Splatter & Bloom

In this episode of Wild Developments, Lauren chats with watercolor artist Kate Talcott, owner of Splatter and Bloom. Kate shares how she turned a creative hobby into a thriving business while balancing family life and her love for nature-inspired art. Tune in for tips on making watercolor accessible, embracing artistic growth, and finding joy in the process.

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Intro & Outro: Bernie Baggs

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My number one goal is to make sure that watercolor feels accessible, doable, 
and fun whatever stage of painting you're at. 
Welcome to Wild Development Studio. 
Join us as we venture into the breathtaking realm of wildlife arts and untamed adventures. 
With captivating stories from the field and ideas to dive into the visual arts, 
we'll ignite your passion for conservation. 
Get ready to develop something wild. 
Welcome to Wild Developments. 
I'm your guide, Lauren, and today we're talking to Kate Talcott, who is the owner of Splatter and Bloom. 
If she is not painting up a storm, you can find her chasing after her two tiny humans who are probably jumping in puddles. 
A few of her favorite things are coffee, flowers, books, rain, wearing slippers to work, 
color explosions, and the overuse of exclamation points. 
She started Splatter and Bloom after she had her daughter as a way to to carve out some me time for herself. 
What started as a hobby quickly escalated into a full -blown business. 
It is a family business where she wears the hats of watercolor artist, 
educator, social media queen, and big time dreamer. 
Her husband Andy is the digital designer, shipping guru, and perhaps most importantly, 
the house barista. 
Kate, thank you so much for being here. 
Of course, I'm so happy to chat with you more. 
Well and I am interested to learn more about you and what inspired you to become a watercolor artist oh yes I can tell you all about it um so all right let's jump into it I um I have always been like a crafty inclined person like I liked art class but it was never really my thing I was more of a musical theater kind of gal and um I decided that I needed something in my adult life i used to be a teacher i was taking time off when i had my daughter and i was like i'm just gonna start watercolor something for me and i like haven't put it down she's almost thought she'll be five by the time this is airing which is crazy so i had painted before then a little bit here and there but didn't start digging into it until she was born so what what is it about watercolor that you enjoy? 
Oh my gosh. 
Uh, what is it? 
I love it all. 
Like, I think my biggest thing about watercolor is every time I'm painting, 
I feel like I learned something new. 
Like literally that is not a hyperbole. 
Like every single time I sit down to paint, I learned something new. 
And as a little ADHD girly over here, um, it's very hard to find something that like captivates my heart for more than like eight months to you know a year and um this is stuck and I think it's because there's this discovery every time it never feel it always feels like I'm learning and growing but it never feels like it's insurmountable it's like it just keeps building on itself in a beautiful way I agree I'm an ADHD girly too so. 
So watercolor, I just, I fall asleep thinking about it. 
And I feel like every time I paint, it's like a new experience almost every single time. 
Do you ever feel like, oh my gosh, I'm not going to be able to do it? 
How am I going to pull this off? 
You know, I think there are, so I feel, this is actually a really good question. 
I think I can answer this in a couple of different ways. 
I always trust that I can paint something, right? 
Like I used to do commissions, and I knew that I could complete the commission. 
But one thing I struggled with even now is like, I have an idea of how I want it to be in my head. 
Like I've been working really hard on developing my own personal style rather than, 
okay, here's the photo, I'm going to imitate the photo and try to get it as lifelike as possible, 
which is very valuable and helpful and like taught me a lot about realism and all this stuff. 
But I really also want to explore the watercolory parts of watercolor. 
And I think seeing and knowing what that style is in my head and then conveying it onto paper sometimes feels kind of big and scary, 
but it's not going to happen unless I practice it. 
So, you know, you just got to slap some paint on the page and get started, 
I guess. 
That's a good first step. 
I like that. 
