We are an Australian husband and wife artist duo that create bespoke interior paintings to elevate your home decor. One of the artists, Catherine, is sharing her journey into art and love for our studio with you today. Get to know our incredible artist to understand our.
A beautiful painting is like a sweet box of chocolate.
It evokes positive emotions, sparks joy and makes you feel right at home.
Catherine
1. Before your artist career. How did you come into art?
Catherine: Previously, I worked in the fashion & apparel industry. I was inspired to pursue this career as my mum always had women’s magazines about sewing like Burda Style. I would cut images out of them or draw my own designs into the magazines. As a result, I studied clothing design.
The entire design process from cutting the fabric to sewing can be very complex. Sewing an entire suit from scratch can be very complicated, almost like an engineer job. After a year, I found myself compelled to pursue a four-year university course in drawing to pursue my passion for art.
Geometric forms, colour theory and composition inspire me, and I love working with all mediums. That’s how I ended up falling in love with art.
2. If you weren’t painting for interiors, then what?
I would be working with illustrations for children’s books. Scary and primitive illustrations in kids’ books upset me. I drew book illustrations for children before the digital era!
3. What did you do prior to this?
I worked as an art teacher at a school. A tricky job, it is about teaching technical skills and distinguishing styles and masters.
Art is an education of mind and taste. When teaching art, I believe the child is like a pearl within a shell emerging from the soft waves of the ocean. As you nurture them, they continue to open and bloom slowly. Drinking in more of the outside world and feeling more confident in their abilities every week.
What you put into nurturing a child’s artistic expression is what they will get out of it, so I always provided them plenty of opportunities to explore their creative side.
4. Mission of 11 Art Studio
Our mission is to give joy, enrich life and lift your emotional level. We are inspired to enhance your environment and make you happy and relaxed at home.
Our goal is to create inspirational images that resonate with you and inspire thought. We want to provoke a positive emotional response and provide beautiful, homely interior decor for your home.
5. How long does it take to create a painting?
There are two of us working, so it takes around a week. My paintings are often textural thus it takes extra time. This is the reason why I rarely use oil. Oil paintings of this texture would take up to several months to dry.
6. Are there any themes in painting that do not appeal to you at all?
I dislike violence, horror and other jarring paintings. I am very careful about this. I do not recommend viewing such paintings or storing them at your home.
I believe that art should be used to invoke positive emotions within your home. Especially if you have children, we should be encouraging them to enjoy the positivity within art and the creativity of art.
7. How do we create our artworks?
It takes a LOT of time! For our projects, we use many layers. We have to think, design, create, paint and also allocate time for drying. The actual painting process only occupies about 20% of each art project.
The biggest time consumer in the art process is to formulate an ideo and explore it as an interior element. We need to take every idea we have and see if we can use it to bring your home interior to the next level. We want our paintings to be the main accessory, so we spend a lot of time sketching and working out all the elements for our work.
In the beginning stages, the number of sketches can exceed a dozen. We are often up to 2am sketching. Never hesitate to message us 24/7, as we are always on.
When a stack of paper is worn out, we move to the next stage. Paint and mediums. Our collections take a lot of work and aren’t just painted for the morning mood.
8. Do you work with your husband?
We always start together. Without each other, we would have never been able to pursue our dreams. We don’t necessarily start in the morning. We work when we feel the creativity hit us, and sometimes we can work throughout the night. We have a lovely studio space within our home that allows us to do this.
Ivan calls me the “mistress of paint”. In addition to quality checks, Ivan does sketching, mixing paint, packing, placing orders to suppliers, and taking artwork photos in various conditions. He is my backbone and is the reason our projects are such high-quality.
9. Do your children help you?
They are too young to assist us just yet! They put the paint in place, rinse the brushes, change the water, sometimes pose as models.
They have their own canvases, paints and brushes. They draw spaceships, animals, and everything around us. We like to think they are inspired by our creative space.
