Kathy Weller’s Childhood Inspirations Fuel Her Art, Teaching, & Thriving Sales.
Kathy’s artistic path and artistic skills began with a childhood love for Hello Kitty stationery. Her artistic abilities and technical skills grew. Her learning process led her to create her own character brands, Cats @ Work and Yoga Pals. With deliberate practice and continuous learning, Kathy mastered the art of hand lettering for a broader audience in various mediums. Her hand lettering became a key skill as a visual artist.
A recent family trip to Hawaii reignited her passion and artistic expression for acrylic painting, leading her to create stunning works inspired by her travels and artistic vision. Today, with her versatile skill set, she not only produces vibrant art but also teaches online courses with varying subject matter:
- Etsy
- Print-on-demand
- Creative Development
- And more
Kathy’s story is a life of creativity, from childhood inspiration to a successful career as a professional artist and a dedicated mentor sharing valuable insights with a growing online presence.
Artistic Origins:
Vicki: “Can you share a story of what drew you to your chosen medium and how your artistic journey began?”
Kathy: When it comes to analog, non-computer art, I’ve used a variety of different mediums throughout my life, but recently, I’ve been consistently using acrylics on paper, panels, and wood. Here’s the story of how I came to recommit to painting with acrylics.
In May 2023, my family and I went on an amazing trip to the Hawai’ian islands. Whenever I travel, I get a bit obsessive with the selection of art supplies I bring with me. I often end up packing way too many because I like to be prepared for different moods and circumstances. For whatever reason, on this trip, I was very focused on watercolor. I couldn’t wait to get on the beach, open up my paints, and start watercolor painting dreamily in plein air!
So, I got to the beach in Lahaina, Maui. I set up in my comfy chair to paint. I had my paint palette, my water, paper towel, spray bottle, brushes, watercolor sketchbook, the beautiful natural environment and the positive, otherworldly energy of the place! What more could I ask for?
In my romanticized imagining of plein air watercolor painting in Hawai’i, I completely forgot about the most annoying part of using watercolor for me: the drying time!
In my usual environment, I use a blow dryer to dry watercolors and water-based media. I have that control. But, painting on a beach in Lahaina, with wild trade winds and ever-changing precipitation? The fantasy and the reality clashed— and smashed— together in my sketchbook! I had moved my art practice to an environment completely incompatible with the way I normally worked with it, and, well… it was an A-Ha moment! I’d worked with water media in uncontrollable conditions before. But, it had been a long time, and the potential of these consequences happening were truly the last thing on my mind at the time of planning!
After that first slightly disastrous outing, I still used water-based media for the rest of my time in Hawai’i, but I recalibrated the way I was using it and my expectations of what I would be able to accomplish painting in this environment with them. In the end, I created some art that I absolutely love and some art I don’t love but that I appreciate every time I look at it for the lessons it’s taught me. Throughout it all, I had loads of fun making ALL of the art I made on the trip. However, when I got home and started to paint Hawai’i from my photos, I had a newfound appreciation and love for my acrylic paints— and their QUICK drying time!
Anyway… Good art, bad art— every bit of it teaches you something worth learning (and worth reinvestigating, on occasion)!
Pivotal Moments:
Vicki: “Is there a pivotal moment or experience in your life that influenced your art?”
Kathy: From my earliest memories as a person, I was drawing. When I was about six, Hello Kitty hit retail for the first time. The mini-everything sets, including pens and pencils, stickers, and candy, were truly dazzling— like nothing I’d ever seen before. Aside from the irresistibility factor of everything visual in the Hello Kitty world, she was selling these adorable functional products I could use to draw with— mini-pen and pencil sets, mini-letter-writing sets, mini-notebooks! I was absolutely hooked!
Occasionally, my mom would gather up my sisters and me into the car for a Saturday night field trip to Sav-On, a 1970’s California-based pharmacy chain. Sav-On had a comically huge amount of real estate devoted to novelty treats. Buried within these aisles was a magical mirage of Hello Kitty goodies. I was drawn to them like a moth to a flame! I wanted EVERYthing! My sisters and I were each allotted a specific budget we could spend on our shopping trip. I’d always check out with new Hello Kitty stationery goodies and maybe the obligatory bag of Bottle Caps or Gold Rush gum. Those Hello Kitty goods were always among my few most prized possessions when I got home. They may have been in the novelty aisle, but their novelty never wore off on me.
Right around this time, I created my first character. On a little piece of paper (very possibly “Hello Kitty” paper), Cute Animo was clearly inspired by Hello Kitty. Another notable inspiration for Cute Animo was an omnipresent “Draw Me” ad that was everywhere at the time. Those ads got me thinking about why anyone would want to copy a character? I put two and two together: Hello Kitty products were the result! (Before, meet After!) Inspired by those “Draw Me!” ads on my mom’s matchbooks I’d see throughout the house, I remember working through my own method for Cute Animo’s character design. I designed Cute Animo so that he could be easily replicated, presumably to be used on many different products, just like Hello Kitty was!
Anyway, 40 years later, I was still obsessed with creating cute characters on little pieces of paper, but this time, they turned into my own character brands: Cats@Work, Kitty Yoga, and Doggy Yoga (collectively known as “Yoga Pals”). All have been licensed with companies for gift/stationery lines and published in novelty books over the past decade. Everything I’ve accomplished with my character brands is directly connected to my early obsession and fascination with Hello Kitty consumer goods.
Creative Process:
Vicki: “Could you walk us through your creative process? How did you transform your initial idea into a finished piece?”
Kathy: Sure, Happy to!
How I approach the process depends on the type of art I’m making and the goals of the finished product. I’ll share the process creating art and lettering for my own products.