Yeah yeah so a lot of your subjects that you paint seem like they're primarily nature inspired do you do that on purpose or is that just something that you naturally gravitate towards um that's a good question so I have done some house portraits and some like human portraits here and there but the things I really love to paint are nature because well honestly it's a a little bit more forgiving in the sense that like if you paint somebody's dog looking wrong it's like oh shoot but if you paint a leaf looking wrong nobody's gonna know and I just love so watercolor the way it builds on top of each other and you know this like the layering is my favorite thing we love a glaze here and a glaze is when you have one layer of dry watercolor and then you add a second layer on top so you're getting to experience both of those colors at the same time so a prime example of this would be like with a leaf I always start with a yellow layer before I add on like a green and that's because that's how it is you can see both of those colors exist and seeing the light through these natural subjects is really I don't know it just gets me all excited there's definitely favorite what is your favorite watercolor like technique oh gosh i love a good wet on wet i think it's just so fun to watch the colors like bloom and oh it's fluttering bloom. 
Um and just kind of letting go of that control and letting the paint do its thing so i think think that's a lot of fun um I've been experimenting with some other techniques like doing uh masking fluid over paint you have to find the right paper and that was a trip I learned from you thank you you're welcome and the right paper or the right masking fluid too that it won't pull up that first layer of paint yeah so I've been experimenting with that so that's kind of I love it's just that's the thing about watercolor there's always like you said something new to learn and uh a lesson to be had so yeah that's what I love about your social media is you're always so positive but you're also real too and you promote that anybody can paint what would be some helpful first tips for somebody wanting to dip their toes in the watercolor so to speak well it's it's so true I mean watercolor is one of the first painting types that we learn as a kid right right? 
You've got your Crayola set. 
And the reason why watercolor is one of the first things is it's so easy to clean up. 
Like you literally just need the paints, brushes, the paper, the water at the end. 
Like you don't need to worry about like washing it up with soap. 
It's not going to get sticky and hardened. 
Like it will always be ready for you whenever you are. 
So I find it's very forgiving for people who are just getting into a new art form um but also like you don't need any prior knowledge to be able to experience the joy of watercolor so you were referring to the wet and wet technique and this is when um you create this wet space on your paper and allowing allowing those paints to co -mingle and interact and like. 
Just blend and play with each other. 
And let me tell you the secret, the paint's going to do the hard work for you. 
Like letting the paint go and explore and wander where it will. 
Like that's kind of the beauty of it is that you don't really have full control over it. 
Right. And I know my type A's are like, so i'll get to you type a's but for for folks who are wanting to try something new um it's a really great entry point because you don't need a whole kit and caboodle of supplies like you can really get into it with very minimal supplies and i make watercolor kits i don't know if i can plug my little thing here but um so finding new hobbies can be really scary especially if you've been told you're not creative which whoever told you that smack them they're not they're bad like you whoever you are out there listening you are creative and don't let anybody tell you otherwise and sometimes that entry point to get access to creativity as adults is really hard you know there's art camps and stuff for kids there's all kinds of stuff for children but for grown -ups we don't really have that as easily accessible so I make watercolor kits with everything you need it's got the paper the designs are already on there the paintbrush the paints and it comes with video tutorials as well so I walk you through it step by step or if you're like kind of wild and like to go rogue you can totally do that too you don't have to listen to me yammering on but it's super fun and casual and all that so anybody who told you you're not going to art wise and slander right I've done a couple of your kits I love them and I you're I want to get my hands on your cat hat one it looks so adorable um you know what we actually um as we're talking right now we just came out with iris blooms today at noon um which is so exciting you're you're gonna just be so excited about it so yummy yummy yummy um but yeah there's we try to have a new one every month at least so that's that's really cool and i going back to what you said about whoever told you you're not creative like shame on you I think as adults we try to be so perfect all the time and as kids we can play and mess up and I don't think people really realize that as growing artists I know I've had a ton of really ugly pieces of work oh yeah. 
Well it's so funny too I find that I'm most like creative when I'm painting with my kids like we. 
We just kind of have a little painting set out on the front porch. 
And so we can go paint anytime. 
And that's when I'm like always like, I know it's not for Instagram. 
It's not for whatever. 
