Inside My Studio: How I Bring Each Design to Life

Artist Interview Series — Studio Stories: Conversations with Kirsten Katz

Part 3: Inside My Studio — How I Bring Each Design to Life

This is Part 3 of the Artist Interview Series with Kirsten Katz, Australian botanical artist and surface designer based in Sydney. In this series, Kirsten shares the stories, inspirations and decisions behind her art and her brand — in her own words. [Start from Part 1: My Creative Journey →]

Can you describe your creative process — from the first spark of an idea to the finished piece or product?

My creative process always begins with nature. I'm constantly inspired by flowers — especially native Australian flora, exotic blooms, and anything with striking form and structure. Proteas, bromeliads, orchids, banksias, irises, pansies — I'm drawn to the unusual, the vibrant, and the sculptural. Anything with a strong shape or an unexpected colour combination stops me in my tracks. That's always where the spark starts.

Gathering inspiration — gardens, travel and a camera full of flowers

Whenever I travel, I make it a point to visit botanical gardens, historic estates, and heritage sites with beautiful gardens. I take hundreds of photos — not necessarily to copy directly, but to use as reference points and to build my visual library. They live in my memory and on my phone, and sometimes months or even years later I'll scroll back through and find something that reignites an idea I didn't know I was looking for.

Back in the studio, I sketch — though not usually in sketchbooks. I prefer working on large A3 sheets of paper where I can explore multiple flower forms and compositions all at once. That size gives me room to really move, to fill a page with shapes and ideas without feeling cramped or constrained. I draw from memory and imagination rather than directly from life — tapping into a mental bank of visual impressions and letting my interpretation reshape what I've seen into something more stylised and expressive.

My work isn't realistic, and that's intentional. I could paint realistically — but what draws me is capturing the essence of a flower. Its energy, its movement, its personality. And reinterpreting that through bold colour and design is where the real joy lives for me.

Painting intuitively — and why I never pre-sketch

I also paint intuitively, which means I rarely sketch out or plan what I'm going to paint beforehand. I find pre-planning constraining — once you've drawn something out, you feel obligated to replicate it, and that takes away the freedom that makes painting exciting. When you paint freely, what you might initially consider a mistake can become a springboard into something completely unexpected. A new shape emerges. A colour combination you'd never have planned reveals itself. A flower form develops that's entirely your own.

Bob Ross called them happy little accidents — and I completely understand what he meant. Some of my most distinctive and recognisable elements have come from those moments of improvisation. Things I never would have thought to plan, but that came from following the brush and trusting where it led.

That's the muscle I've built over years of practice — trusting the process, trusting my eye, and building a memory bank of forms and shapes so strong that drawing a protea or a waratah comes as naturally as drawing a circle or a triangle. You learn the shapes, the petals, the leaves. You internalise them. And eventually they flow.

Working in series — building bodies of work

I'm almost always working on several pieces at once — sometimes three, sometimes fifteen. Building out a body of work together rather than finishing one piece and moving on allows me to explore colour palettes, textures and themes more deeply, and to develop ideas that can eventually grow into a full collection.

I switch between different surfaces and substrates depending on what a piece calls for — canvas, wooden cradle boards, large sheets of paper. Each gives a different quality and feel, and sometimes I'll paint the same subject across different surfaces to see how the material changes the result. Working this way, across multiple pieces simultaneously, is how the strongest works reveal themselves. Within any group, certain pieces will emerge as what I call "hero pieces" — the standout works that feel particularly strong, the ones that carry the most energy and character.

These are the pieces I'll typically develop into art prints, homewares, or present to licensing partners. But the beautiful thing about working this way — painting from the heart, following your own style, not chasing trends — is that everything holds together. I have paintings I made twenty-five or thirty years ago that still sit harmoniously alongside work I finished last week. Style, when it's genuinely yours, is timeless in that way.

From painting to product — following what resonates

Sometimes the licensing collaborations that come from this body of work surprise me. Art directors might pull a piece I painted ten years ago and pair it with something I created last month — combinations I'd never have thought of myself. But because I've always painted from the heart and developed my own voice rather than following trends, everything somehow still works together.

As for deciding what becomes a print, a scarf, or a tea towel — it's always a mix of intuition, design sensibility and customer response. Some pieces are clearly meant to stay as original artworks. Others are perfectly suited to textiles or stationery. I was trained in textile and surface design, so I understand how to translate a painting into a seamless repeat pattern or a placement print. But it always starts with art that I feel genuinely and emotionally connected to.

I also like to sit with my paintings for a while before deciding what to do with them. Sometimes a piece will be ninety percent done and just live on the studio wall for weeks — sometimes months. I'll walk past it every day, live with it, and suddenly one morning I'll see exactly what it needs. A little more brightness in one corner. A brushstroke of white to lift an area. That living-with-the-work phase is important to me. It's part of the process.

Browse the art prints and original paintings by Kirsten Katz, or explore the full botanical collection of homewares and gifts.

Continue reading the Artist Interview Series: [← Part 1: My Creative Journey — From Ballet Shoes to Botanical Art] [← Part 2: Why I Paint Flowers — A Botanical Artist's Story] [Part 4: From Studio to Shelf — How I Choose Which Art Becomes a Product →]