DRAW-bitch-DRAW!

A similar mantra was on repeat the final months when I was completing my debut graphic novel, Salt Green Death. The second graphic novel is now in full swing. It is a collaboration. (Stay tuned!) The visual narrative script was completed by the spectacular author whose short story the new book is based on. The…

Creative Process Video: Drawing Violet

Unedited silent video (length 41:34) of my creative process as I simply play with my favourite drawing materials as I draw using rough mark making: china markers (not sure why I don’t cut the string when it gets in the way!), watercolour crayons, some acrylic paint, and coffee on newsprint. I am meditating on my…

Creative process: Girl in a Wetsuit Study

Girl in a Wetsuit (1972) is a life-size bronze sculpture by Elek Imredy of a woman in a wetsuit, located on a rock in the water along the north side of Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada   This study is part of the development phase for my second book, Full Bleed, a graphic novel…

Sometimes, if I angle things just right…

Sometimes, if I angle things just right… at just the right time, I can pretend I am the only human in the park. The bird songs and gentle breeze in the trees can then seem louder than the seaplanes and distant traffic… And racing thoughts and complicated to-do lists fall away… Perhaps now and then…

A contemplation

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…

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 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?” —…

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…

Dead Bird Study Part 2

See: Part 1 PART 2: Watercolour, pencil crayon, ink, coffee, beet juice, salt, on newsprint, embroidery. Next up in Part 3 – add writing.

Imagined bird nest: part 1

Pencil crayon, watercolour, ink, coffee, cherry juice on newsprint. Next step: collage, embellish and embroider

Elle Kari Study No. 2

Image reference: the vintage children’s book (with documentary photography) “Elle Kari” by Anna Riwkin-Brick and Elly James, Rabén & Sjögren, Stockholm, 1965 Medium: pencil crayon, ink, coffee, watercolour on newsprint- plus hot iron

Elle Kari Study No. 1

Image reference: the vintage children’s book (with documentary photography) “Elle Kari” by Anna Riwkin-Brick and Elly James, Rabén & Sjögren, Stockholm, 1965 Medium: pencil crayon, ink, coffee, watercolour on newsprint

tRUTH.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 1933-2020

Simple OWL drawing lesson using kid-grade felt pens

[Film by Anna Thorsen] I teach OWL drawing for most, if not all, of my creative engagement workshops.  I use the OWL image as it is easy to break it down into simple geometric shapes on which to build form. I usually use china marker. But we don’t always have the “right” material. We have…

A quick creative project on last day of 2019: The Death and Burial of Cock Robin

Rainy stay-inside sick day today. I have stayed in PJs and creative process. I spent the last few hours interpreting The Death and Burial of Cock Robin with ink, watercolour and salt. [Source: Gutenberg Press. Original text by anonymous circa 14th-17th century] Chanticleer, what want you here, So early in the morning? “Cock-a-doodle-doo,” says he, pray don’t you…

I don’t bleed anymore. Finding solace in journal pages.

“These are the days of tweeting, blogging, posting, instagraming, snapchatting, you name it. Everyone seems to be doing it. Some people seem very comfortable expressing every morsel of their living and breathing and eating into the world. Not that this isn’t totally fascinating to the one sharing, but most people (including me) don’t care about…