Like I feel this freedom to explore and play. 
And it doesn't have to have like a purpose other than me just enjoying what's happening on the page, 
right? 
Like painting with my kids has been the biggest lesson in painting for me and allowing allowing myself to express myself freely because they're just like yeah this feels good texture yeah they just are free to explore i love it i actually oh where did it go i have a travel journal and i let my niece and nephew paint in it and they're like at the time oh gosh three and six five and that's what royce did that's one of my favorite pages in my book and Remy did Remy did this she was the younger one look at the bleeds and blooms and blends in those I mean you know like they combine colors that you wouldn't think to combine like it just my son goes in really dry at first he's like get the paint on and then he'll like keep adding these like mushy like watery brush strokes and it's like yeah that's beautiful I love it you can see and that's probably going to be some of those pieces are probably going to be some of your favorite because it's time that you spent together yes absolutely absolutely oh my gosh speaking of flowers you have that flower kit that just came out um i am horrible at painting flowers so do you have any tips because they are so like roses and dahlias are so complex looking how do we you know nature is forgiving but how do we kind of break down a flower so it's not as chaotic that's a really great question I think there are a couple ways that you can go about this right so there's like the loose florals which I definitely enjoy but are not my main like cup of tea in terms of what I like to paint so I like to paint things that have a lot of more realistic structure like petal for petal because the devil's in the details and by the devil I mean my most favorite part of it I just I love an intricate puzzle piece situation so give me the ranunculus give me the dahlias i'm here for it so what we're gonna do is step one where we have a couple layers so we're gonna work in layers so step one is we are going to paint the first layer and this is where that wet and wet gets happening like you can really add in like any shadow or light um just to kind of give it some dimension with and get rid of that white space because otherwise you're you know it's just like ah good too much so we'll do that we'll get rid of the white space and then then we'll let it dry. 
And the second layer is where I like to add the depth. 
So this is where we are darkening those like little crannies. 
And I work petal by petal. 
Like I like to have my reference image and I usually have it drawn out in pencil or my kits have outlines in black like ahead of time. 
And so I'll do that like petal by petal. 
And I like to kind of keep the same colors so that I'm keeping so that I know like when I come back to it I'm not you know oh that's a different yellow than I was expecting you know kind of the benefits of working with just a couple colors um and so once that's done then I'll get into shadow and detail and like the drier brush pieces so the second layer is all about like that shading and blending those soft shadows and then the third layer is a lot more of those like um harsher lines like the little veins and the petals or the like the the real crispy shadows like the ones that aren't like so soft and smooth the ones where it's like oh there's the petal and it's in the sun i'm using a lot of hand gestures so for people listening i'm very sorry or maybe people watching i don't know we're on youtube too so that's perfect so listen you describe how to paint a flower and you were talking about different techniques earlier too and like you you stop and you explain what that is is that the teacher in you coming out or was that like a natural shift because my first watercolor class that i taught the person's holding the paintbrush after they dipped into the paint they put on the page and we're moving on to another color and she's like do i wash this off in between i'm like like. 
Oh my God, how did I forget to like tell them that step? 
Cause I'm not, I mean, I teach some things, but I was not in the professional setting like you are. 
So is that, did that just come naturally to you? 
You know, so I used to teach middle schoolers and I love middle schoolers. 
They're some of the weirdest, funniest, most awesome kids in the world. 
Um, but if you do not provide clear instruction, some will go off and do their thing, 
but most will be like. 
Like, what do I do with this paintbrush? 
So the step -by -step for sure is, I mean, I love, I love painting, 
but I really love sharing the joy of painting with others. 
Like that's my true calling. 
That's what makes me feel happy and bring tears, like happy tears to my eyes. 
So my number one goal is to make sure that watercolor feels accessible, 
doable, and fun, whatever stage of painting you're at. 
