Kat Powell Artist

This is a side project I've been working on. I've been working as a Freelance Illustrator for years now, giving life to other's stories. Which I love doing!  So I want to try to create my own stories.  This first story is an experiment. And honestly I've been hesitant to create and share it for a long time. But I'm forcing myself to put it out there! I am uploading the first part of the story for free on my ko-fi page. (link below)  There will probably be 4 parts to this story and then I will have the entire story available as an eBook. Maybe later I will have physical prints....but that is for the future! https://ko-fi.com/katpowellartist (donate)

The best piece of advice I've gotten as an artist is this: "Take a single idea and stretch it over several images!" Sounds easy? Well, yes it is. For the longest time I would create an image by sketching out one composition. Then I would ink it, draw it out with color pencils, or paint it and move on to the next image. But this would often cause me to hit a creative wall, "artist block", and not be able to create something new. So, to fix this I went back to that great advice. I started with sketching out a bunch of different compositions for a single idea. Let me give you an example: This is a recent concept I developed for my "Skellies" where they are in a cyclical loop of self-consumption. So I started with one image, one concept, one color, and then I sketched out more ideas. I started with the idea of branches and berries growing out of my Skellies with a monochrome color palate. Each composition is the same as the first o...

A few years ago I saw a bunch of artist trying a drawing challenge. It is based off of an artist named Kim Jung Gi who draws extremely detailed and realistic images with only ink. No pencil, no sketch and straight from memory and imagination! So, I decided to give it a go. The image you see below is my attempt at straight ink drawing. I also wanted to test my imagination and memory by drawing everything you see from memory. Of course, most of the drawing is fantasy but this was a great challenge for proportion, perspective, background, and anatomy.     It was a great way to get out of my comfort zone and test my confidence as an artist. I would highly recommend this challenge for intermediate and advance artist! I will be honest, it was very scary at first. But if you stay focused on what you are creating and have a general idea of what you want to draw then you will have more fun! You can start off simple by drawing one object or cre...

 Quick lighting advice. For this video I wanted to experiment with a single light source. When you are working on something like this you need to constantly think about WHERE your light source is. For the first skellie you see sitting right in front of the computer screen, the light will framing his figure and casting an intense shadow around his frame. And a tiny bit of light will show around his eyes. I made the light here the most intense because that is where I want the main FOCUS of the image. Everything else still keeps with the light source but is more muted because the other figures are both farther away and not the focus of the image. By the way, rest your eyes when you can! (And I will try to take my own advice...)

You've probably already seen my first transformation video of human anatomy here . Well, I wanted to do another video that shows the growing process of a cotton plant. I know that might sound boring but cotton plants have a very interesting transformation from a bulb to flower and then to a cotton boll. It is kind of difficult to find videos of real cotton plants growing thru all the stages so I made one myself. This was a challenge to paint! Not only did I have to consider the transitions for the "good" effect but I also had to keep the paint colors consistent. If you want the video you can see there were plenty of times where I didn't get the correct colors but I really didn't fret over that. I wanted to accomplish my goal! Watch the video and let me know if I was somewhat successful. :)

This painting is my first attempt at a "transforming" painting. The idea I had was to paint a figure with the same steps I use when I draw the human figure. You can see in the video that I start with a rough outline for the skeleton figure. If you have ever taken a figure drawing course you know that in order to properly capture the human form you start with the skeleton and muscles underneath. It's like building a house. You need the frames then the drywall before you add the house paint. Anyways, after I paint the rough outline I fill in the skeleton, while keeping the light source in mind. Giving depth and highlights. Keep in mind the skeleton is rough because this is not a skeleton painting. So I don't care about the tight details and realism. This is just a phase. I then move on to the muscles. When I was in college my drawing professor had us learn all the muscles by name, and I knew them all....but then I got lazy and forgot most ...