This past week, I had the pleasure of doing graphic recording for a group within health care as they reflected on Trauma and Resiliency Informed Practice. After I completed the transcription report, I decided to do my own a reflection. The result is a drawing as I contemplated the outcomes of the day. The drawing process: Lotus buds…
Category: creative process
When a Story Finds You
I presented at Vancouver Heritage Foundation Heritage Lunch and Learn on March 9, 2023! When A Story Finds You – The Babes in the Wood Cold Case and Unexpected Discoveries In 2003, Katarina Thorsen volunteered as a researcher and student criminal profiler with the Babes in the Woods Task Force. The task force’s goal was…
Store window, Gamla Stan, Stockholm. A study
I came across a wonderful little shop in June 2019. Slow Fox Förlag Antikvariatet. Själagårdsgatan 9c, Gamla Stan, Stockholm, Sweden. And I think about the store window ALOT. A study using Chinamarker, white acrylic ink, watercolour wash added using Caitlin ffrench’s wildcrafted pigments © KATARINA THORSEN
Decompose on forest floor study (embroidered drawing)
January 31, 2023 Our bodies are garbage heaps: we collect experience, and from the decomposition of the thrown-out eggshells, spinach leaves, coffee grinds, and old steak bones out of our minds come nitrogen, heat, and very fertile soil. Out of this fertile soil bloom our poems and stories. But this does not come all at…
“The Guardians.” A study
For Emma.
Crow study.
For Julian.
Follow the process: École Rochester Mission Statement Canvas
I will continue to post rest of process until done… Target completion date: January 6, 2023 Jan 6, 2023 Almost done! The grey rocks will have key “touchstone” words added and the field awaits the Mission Statement. (Excuse the photo quality. The colours at the bottom are brighter in real life) Update March…
Construct, deconstruct, reconstruct.
See original post of creating this painting: Of the Forest Deconstruction started Nov 4, 2022: Mixed them all up, collected them and laid in order of how they stacked. December 8, 2022: The accidental connections between between the randomly selected canvas pieces is satisfying. My eye naturally finds harmony in the accidents. I rediscovered the love…
Painting in progress: Of The Forest, Värmland (self-portrait)
My niece, Vivienne, age 8, works on the piece with me. Bliss! The piece continues to evolve… With no attachment to outcome. Only to the process, which I find enormously healing. This is the forest in Värmland in which my soul most often resides… where I spent my childhood summers:
Cashel, Ireland “vision board”
The main characters in my graphic novel project (a true story) were born in Cashel, Ireland. I decided to make a “vision board” to help me focus on gathering the resources to one day (soon) sit in situ drawing the Rock of Cashel. (Then head down the hill for a pint and food.) I found…
Journal entry July 3, 2022
I believe (I already have to some extent) that I must make friends with death. And to to know to accept that I will dance once again in the that chasm before my conception and after my death. Forever. Timelessly. To the music of the Sparrow’s Song – Journal entry, July 3, 2022
Entangled roots as metaphor for two mission statements
Gradually, the observer realizes that these organisms are connected to each other, not linearly, but in a netlike, entangled fabric. – Alexander Von Humboldt Related: “Potential” I call it “Potential” to celebrate Diane and Doug’s work and legacy of fostering the potential in others. See:
Painting: Potential, 2022
Interactive Visual for Diane and Doug Clement event (Ink, acrylic, wax on canvas). Guests at the scholarship fund celebration (see below) added their names in the nest and leaves. I call it “Potential” to celebrate Diane and Doug’s work and legacy of fostering the potential in others.
Joseph, the Prologue Broadsheet Sampler
© Katarina Thorsen 2022 — This is a limited edition publication. 400 copies in total have been printed. The hardcopy of the 12-page broadsheet (newspaper) measures: 380 mm x 578 mm (approx. 15″ x 28″) FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO: ABOUT THE PROJECT To purchase an individually signed and numbered copy of the 12-page…
Painting: Of the invisible breath that swayed at once
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once… – William Cullen Bryant — This canvas is part of a larger explorative project entitled “Nature Nurture” conceived by filmmaker and multi-media artist Patti Henderson, “born of Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn. The first pandemic lockdown in British Columbia.” The project includes introspective photography and writing by…
Yard Gone Wild #fanart #doodles
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Being steered… this way? No, that way. Ok. Got it.
A powerful time of invites, yes’s and important no’s that steer me in the direction I know I need to go. Got a bit overwhelmed from the relief and excitement, I had to soak, think and do a therapeutic bathtub doodle to get perspective. “I heard this really great quote not too long ago that…
I ruined it.
I was so excited about my 5th birthday party… I couldn’t sleep. I was so nervous that when the day finally arrived, I had a complete meltdown during the party. I ruined it.
Something amiss.
I am tired. So tired. But strangely energized. I am sad. So sad. But I lie here with a tearful smile of contentment. I am achy. So achy. But walk with a spring in my step. I feel something amiss, but I am fulfilled. I could burst into tears. My cat pokes my belly that’s…
The Varied Thrush.
Found on the front steps of building at corner of Barclay and Gilford, West End, Vancouver. Pencil crayon, watercolour, dry pastel on newsprint. “Dead voices, lost sounds, forgotten noises, vibrations lockstepping into the abyss and now too distant ever to be recaptured! … What sort of arrows would be able to transfix such birds?” —…
… right to be angry…
“Every little creature has a right to be angry. – Little My, Moominpappa at Sea (1965), Tove Jansson
Frog moth studies
Scene from Twin Peaks: The Return, Episode 8
Slowing down the creative process
Drawing a dead bird from “life.” (It was actually caught by my indoor cat through a small opening in my apartment window on Sept 23, 2018, and unfortunately it was very dead, so I photographed it and buried it in Stanley Park) A resurgence of studying art history and techniques has made me realize I…