Mushrooms, Paper and Permission to Play - Workshop with Kate Owen
Painting with Kate Owens in Kin Kin, Queensland
I flew from New Zealand to a tiny town in the Queensland hinterland called Kin Kin to paint mushrooms. Most people at the workshop were surprised to hear that. But when an artist's work stops you in your tracks, the distance doesn't matter. As a extra special cherry on the cake, Kate was opening a exhibition on the day after the workshop.
Why Kate Owen?
Kate Owens paints with a freedom I've been chasing for years. Her color palettes are complex, layered and unexpected, yet they never feel heavy. They feel alive. Color is the part of my own practice I've been least sure of, so when I saw she was doing a workshop, I knew I had to go.
Getting there wasn't simple. I wasn't going to hire a car and drive in a foreign country, so the logistics took some working out. But it was worth every bit of it and then some.
A place to land
It had been one of the hardest years of my life emotionally, and I decided I'd earned a real treat: a two night stay at the beautifully restored Kin Kin Hotel. The venue had just been named Australia's food destination of the year, and it didn't take long to see why. The owners have built something special around art and food, and that made the workshop feel like much more than a class.
I arrived a day early to rest, eat some beautiful locally sourced food, and wander around Kin Kin, which turned out to be a tiny town. That evening I met Kate and Ellie, the hotel's owner and workshop organizer. They made me feel so welcome that by morning I was ready to dive straight in.
Mushrooms, drawn from life
The other artists arrived the next morning (all women, as it turned out), and we walked to the beautifully set up outdoors covered space. Kate introduced our subject: mushrooms, one of her favorite things to paint. We drew from reference images, and Oscar, the hotel's chef, kindly sent over some gorgeous oyster mushrooms so we could draw from the real thing too.
Lesson one: your sketchbook is your reference
Kate was incredibly generous with what she knows. She opened her sketchbook and showed us how she works: her paintings grow out of her own drawings, not photographs. A sketch captures the gesture of a scene and its composition, just the essentials, and leaves everything else open. That's how her paintings stay loose and abstract instead of getting stuck on detail and accuracy.
There's a second gift in this. Without a photo telling you what colors things "should" be, you're free to choose your own palette.
Lesson two: start on paper
After drawing, we moved on to color. We gathered around a big table covered in the paints and mediums Kate uses, and she walked us through her color exploration books, her charts and her process. Then she set us loose to find color schemes of our own.
Because we worked on paper instead of canvas, the pressure disappeared. Mistakes didn't matter. It felt freeing.
A blank canvas comes loaded with expectations. A sheet of paper doesn't. That one small shift, starting where nothing is at stake, keeps you exploring and in the flow. It's this mindset I was most excited to bring home.
Back in the studio
These two lessons came home with me and now shape how I work: sketch first, explore color freely on paper, and let the painting find its own way from there.
I'm so grateful to Kate, to Ellie, to Oscar, and to everyone who helped create this experience or shared it with me.
I did bring a piece of Kate with me back to New Zealand, not just in the form of lessons. this beautiful painting is going to hang in my living room once it lands in Wellington.
