Hi! My name is Kate Crane,
and I’m from a rural village in the North of England UK, where I live with my
husband, two children, our dog and several small animals! I am passionate about
messy, colourful mixed-media art, especially art journaling, and I always have
several art journals on the go. I balance my art life with my working life as a
school teacher, although these days it’s more art and less school teaching. I
have a small space at home which is really the box-room, which I grandly call
my studio! But it is my space, and it’s wonderful to have that space to create
in.
I have always been a
creative type, and will have a go at anything, from knitting to dress-making to
re-upholstery, to paper clay art dolls … you name it, I’ve done it! But once I
discovered the wonderful on-line community of mixed media artists in around
2007, I discovered a whole new world. I began making and trading ATCs with
other enthusiasts from all over the world, and I also began to take a real
interest in art blogs and what everyone else was up to. There was an amazing
creative world out there and it really opened my eyes.
Then I met the one and
only Dyan Reaveley, owner of Art from the Heart, (UK) now a signature designer
for Ranger. Dyan introduced me to art journaling and also encouraged me to work
on a much bigger scale. I totally embraced art journaling with a passion. Here
was an art form which had no rules, which allowed me to do whatever I wanted,
and most importantly allowed me to create from the heart.
Over the years my art has
changed almost beyond recognition, but without fail the one thing that links
all of my art is my love of colour, and my natural inclination to go bold,
bright and vibrant. I also have a tendency towards the weird and sometimes
downright spooky!
What is your greatest influence and where do you find inspiration and what is your process in creating your artwork, do you have a go to thing that inspires you creatively?
Inspiration can come from
anywhere. Sometimes I may be reading a book and a line just catches my eye …
and then I will have to make a journal page around it to ‘capture’ the moment
(such as the journal page shown “If they give you lined paper, write the other
way” which came from The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.) If I don’t know where
to begin, I just start painting and let myself get lost in the process. I find
that my creative mind takes over and things begin to take shape. Thinking is
the worst thing I can do! Thinking too much about how to start a page is almost
enough to put me off doing it altogether.
I don’t have one particular
way of working, it varies as the mood takes me, but here are some snippets of a
page in progress.
1- I often begin with a rough layer of paint with 2 or 3 colours, painted with a thick scruffy brush (you can probably see that this is painted on recycled cardboard in my junk journal).
2- Sometimes I knock this right back with white paint on a brayer.
4- I used one of my own stamps (made from foam) to stamp paint in white.
5- And then I set to work with
pencils, oil pastels and paint pens and add some doodled symbols and scribbles.
I have recently been influenced by Dawn Sokol, and have been doodling like
crazy! And it’s great and very personal to add your own marks to a page.
7- And to finish, I added a
scanned image of one of my own drawings, using some washi tape, and also
stamped some bottle lids along the lower edge in black as I felt the page
needed grounding in the corner.
What is your favourite piece of artwork you have created and why?
I very often find that the
piece of art I am currently working on is my favourite. My skills are
constantly evolving and changing, and my most recent work usually involves a
newly found skill which will inevitably make me happy. Lately I have been
working in a junk (or junque?) journal, which I created from scratch. I am
hugely delighted to be working in something that I created myself, especially
as the journal is mostly made from recycled materials. I also find it
completely liberating to be working on recycled cardboard, and it has enabled
me to create much more freely– something which I really aspire to.
(Images by Nancy Baumiller of CrowaboutStudioB)
I created these pages in my
junk journal painting mostly with my fingers, which really helps me to really ‘connect’
with the page. They were created at speed, using mostly what happened to be on
my desk in front of me, and have multiple layers of paint, pastels, and lots of
doodled symbols. They totally reflect my love of colour.
This next page in one of my
old favourites, created in the summer of 2011. This page grew out of a very
stressful period for me; is intensely personal, and documents what was
happening at the time, and has great meaning to me.
I don’t exhibit my art
anywhere, partly because I am so very busy teaching my art and there just aren’t
enough hours in the day! I have however, made four DVDs on the subject of Art
Journaling for Traplet publications in the UK, and I am currently teaching
on-line as part of 21 Secrets 2013 which I have been very excited about! I post
all of my art to my blog, and also to Flickr where it can be conveniently
viewed in one place: Flickr
Finally could you share something that inspires and evokes positivity for you?
I never fail to be totally inspired by watching the artist Mindy Lacefield at work:
I never fail to be totally inspired by watching the artist Mindy Lacefield at work:
Mindy paints in such a
carefree and joyful way. I long to free myself of over-thinking (the killer of
all creativity), and to be able to create just like this. And I’m working on
it, I really am!
The funny thing is, that in
my grand scheme of life, the career I had mapped out for myself, art didn’t
really feature. I loved art at school but aged 18 I had to choose between art
or music, and I chose music. I still love music and to be involved in music,
but quite accidentally I got involved in art in a much bigger way than I ever
imagined. For this reason, these quotes have particular meaning for me:
‘If you want to know where
your heart is, look to where your mind goes when it wanders.’
‘Follow your dreams. They
know the way.’
~Mark Twain~
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