Katie Green’s eerie but whimsical watercolour personas somehow blend daintiness and grit, pleasure and pain, grief and joy in colourful smears that put any bouquet to shame.

And now, Katie’s putting a hauntingly vibrant piece up, right here in Sudbury! She took a second to tell us about her inspiration and the unique process of wheat pasting!

What inspired this piece?

I start most of my work in my studio, doing watercolours on paper. A lot of the time, I never really know what those paintings will be, I just sort of drop water on the paper and drop ink and let characters emerge. A lot of the process is very intuitive.

I like to make environments and scenes that are fantastical and surreal, and within the murals, there are different moments of connection, and relationships, between the characters. This mural is a very fantastical world of wonder, and I think folks, when they come see it, they'll always find something different.

How did you decide to pursue art?

I feel like it's what I always wanted to do. But, you know, societally, I was like, “Oh, that's not an option for me; I have to become an engineer or a doctor.” When I first started university, I was in kinesiology, and then I got put into a mandatory lab for ice hockey and wrestling. I was just like, “Okay, I'm gonna go into art now.” That was my tipping point there.

Once I went into art, it was just so fulfilling. It was never a question moving forward.

How did you start doing wheat pasting as a technique?

When I first started painting murals about 10 years ago, I was using latex and acrylic and painting directly on the wall. But I found that in my studio practice, my primary medium was watercolour. I was creating work that relied a lot on how watercolour organically moves on the paper and creates different patterns and textures, but I found that as I was painting, it was challenging to get that same sense of chance and surprise and to get that watercolour feel on a vertical wall versus letting the water pool on the paper. So I started to experiment with wheat pasting.

Now, I make these smaller watercolours on paper, and then I digitize them and make a sort of wallpaper. I use an acrylic gel and paste it onto the wall, and I go back into it with paint afterwards. So it’s this multi-layered process that really captures the watercolour feel.

I'm such a fan of paper, so I love that when the print is on paper, you get this texture when you paste it on. And then you can go back into it and push and pull different characters or add whole painted portions onto the wall with latex and acrylic—you can have both mediums interwoven.

What do you think about while you’re working?

With wheat pasting, it’s more installing than painting. It can be very intense because you're working against time. And there are all of these different factors: there's the paper, the moisture of the paper, the wheat paste gel, the wind, and all this stuff that can happen while you're pasting. While I'm actually on the wall, getting the material up, I'm very much just thinking about that. It feels sort of like an alternative world, like a different space when you're that close to it and in your creative process.

But then sometimes I'll look behind me and be like, “Oh my gosh! There’s someone there.” And it feels nerve wracking, but also, it’s such a beautiful opportunity to have a conversation. I just find people are just so curious about the process.

What do you listen to when you’re working?

I love listening to funk and disco and R&B, stuff like that. And I'm always asking people to give me their playlists, because I love just taking in other music while I'm working too.

Watercolour, wheat pasting, and intuition: meet muralist Katie Green