And so um yeah I love to kind of break it down into those building blocks of how we bring it up like if you were to look at a final flower that I painted you'd be like what the heck that's a lot of steps what what is even going on um but like in our painting kits and the tutorials I will try you know try to break it down as clearly as possible and like this is how we're going to of blend this out and we'll do little mini exercises so we get to practice so I really like to show it in a way that allows you to build on your skills instead of being like wait how did you do that that's so frustrating yeah so you have a very good you have a knack for teaching so and it definitely shows through um talking about dahlias and the flowers I'm taking a community gardening class and we had a local flower lady come talk to us and she only sells like native flowers but she kept talking about these beautiful dahlias that this erin frenziken breeds on the west coast yeah we're like i'm instantly on facebook i don't think i was literally thinking about you because you've got some beautiful dahlias that you painted and turns out you follow her too i'm like oh my gosh what a small world but farms right yes yes so do you have you been there first of all because i hear she's like famous and. 
And then have you ever used her flowers for inspiration? 
Dreams. 
She, I've never been there, but we are pretty close to the area where she has her farm. 
I believe it's in Skagit Valley. 
And I, there are so many Dahlia farms here. 
I went to a really cool event. 
Oh gosh, now I'm going to forget the name of the farm. 
But it was like, you pick your flowers and Sarah Simon, she's the mint gardener. 
She was the first person who introduced watercolor, like in a little workshop that we did together. 
She's got all kinds of books and stuff, but I went to her event and they had the dahlias and we painted it. 
It was just so beautiful. 
So there's, there's no shortage of gorgeous flowers in the area, but I have not been to a red spark. 
Do you do a lot of your artwork in your studio or do you go outside and kind of nature journal a little bit? 
That's a really great question. Um. 
Um, so I was reading through your questions ahead of time. 
Um, and I was like, oh man, I, I really identify as an indoor cat. 
You know what I mean? 
But I think watercolor has brought me more outside. 
Like I've always been an inside and read and cozy and, you know, 
like I went to camp and all that, but like, I just more of an indoor hobby kind of person. 
But as I've become more obsessed with watercolor and more inspired by flowers and nature, 
I've I've become like really interested in gardening and like really wanting to go to these flower farms when we go on vacation. 
And it's, it's been really cool to kind of have that transfer from the page to my inspiration outside, 
but I don't, you can paint about with art, but I, it very rarely goes somewhere without my kids thinking about like bringing, 
we have a five and a three -year -old by the time this is airing. 
And so it's like thinking about bringing my little notepad. 
I mean, there's just, it's just chaos. 
But one day I do hope to do that. 
So long answer short, yes, I like to paint. 
Sorry. 
I warned you at the beginning. 
The ADHD is real. 
It's great. 
It makes for a great episode. 
That's right. 
So speaking of your kids, you kind of had a creative chaos, I guess let's call it. 
Artist date with your kids in a garden space and they had freedom to snap photos what inspired you to let him kind of take the reins on that and what was that experience like for you guys yeah um well I happen to have their little cameras in my in the diaper bag for some reason and I really wanted to go see um we're in the process of like renovating our home and so we have a lot of and we moved into a new home so it's like new landscaping new flowers like I just really wanted to see what's popping in the spring here to see what could be a good opportunity for the garden and I was like oh let's bring the kids I have their cameras let's take pictures because otherwise they'd be like mom you know like flailing about in the aisles and so I was like okay great like you'll go take pictures and it was so cool to like see all the little like see it from down from the angles of where they were and see all the little like things that they zoomed in on my daughter was really into finding like the one weird flower out of the group of like 20and my son was like very interested in the pots that they were in and so it was just really neat to see like what they were focusing on and I don't know I love the idea of doing like these nature photo total walks I mean you're you're doing the photography like you know how exciting it is to see something and be like sure yeah I love taking pictures and we're drone pilots too my husband and I so you know we experience different perspectives from the air and that was really cool that's why I guess I kind of latched on to that video that you had because it's the perspective from your kids it's kind of like you got a little sneak peek inside their head what's going on now do you paint references from your from the photos you take yeah so i've got i don't know if you can see the castle back here that's loveland castle so there was this guy um in the early 1900s god that makes us sound so old he went to world war ii and had this whole like experience where he like died and he came back and he his fiancee left him while he was dead and married somebody else and he decided to stay in europe and tour all these castles well long story short when he came to loveland ohio in the 50s he he decided to recreate a castle. 