The sketches I do for my own use are rougher than the sketches I do for client work. When I am creative-directing every aspect, I can edit some of the show-and-tell- parts out and also make decisions quicker and more intuitively since I’m both the artist and the final client.
I start with a rough sketch. Then, I’ll take a hi-res photo with my iphone of the sketch. I’ll often take the picture in an app called Scanner Pro. It’s usually used for legal documents, acting like a Xerox machine, but I like to use it for this purpose because it simplifies the values in sketches down to black and white, bringing out the most important elements and dissolving the less-defined details so I’m less apt to get sidelined by them when I’m executing the final art. I’m a detail nut, but “extra” details don’t always serve a design. Using Scanner Pro to filter my really rough sketches in this way keeps me focused on the bigger picture and helps me to make an overall stronger final design with less visual noise.
Meaningful Creations:
Vicki: “Is there a piece you’ve created that is particularly meaningful to you? What’s the story behind it?”
Kathy: There are so many pieces that are meaningful to me for different reasons. Some are meaningful due to the personal creative growth they’ve become a sort of souvenir from. Some pieces were pivotal to my growth in a particular area of my career. Some are the most enduring emblems of themes that I now regularly explore and support with my designs.
In terms of my paintings, it’s very fulfilling to create art from my own personal experiences, like my Hawai’i paintings are. Something I’ve discovered through selling my Hawai’i paintings to collectors is how our collective appreciation of physical locales can truly connect us as human beings. Several collectors of my Hawai’i series paintings are deeply familiar with the geographical areas depicted in their paintings. They have built a deep, emotional connection to these places. The art not only connects them with the land that the art represents in a new way, but it also connects the artist and the art collector as people who each have a deep universal appreciation and affection for a geographical place in all of its beauty and soul, culture and history, complications and conflict.
One of the things I love about selling originals is that the act of selling original work is also the practice of setting the energy corralled through the piece of art free and forward to live a new life. It kind of feels like a soul collaboration because it will be enjoyed and appreciated both for what I initially gave to the piece and also for what the collector imbues it with through their own experience and how elements of the art directly (and sometimes spookily) connect to their own personal life experience and as such are emblematic of their own personal path and growth.
Future Aspirations:
Vicki: “Looking forward, what are your aspirations or dreams for your future as an artist?
Kathy: I want to continue what I began in 2023 with my Hawai’i painting series and keep doing original painting collection releases.
Also, in addition to my Etsy shop featuring my hand-lettered designs, I now also offer the service of creating custom hand-lettered merch designs for your professional or personal event.
I love to craft the perfect design based on your needs— whether it’s the event’s themes and goals or your brand’s unique personality. I can create an intriguing visual narrative design conversation-starter for your merch that your people will be eager to get their hands on and stoked to wear. My inventive and detailed hand-lettering style is built to fulfill the very individualized needs, whether for personal needs, or business-focused. If you love my style, I’d love to hear all about your merch needs!
Lastly, l have feelings about sharing dreams before they are fully hatched.
For a long time, I kept my dreams to myself while I toiled away, working on them. Then, one day, those dreams came true. Then, another day, the internet started telling me that we should share our dreams loudly. “Keep yourself accountable,” they said. So, feeling some internalized pressure, I tried that. Guess what? Some goals I reached. Others, I didn’t. But the universal factor was how painful every aspect of my climb became after I shared it before it was ready to be shared. I listened to the internet, for better or for worse. I thought the internet knew a secret, I didn’t. But guess what? I already had the secret within me. In the process of trying things the internet’s way, I temporarily lost the thread to my own intuition. That was a hard lesson to learn, but I certainly won’t forget it. I guess I had to experience that type of reckoning to understand that I was already doing things the right way for me, intuitively.
So, nowadays, I’m back to keeping my dreams to myself. Until they’re out there in the world making their magic, I’m on lockdown. I work best that way; I accomplish more that way, and I have realized that I really don’t need anyone else to keep me accountable but myself. I am most efficient and most successful at reaching my goals and dreams when I keep them to myself during their development.
Vicki: “Is there anything else you’d like to share about your art, experiences, or perspectives we haven’t covered?”
Kathy: The older I get and the more I’ve experienced through my life and through my art, the more I believe that we truly make our own magic in this world. If you really want to accomplish something, focus, put in thousands of hours, do the hard stuff and keep your eyes on your goal. Also, one of my favorite quotes is, “Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.” If it was easy, everyone would do it. If it was easy, where’s the personal development? Where’s the wisdom gained? We just don’t get there without the tough stuff. You gotta embrace the hard stuff because stuff is hard, and once you get past the initial disappointment that things are hard, that’s ok, and we can all just move on because things being hard is simply the reality of being human and living on this beautiful earth. Life is beautiful, but you’re also going to be challenged. And you have to step up to the plate.
Also— closing thought: Throughout life, our goals and direction will shift and change. It is going to happen, and we might not (and usually won’t) be prepared for it when it happens. Pivoting is is not failure. It’s survival, it’s growth, and sometimes it’s a combination of the two. Just keep moving forward and give yourself the room to be flexible enough to pivot in the face of change.
Find You:
Vicki: “How can someone contact you to purchase your art?”
Kathy: Originals can be purchased here: http://www.kathywellerart.com
You can always email me with any questions at [email protected]
My hand-lettered designs on a variety of gifts and apparel:
My Etsy shop: http://www.kathywellerart.etsy.com
I’m also now selling on Threadless, Cotton Bureau, and Tee Public.
To learn more about custom merch design:
http://www.kathyweller.com/merch
Vicki: Do you offer online or in-person workshops/classes?
Kathy: Yes, I do! I teach on the topics of Etsy, using print-on-demand, and more. Learn about my offerings here:
http://www.kathyweller.com/learn-with-kathy