Having this image in your studio will be a reminder of a great way to approach your art.
• Ten packets of postcards from other participants. You all were a generous bunch, and even after sharing them with the helpers on swap day, I have lots of extra postcards to share with the rest of you! 

If you would like your own 6×9″ signed fine art print of this year’s image “Experiment Create Play & Liberate,” it is only available for purchase during the time of the final celebration. To order, click here if you are within the US and here if you are outside of the US. Postage is included in the purchase price. Thank you! Your orders help me defray the extra expenses I incur on behalf of the swap. (And don’t worry, if you purchase the print and then win the giveaway, I’ll refund your money.)

All right, are you ready? Let’s celebrate! Share your experiences with the 2017 swap. You can link in from a blog, Flickr, Facebook, even Instagram! Make sure your image is public, and you are good to go.

The post Liberate Your Art 2017 Final Celebration first appeared on Kat Eye Studio.

In Robotics, the six week build season ended on February 18. The team successfully completed two robots, a Practice bot (left) and a Competition bot (right). The Competition robot has very strict rules on when it can be used, so the Practice robot gives a team more flexibility to continue to refine and improve the hardware, software and driving between competitions.

Last weekend we had our second District competition, and it looks like our team is headed to the District Championships next weekend at Eastern Washington University in Cheney, Washington. Yay! Take a look at this great highlights video from last week’s competition to see the robots in action. Look for 997 on the robot and the kids – that’s our team! It’s pretty amazing what these kids achieve.

In the Liberate Your Art Postcard Swap, we had a successful swap day on Sunday, March 19. (I squeezed swap day in between robotics competitions. Scheduling in my world is pretty tight these days.) I had four great helpers and we were an efficient bunch!

Art has been liberated for the last two weeks. One more week to go! The last mailing will be sent from the Robotics District Championships in Washington, a fun little overlap of my different projects.

The Final Celebration for Liberate Your Art 2017 is a blog hop on April 14-16. Party on the blog in two weeks!

The post Getting caught up… first appeared on Kat Eye Studio.

This is the last blog update of mail art from the 2017 swap. The next blog post will be about Swap Day and liberating the first of the art. Can’t wait!! Enjoy the last of this year’s mail art…

The first comes from Andrea in Austria. Her envelope was a little worse for the wear by the time it arrived here. Yikes! Close call! I have had envelopes arrive empty before, which is always very sad. Thankfully that didn’t happen here!

A little closer to home, Terry in Oregon created this lovely collage:

Tennille, another Oregonian, created this lovely envelope-scape! One of my favs this week. Thanks Tennille!

Neha in Florida collaged the envelope front and back. Here’s the back:

This one, from Cathy in Virginia, is painted and stitched. Love this color combo!

Natasha in California created a lovely design in colored pen. I think Natasha’s envelope has made it on the blog just about every year she’s participated!

Regina in Virginia caught my attention with her fun monster. Yes, life is a CIRCUS. For me right now, anyway…

Amy in Nashville created her envelope with the same art as her postcards. Very nice!

Fast in Virginia created this lovely piece and then printed it onto the envelope. Clever!

And we finish up this year’s mail art sharing with this envelope from Scott in Illinois. Rock on!

Thank you ALL for sharing your art with every person who handled your envelope. I’ve seen the smiles they bring. You’ve already liberated your art! The postcards are bonus, at this point. And they will be liberated MONDAY!!

The post Last of the Mail Art first appeared on Kat Eye Studio.