Last weekend I had the treat of joining a whole ‘army’ of artists all painting together at a music festival. There was over 70 artists - young and old, professionals and newbies, with a breadth of style and medium all gathered in a big blue tent in the middle of a field in West Sussex.

Being an abstract artist my artwork is very much inspired by music and dance, so soaking in this type of creatively encouraging atmosphere, being able move and express myself without inhibition gives way to a heightened focus on the creative process, over the need for a certain outcome or specific result.

I actually consider this festival as my birthplace as an artist - 5 years ago I turned up never having painted on a canvas before with lots of fear, lots of hang ups and lots of enthusiasm. And I’ve never looked back!

Cambridge Open Studios has been and gone for another year and I thought I’d share something of it for those who weren’t able to come and visit.

A little introduction for those who don’t know - Cambridge Open Studios runs for 4 weekends in July each year, across the city and surrounding area. Each weekend I choose to take part (this year it was the 2nd and 3rd w/e) I open my home and studio space to the public from 11 am - 6pm each day.

I transform the downstairs of my home (my lounge and kitchen) into an exhibition, displaying my art and art products on every wall and surface area I can find!
Then I distribute fliers, shout about it on social media and wait to see who comes.

It’s always such a privilege to see how many people pop in to take a look - this year I had 160 visitors over the 2 weekends. Whether they are just passing and see the balloons, have chosen me as part of a list of places in the area for the day or have specifically decided to come to see my work, I don’t take it lightly, when there are 300+ other artists also taking part around the city.
It’s a wonderful opportunity to share what I do with people - to show where I work, to talk about my process and to hear what people think. Here are some of the comments I heard or that I found written in my visitors book this time round.

I had an exciting day last Saturday, teaching a room full of 24 grown ups how to play with paint. And today I’ve been reading their feedback forms!

But, you know the comment that grabbed my attention the most, was from someone on the actual day, that took me by surprise. I can’t remember her exact words but she was basically expressing her appreciation that I would be willing to share my ‘secrets’ with everyone. She thanked me for my generosity in not keeping my art processes to myself! Isn’t that lovely?!

Should I be worried that people might try to copy my style, or might use my ideas to make better pictures than mine?

What I do is incredibly simple - I’ve taught most of it to children as young as 4, I’ve shared it with rooms of 150 people all in one go and it’s still been effective. My processes have come about through experimentation and play, through trial and error, but most of all through playing with paint and having fun.

I didn’t invent stencilling, or splatting paint, or building up layers, or using circles in ones work. Maybe if this was it - if this was going to be my specific style for ever, then I’d feel a bit more protective and guarding of sharing it with people (I don’t know)...

BUT I’m just getting started! I have plans to go much deeper and further and crazier with my paint playing. In fact, I would be most disappointed if my work did stay the same from now on - I’m hungry to keep developing, to keep growing and learning.

If I can impart a sense of fun and playfulness in people’s creativity, if I can help to free people up to focus on enjoying the process rather than stressing over the results, then I feel the risk of sharing 'all my secrets' is one worth taking.

Eight big beautiful abstract pieces celebrating creativity and brightening the walls of my local primary school.
Last year I enjoyed a week’s art residency at Arbury Primary School, and I’ve recently been back for a visit to see the art we created actually up on their walls.

The week began with me painting on stage in the school assembly. I painted in response to their favourite song ‘A right to be loved’ whilst the 450 pupils sang along and watched the picture evolve, projected onto the large screen.
As the morning progressed each class was invited onto the stage to take a closer look and add their own circle round the edge.

This painting is now pride of place on the back wall of their Expressive Arts Hall.

Here is the time-lapse video of the performance art

I photographed their beautiful creations, so the school could purchase some large canvas prints to display around their building.
Here are the seven finished prints that I saw on my recent visit, now hanging in the corresponding year group areas, for the children to remember the fun we had.

To see more pictures and read more detail about my week as artist in residence at Arbury Primary School last year, here is the blog post about:

• the week itself
• and also a post about the idea behind my visit.
  

To make enquiries about booking me for your school, community group or event, please email me at Kate@KateGreenART.com and we can discuss a package that is tailor-made to suit your setting.

At Easter I spent the week as the artist in residence at a conference in Butlins, Minehead and thought I'd share with you what I got up to.
There were three main parts to my role. 1. to provide all age activities for the morning programme called the BIG START. 2. to lead an art workshop for the guests one afternoon and 3. to paint live in the evening session. I also had the opportunity of selling my art and merchandise in the bookshop.

The creative team leading this morning programme had to dress in school uniform to fit the week's theme – hence the pigtails! I based my activities around the idea of a graffiti wall and each morning added a new word. I'd learnt from the previous year to keep things super simple as there would be a large number of kids, about 10 minutes to do things and it was too loud to give any explanation, alongside the songs, games and drama also happening. We used chalks, made handprints, created collage and sketched.

Each evening, next to the stage, I got to paint HUGE pictures to live music. Working so big and with limited time lent itself nicely to expressive, messy work. I barely used a brush or palette, I just threw the paint on the canvas roll and manipulated it with a shower squeegee and sponges.
There was a camera over my shoulder a lot of the time, with a live feed to the large screens either side of the venue, with images of me painting interspersed with footage of the 3000+ audience and the band. I was having so much fun that I was mostly able to block this out of my mind and just get on with what I was doing.

