Kathleen Hudson is a painter from Lexington, Kentucky. She had a love for painting from the very beginning and her parents signed Kathleen up for drawing lesson when she was six. Since she was homeschooled her mother, who was in the Air Force, took her and her siblings to many museums across the United States. Kathleen’s love for painting stemmed from seeing other people artwork and was really her first teacher. She started taking painting classes when she was twelve. Kathleen then went to Harvard and got a degree in medieval history and literature. It was actually really nice to hear that she didn’t get a formal degree in art because it validated me in my own art ability. Granted she has been taking painting classes since she was 12, but I can still express my creative ability without feeling less because I haven’t taken formal art classes. Since she didn’t go to art school she saw art as a solitary practice. Since she has started going to plein air events Kathleen has met many new friends.
Kathleen talks about how being out in nature is very grounding for her because it helps her remember who created the surrounding around her. She sees this as a time of worship and strives to put that feeling in her paintings. I feel like there is a sense of wonder in her work that she is able to show the viewer how she sees God’s creation. Kathleen referenced C.S. Lewis when he said, “the sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born.” He is talking about the beauty that we see on earth in fleeting glimpses is the beauty that we long for in Heaven. This longing for beauty that we see in fleeting moments on Earth is what points us to Heaven. Our desire for this longing is proof that Heaven exists because it is so strong and deeply embedded within us. She wants to bring that longing of beauty to her viewers so that they are ultimately pointed to Christ.
Kathleen also talked about her creative process with painting with oils and how the underpainting is mostly deductive. I did not realize how important an underpainting is to the final piece. Since oil painting is something that I am not familiar with I learned a lot from Kathleen about how an underpainting is created and why it is important to an oil painting. She also shared that plein air painting is so rewarding because your eyes are able to capture more than a picture would. So she is able to expression all the highlights without it getting washed out and also to maintain all the detail in the shadows. Overall this interview was very rewarding for me in terms of my learning of oil painting, how I see myself as an artist, and also my faith journey.
Artist website-https://www.kathleenbhudson.com/