And so within walking distance to my home, there's a castle, which I absolutely love, 
you know, a little princess inside of me loves, and we love taking drone photos of it. 
So I use my drone photo as a reference for that card. 
And I put a little heart in it because it was for love. 
Obviously, Loveland is huge for Valentine's Day. 
And that was the card for this year um which my niece is very upset the one that I showed you her picture she thought that the castle actually had a heart door and it does not oh alas alas so yeah long story short on my end um a lot of my stuff is all photo references that's I mean I like to work in the like real space I guess other than my crazy hippo and penguin colors over here and my dog yeah but it's capturing the light of the realism just in a different way yeah yeah very cool i went off on a tangent you did the artist i love it the show's about you it's not about me well i had to ask um well i wanted to ask how you liked um going through the it's not called the artist state oh the artist's way yeah artist's way thank you how how did you like that? 
Yeah, well, still an active process. 
I swear. It's like an, I don't know, like a 12week, eight week program or something. 
I am just going at my own pace. 
They talk about a lot of, there are a lot of like kind of rigid rules. 
Like you have to do your morning pages every day. 
You have to go on an artist date every week. 
You know, you go through it at this stage. 
Um, I've just been going really slowly on it because that's where I am in the like again two little children business moving home like it's just been chaos but I still need that care and nurture in my heart so oh to back up this is basically like this woman Julie Cameron wrote a book and she suggests all these practices to help you develop and uncover your inner younger artist and um I found it that it's been really helpful very helpful to kind of sort through some of those limiting beliefs and start having a framework to frame my artistic practice with whereas before it was just kind of like whenever the kids were napping and guess what we're like out of gaps now so what am I gonna do I mean we we have child care now and it's it's a whole thing but like it still can feel really hard to find time for just creating when I'm making all these resources for other people which I love to do and I'm not going to grow as an artist if I don't make make time to create for myself. 
So I think what's been really interesting is finding ways that I can adapt this program to work for myself, 
like it's very spiritually based, which is totally fine. 
If that's your jam, it's not my jam. 
So I've been kind of, I just in the margins, I kind of like make my annotations of how I would adapt it in my mind to work for my beliefs. 
And another thing that I've changed is she's like, you got to write it by hand, 
like you've got to do your morning pages your journal pages three pages by hand and I'm like this brainio is going way too fast for my hand and my hand's gonna start cramping up by page two like I have too much to say so I've been typing it for 30minutes instead because I found that was kind of like how long it took me to do three pages and that was like a breakthrough point with my artists pages because then I can and go back and highlight and look at things and notice themes and include a link if there's something applicable like it's just been really um really cool to kind of make it work for me well I'm glad I asked you that because I did the artist's way I think it was 2021and I filled up an entire journal in just that short 12weeks or whatever it is because again again ADHD and my brain is going so fast and I'm like my words get huge and it just it was a hot mess so I had been thinking about putting it in the computer because I can type so much faster even like the voice to text might work oh yeah um so because I did find that was super super helpful helpful to take that time and get all your thoughts out and on the page really set you up for the day. 
And I got to agree with, you know, doing the podcast and trying to get stuff on social media. 
It is so hard to try and find time to actually sit down and paint. 
Yeah, for sure. 
And it's like, if it's not in the calendar, it's not going to happen. 
So exactly. So well, I'm glad it's been a good experience for you. 
Do you have any exciting things coming up? 
I know that we're recording in gosh, end of March. 
Do you have anything coming up this summer you'd like to tell people about? 
So over the summer, we came out with a ton of new kits of different sizes and kids size kits as well. 