Each evening I left my paintings to dry over night, then in the morning I hung them from the bleachers. The pictures are available for guests (and anyone else) to purchase as poster prints in my Etsy shop (click each image below for a link).

This April I got to show all my favourite paintings in a beautiful gallery space in Cambridge and I thought you might like to take a look!

I called this show COLOUR SONGS as that's how I would describe my pictures - singing with colour.

This poster says 5 - 13th April but the gallery owner was so thrilled with how the exhibition looked that she invited me to extend the show for double the time, at no extra cost!

Here is a video tour for those of you who were not able to make it along in person.

Way back in October I took part in a doodling challenge on Instagram, I realised that I have a variety of footage from it that I've never shared in my blog, so I thought better late than never!!

This challenge was perfect for me in many ways.

1. It was in the middle of a season of admin, so it created a welcome excuse and nudge to be creative at least for 5 minutes every day.
2. It was using crayons, which to me felt unthreatening, something I could be playful and unprecious about.
3. Pat Butynski, the artist who set the challenge turned out to be part of my mentoring programme - a wonderfully inspiring, brave and provoking abstract artist who I'm now honoured to call a friend.
   
   

I say I have a variety of footage but I actually told myself at the start of doing this that I could be free to play without the pressure of ever having to show anyone what I produced! This was very releasing and meant I could explore to my hearts content.

Here's a little timelapse video of one of them:

So the challenge was to do a #30daycrayonworkout, basically playing with crayons in any way I chose every day for 30 days and posting it as part of a group who were all doing it too. Search #getyourcraycray_on to see the other 1500+ responses.

In December I shared a selection of my sketches at my Open Studio event and even sold a few. Then in January I had the opportunity of exhibiting 12 of them at City Church Cambridge – hoping to inspire some playful 5 minute creativity in others.

One of my goals this year was to start doing live videos on social media. Whether that be sharing what I've been doing in my studio, answering questions or doing demonstrations etc.
Live video and vlogging invites people into your life, it's more real, more raw. I want to be engaging with my friends and supporters not always just presenting the finished, polished article. Being an artist, aesthetics are important to me, I can be a bit of a perfectionist, I have an eye for detail, editing video is an art form in itself and there is a place for that but this medium is a different type of beast. If I want to invite you into my arty world, my REAL arty world, then excellence shouldn't be the aim but practice. The only way to improve, to get more confident, more slick and natural, is to do it, and then do it again and again!

I committed to talking into my phone every day for as long as it took to feel ready to give it a go live on social media. Here is a little snippet!

I thought it might take a few months but actually within a few days I was more comfortable and decided I would coincide my 1st 'live' with the launch of my 2nd website.

“Hello is there anybody there? Is this live, is this working, can your hear me?...”
If you want a chuckle – here is a link to my first FB live video

My plan now is to start working towards doing Q & A's each month – sometimes while painting, and sporadically just show you guys what I've been working on in my studio. I do a number of live painting events and so my next challenge is to go live, when I'm in public! And then there's IGTV… and so on and so on!


I know when I used to watch people doing this type of thing I would feel it beyond my reach, so hopefully in sharing my little journey with you, you too will feel you can start accomplishing some of your goals a day at a time.
Otherwise I guess this will also help you to see that I'm just getting started with all this stuff, and serve as an apology and plea to bare with me as I learn!

Last weekend I led a 3 hr Colour Song abstract art workshop and I thought you'd enjoy hearing about what we got up to.

We started with a couple of warm up exercises – drawing to music and then thinking in colours. I was thrilled that everyone threw themselves straight into the activities, daring to try something different, trusting me to focus on the process over results.

I then set about taking the group through the techniques I used to create this painting called 'Piece of Peace', step by step, layer upon layer upon layer.

Everyone went home with their own beautiful handcrafted painting!

Sounded like fun so I signed up! – it only dawned on me later that these weren't going to be just any scientists but Professors and leaders in their field at Cambridge University type scientists! Would I even understand the research, let alone be able to put it into my own words and represent it visually? How would I make this an honouring response to significant study rather than a frivolous caricature?

Here is my painting as it progressed, it's called MIND THE GAP

This is my explanation: We make sense of the things around us through a combination of the world we have experienced and the world that is in front of us. Our brain fills in the gaps between the two as best it can, adjusting to the patterns it learns along the way. Hallucinations can be seen as a consequence of a disturbed negotiation between brain and world, as someone strives to make sense of the ambiguous.
In my painting I symbolise the patterns we've learnt from our experience (internal), layered with the input we receive from our senses (external), and consider the gap between these two that our brains try to fill to make sense of the world around us.
If you are interested in reading more about Dr Paul's work follow this link: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/how-hallucinations-emerge-from-trying-to-make-sense-of-an-ambiguous-world

The crowd at the pub seemed to be there more for the science talk than the art I think, but it was a great opportunity to try something new, all good experience. The end of week exhibition was buzzing, it was so lovely to see people seriously engaging with my painting and very interesting to see all the other artists responses to their scientists work.

Here are some of the other pieces of art in the exhibition.

It was a BIG challenge, one of those things where you don't realise what you've let yourself in for until it's too late, but I'm definitely glad I did it!