Write each idea on a small square of paper and fold them up. Keep your ideas in a nice jar. You can easily add new ideas to the jar as you think of them. You can even colour code them, as above, so you can quickly pick a subject and a colour, for example. 

If you love lists and option 1 and 2 just seem like hard work, use a random number generator (or a child!) to help you choose.

Create your list of materials you want to try and objects you want to paint.
Ideally number each row.
Then simply plug in your total number of rows into the number generator and away you go.

Online classes are wonderful and SO inspiring. Plus there are a lot of free ones too! But sometimes, when you are short on time, you need to spend that time doing, not watching someone else. After all, it's the practise that helps you learn. Don't fall down a YouTube rabbit hole to find that it's time to start dinner and you still have a blank page.​

I'm happy to be presenting this full day workshop once again!

This professional development workshop is for artists, photographers and creatives wanting to make more money from their art. Do you love making art, while the business side of your practice gets ignored? Not sure how to secure an exhibition? Overwhelmed by the word ‘marketing’? Then this one day workshop is for you.
"Do I need a website and how do I sell my art online? How do I get noticed? How do I talk about what I do?" These questions will be answered in this full day workshop as presenter Hannah Katarski walks you through important aspects of running your art practice as a successful business, so you leave inspired and with an action plan for what to do next.

You will learn:
• How to talk confidently about what you do as an artist.
• Identify and find your audience.
• Ways to generate more opportunities for your artistic business.
• Social media and eCommerce - what you need and what you don't.

The seminar is taking place on Saturday, 18 June and s kindly subsidised by the City of Stirling.

My latest collection of watercolour art prints are designed so that you can mix and match them to create a beautifully curated gallery wall.

Choose from a number of 'hero prints' and monochromatic coordinates which pair beautifully. They are available in a range of sizes to suit your wall size and decor.

The watercolour details were inspired by antique textiles. The originals were carefully scanned to create a museum quality art print.

Due to Covid impacts, I've now partnered with a number of printers so that my artwork can be shipped from 5 locations worldwide. This means you get your artwork quickly with a smaller carbon footprint. Print locations include Australia, US, UK, Canada and Europe.

I recently discovered the Room Portrait Club and have joined in with some of the challenges.

Room Portrait Club is a supportive, instagram community where artists complete a weekly portrait challenge using their chosen medium. A new image is posted each Saturday and artists from all over the world share their take on the room's portrait. 

What I love seeing is the variety of media! There is painting, of course, and sketching, but also collage, printmaking, assemblage and embroidery. It's really inspiring. Some portraits are realistic, whilst others are graphic and some artists choose to reinterpret or just depict a section of the photo.
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Here's my room portrait from a few weeks ago. A gorgeous little shepherd's hut interior, complete with William Morris wallpaper!

I've been working on improving my perspective sketching and this image certainly challenged me.
​The image for the following week didn't inspire me as much, but I loved seeing the work of the other artists.

I LOVE this week's image, because of the colours. I didn't manage to squeeze it in before the deadline, but you can see my version below.

Be sure to check out #roomportraitclub on instagram.

If you are interested in joining in but don't know where to start, check out my online class where we paint a living room portrait with gouache and watercolour for our project.

I hand paint all my patterns with watercolour, building up layers and lush details. I then scan the finished artwork to create repeating patterns and a range of giclee art prints.

This design is also available to license on fabric, apparel and in other markets. Email me if you are interested. 

Printmaking is such a diverse discipline and a 'print' can mean lots of different things. Often you hear 'print' meaning giclee prints or digital reproductions of an original painting or illustration.

Most of my works are dry point prints. Each one is made by hand, painted by hand and then signed and numbered -  as they are limited edition.

First, I start out by sketching my design until I'm happy with it. I then transfer my design onto illustration board, which will become my 'plate'. I cut out my plate, seal it with up to 6 coats of sealer, and then I etch all of the lines of my design into the plate with a sharp tool.

​The prints are left to dry. To make the next print, I ink up and wipe off my plate again. 

Plates made in this way can only go through the press limited times and so each of my designs will be limited to /15 or /25 prints in an edition.

When you see a number on the bottom of an artwork like: 2/25, that means it was the second print pulled in an edition of 25. U/S stands for Unique State and means that the print is unique, either due to ink colour, layout or the watercolours used.

I am excited to share my new collection of four pretty, pink prints!
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I have loved painting this collection. I started off painting the woven pattern and then moved on to the scallops. It was really freeing to have a repetitive structure and then be able to try new things in each shape or line.

I've been inspired by lace, beading and antique chintz, theatrical costumes and colours of Venetian glass. ​

I'm so proud to launch my latest print, Parisian Summer.

I am really enjoying exploring this idea. I've been inspired by lace and antique chintz, theatrical costumes and colours of Venetian glass. ​

This artwork is printed at museum grade quality and available in US and European sizes, from 8x10" and A4, all the way up to 70x100cm!

I love taking online classes. Victoria Johnson's are some of the better ones I've done. She provides succinct, useful information and then great briefs from which you can launch into new work. The classes aren't about learning techniques, but building concepts and ways of thinking.

Her Create Collections class got me thinking about leveraging all the ideas I have to create a small series. This is far more efficient than creating five unrelated illustrations. I do love working this way, because sometimes I feel this need to include all my ideas in one design! I don't want to leave anything out. A series allows you to explore as many as your ideas as you want to.

For this collection, I combined florals and something new to me - birds. It was great to take on a new challenge an fun to create some simple coordinates to fill out the mini-collection.

These designs are all available for licensing.