We have been working really hard to kind of fine tune our, our kit offerings so that we can offer it to folks at a lower price which is super exciting um with really great quality products or quality watercolors uh and materials so you're starting off with a bang um but I am also really I don't know if we're going to be quite there yet but there is something very exciting if you're wanting to have a little bit more community around your painting experience and I'll leave it at that I don't know how long we're gonna be stay tuned yay um but I always do a fall for watercolor um challenge in October I was like what the spooky month of October um so if you are new to moi um follow me on social media and we'll be painting a little painting every day in the fall during the whole month of October for and learning about the basics of watercolor so yeah yes I love your fall for what I completely duh completely forgot about that um that is a great way to get paint on a page every single day I've been doing a little uh sky study every day it's been my way um paint on a page every day but in October I love the you got that the you do start off with the leaves and then it kind of gets a little bit spookier and it's just so much fun to follow along and see everybody's little version of what your prompt is it's gonna look a lot of different this year so get excited yes awesome I cannot wait so how can people find you and stay up to date on all the things that are going on in your world yeah so I do all kinds of crazy stuff I do workshops I offer online resources our watercolor kits are the best place to like stay up to date on everything with the most detail is always to join our newsletter where I share watercolor tips and how to kind of combat tricky situations in watercolor and all the resources that we're sharing so you can find that with the link in my bio on my social medias and I'm sure you'll put my website and stuff below but um splatter and bloom at at splatter and bloom on tiktok and at splatter .and .bloom on instagram because they love to be difficult and um we're on youtube as well yeah all over the internet that's awesome is uh the impending tiktok ban frightening frightening you at all or you know they i was on tiktok shops and they like randomly kicked me off because something that they cannot explain why so i'm kind of like i don't know i i have a nice hearty little loyal following on tiktok and it's been really fun and i love the people but i know they'll find a way back to me somehow if it doesn't i don't know a platform's a platform form the most important thing to me is that people are painting so yeah whether i'm sharing about it wherever i'll find a place to shout out from the rooftops it's such a bummer like that's how i discovered you is through tiktok and i've met so many amazing people and it's been quite a ride but i'd be sad to see it go but i'm glad that you have other you have the newsletter and all these other outlets where people can find you and follow you yeah and it's been really cool watching your your entire thing grow because I was following you when you were it was Kate Talcott art oh my gosh yeah Kate Talcott artistry so we switched maybe two years it'll be coming up on three years which is okay so is that was that a scary process going from one name to another and the whole rebranding or did you find that that helped you you know I think it helped kind of make it more about the painting and less about like me um because it isn't about me it's about the the painter right the the new artist coming to the kits and um it just I think I always knew I was going to change the name I just couldn't think of anything good enough and so I was like well I gotta start somewhere so Kate Talkin Artistry it is that's my name and then I was like let's switch a rooney to like a cute little brian name with lots of puns i love all the puns it's so much fun it is great and before we go what is one tip that you have for someone that would like to connect with nature yeah our indoor cat even for my indoor cats um i think it is for. 
For me, the most fun part about connecting my art with nature is to, 
it has helped me look at things a different way. 
So whatever style of art it is that you might want to do is think about how you can convey that sunset or that bubble or that, 
I don't know, hollywog or whatever, like into watercolor or your medium of choice. 
I think it's a really beautiful and interesting way to look at your surroundings with fresh eyes. 
It's been, I always think like anytime I see something that inspires me, 
I'm like. 
Ooh, that would be fun to paint. 
I did notice that when I started getting more into watercolor, I'm like, 
how can I layer this? 
And how can it, it really makes you see the world in a whole new way. 
And not to toot watercolors for apps i'm absolutely going to toot watercolors for like it is a very different way in which you would apply colors for like a acrylic or an oil paint like it it's almost like backwards from that so it's a really interesting like like thought experiment to figure it out yes so everybody go over to kate's website and get some kit so you can start experiencing what we're experiencing with viewing the world so thank you so much for sharing all of your fun information and we are looking forward to seeing what is up with uh this. 
It's all very exciting great thank you so much for having me on it was so fun to chat with you yes thank you and until next time get outside and see what develops. 
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