Making Art is Awesome!
Kathleen Farrell
Illustrated Photography
I always have my camera with me wherever I go. Almost daily I find myself snapping photographs of little things that catch my eye – a seagull with the wind ruffling its feathers, a cow enjoying some grass, a mother horse in a pasture with her foal, or a bee buzzing from flower to flower. I photograph anything that I find interesting, and honestly that could be as mundane as a cupcake on a plate, or a couple of empty beach chairs. I will pull over to the side of the road to take a picture of a farm stand or a cool, weathered farm gate, and any kind of a barn, really, because I love things like that.
The photographs themselves are beautiful to me and special, and the experience of taking them is wonderful, but I have always wanted to do more with the end result. And for a long time I pondered how to go about doing that.
Since I am a techie nerd and love creating movies and soundtracks on my Apple iMac, I started sorting out how I could meld these two mediums into something interesting and new. After about a year of trying different techniques and learning more about digital illustration, I started to experiment with “painting” over my own photographs. I began with a Wacom Bamboo digital tablet connected to my iMac and loved the results. Then I moved to an iPad using a fine point stylus and loved the results even more. What were once snapshots of cool things I admired could now become vibrant, lush paintings full of emotion and color with my own personal stamp on them. I never heard of anyone doing anything like this so I didn’t know what exactly to call it, but the term “Illustrated Photography” popped into my head and made complete sense to me! It’s exactly what I do. AND I LOVE IT.
I take these images of the regular world and carefully and lovingly digitally “paint” each one by hand, creating entirely new images. The original photograph is completely redrawn by hand – every inch of it. I remove elements in each photograph, re-draw other elements, change the backgrounds by drawing/painting new ones, change colors if I feel like it, and simply make the image what I see in my head. It is a labor of love and hours pass without me even realizing it as I work on each piece.
The tools I use now are an Apple Pencil with my Apple iPad Pro. All photographs are taken by me with the exception of commissioned portraits where the photograph is provided by the client. Completed artwork is professionally printed on archival quality art paper. Print size is
8 x 11; but commissions may be custom sized due to cropping etc. If you are interested in a larger size print - please message me for details and pricing information. I hope you enjoy my art pieces as much as I love making them!