Last year I finally took the plunge. I had been building my illustration portfolio for maybe a year, and was getting prepared to start approaching art directors. The first market I was going to try my hand at was editorial. This can be book covers, magazine covers, spot illustrations... the kind of artwork that accompanies text.

So I had been adding artwork to my portfolio that included people and children, in order to show that I could do the work.

I wrote my email pitch and started introducing myself. I tried to keep my hopes realistic. After all, it's not like someone was going to get me to do a cover, but hopefully a couple of spot illustrations would come my way.

The very next day, I got an email from Mindful Parenting Magazine. The artist they had lined up for the next issue was unavailable and would I like to do it? YES! I would!

This was such a dream project. I also learned some lessons along the way.

Communication is key and art directors and designers need to see what is in your head as much as possible. This is always difficult with painting, when the only way you can really show what the artwork will look like is by painting it!

For this project I created colour roughs with coloured pencil. I have also created them digitally, but for subsequent projects I'll be creating thumbnail colour roughs using paint. Thumbnails are small sketches with minimal detail and therefore faster to complete, while still communicating colour and feel.
Colour pencil didn't communicate the saturation or texture of watercolour. I have tried digital roughs but then need to mix my paints anyway.

The added bonus of using paint is that when I get approval, my colour mixes are ready to go.

This image was licensed exclusively in 2020, while that issue was new. It is now available for licensing.

At the beginning of 2021 I had a list of goals for the year. One of them was to get my work on a jigsaw puzzle.

I'm unbelievably excited to share my latest collaboration with you! "Beach Essentials" from Surf Shack Puzzle Co.

This was a match made in Heaven! Owner, Mahina is a fellow surfer who started Surf Shack Puzzles last year. I approached her about working together and she was full of wonderful ideas. This first puzzle was an adaptation of an illustration in my portfolio. I painted some additional icons to add more detail to the puzzle.

Mahina was wonderful to work with and I love that she promotes female artists across the world. Surf Shack Puzzles are made from recycled materials, come in plastic free packaging and are printed with non-toxic inks.

I created the elements with watercolours before scanning them and tweaking the arrangement in Photoshop. I kept to a colour scheme in order to make everything coordinate. (I talk all about this in my online class.)

I just love that there are so many avenues for illustration to find its way onto products. My second design will be launching with Surf Shack Puzzles a little later in the year. Sign up for my newsletter to be the first to hear about it.

I love painting and I also love surfing. So I love to combine the two wherever I can! Read on to learn how to create a cute paper doll with changeable outfits. Paper dolls are so nostalgic of our youth and have a long history.
​Your doll can be a mini-me or inspired by someone you know, or completely fictitious. 

Materials
​300gsm watercolour paper or Bristol paper
Watercolour, gouache or acrylic paints, coloured pencils or markers
Paint brushes
Scissors
Pencil and eraser
Tracing paper (or cheap oven paper)
Waterproof fine-liner pen, like Unipin (optional)
Light box or a bright window

6. Using the window again, trace your doll onto watercolour paper. If your outfits are on tracing paper, transfer those too.

7. Paint the outfits using your preferred supplies. You can even use coloured pencils or markers, or a combination. You may like to ink the important details with the waterproof pen and erase your pencil marks before painting. When painting, wait for one area to dry before painting next to it. This will stop colours bleeding into each other.

8. When everything is dry, cut out your doll and outfits with a pair of small, sharp scissors. Don’t forget to keep the tabs attached!

These paper dolls make wonderful gifts or keepsakes from an adventure. When you complete the project, share your paper doll with @mermaidscoin and #surfgirlpaperdolls on instagram.

I wanted to share a valuable tip with you about using gouache. White is magic! 
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1. You can use white to add in highlights. If you come from a watercolour background, this will be new to you. It really helps to add that finishing touch to the painting.
2. But did you know that mixing just a little white with your colour will up the opacity without changing the colour? It's like magic. The chalk in the white paint helps to cover layers below much much better. Perfect when you've made a boo-boo or had a change of mind.
3. Not only that, but the addition of a little white, reflects light better, making your bright colours more luminous. Initially I found that using an opera or bengal pink (like that pictured above) just wouldn't look as nice and bright on the page. A little white does the trick!

When I started teaching my first class, I didn't know these tips, but wanted to share them with you. If you are keen to learn more about wonderful gouache and ways to combine it with watercolour, I hope you'll check out my class. 

Happy New Year!
Workshop dates for the first part of 2021 are now open for bookings.

With everything being so uncertain with Covid-19 and restrictions, my last class took place in March 2019.

I now have class dates schedules from February to March 2021 covering watercolour journalling, colour mixing, beach themes and boho florals. 
​
​Check out the classes page for more details and dates.

​Hope to see you soon!

Hey everyone! Have you been daydreaming about holidays you can't go on? Has facebook been taunting you with pictures of overseas adventures you were living this time last year? 
​
​I'm SO EXCITED to tell you my 4TH CLASS is now live! In Portfolio Builder: Flatlay Fun I break down the steps to create a flatlay illustration inspired by your fave ADVENTURE. It can be an adventure you plan to go on, once the borders are open and we can travel again, or a holiday you took last year. Drawing little icons is heaps on fun!

• You'll learn practical composition techniques to plan a SWEET looking illustration.
• You'll get FOUR cool ways to create an on-trend colourscheme; and
• You'll have heaps of fun fantasising about far off lands and making little icons of all the cool stuff you'd pack!

I take you through step by step, so it's a relaxing process. Grab your favourite art supplies and I'll see you in class!