Based out of Portland, Oregon, US, Kate Crisanti started printmaking at the beginning of the 2020 lockdowns as a creative outlet outside of her existing art practice. She quickly fell in love with the process and it is now her main artistic medium. Alongside her block printing work, Kate also currently owns and operates Kate Michelle Design (KMD); a creative studio that provides branding services and artwork for licensing.
The artist graduated from University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, with a bachelors degree in Psychology. She then moved to Portland to attend Portland Community College where she completed from the American Sign Language and English Interpreter Training Program. After graduating with highest honors, Kate worked as a professional ASL/English interpreter for several years before starting KMD.
The majority of Kate’s designs are inspired by nature and the natural world that surrounds us, featuring a lot of flora and fauna. Her works evoke the natural beauty that surrounds us by accenting what has become the ordinary in our day to day lives.
She prints entirely by hand or with her Woodzilla press, using Speedball and Cranfield inks on Legion Stonehenge paper. She tells us; “I love incorporating colour gradients into my work in new and unexpected ways. My background with watercolours and painting leaves me wanting a more painterly look to my prints at times and I often experiment with my materials to achieve different looks.”
Kate focuses on creating one print at a time, from first sketch to completed print edition, thus often ends up with multiple limited edition colourways of her prints. “I find the ability a colour has to change the feel of an entire piece fascinating, and love to play with that aspect of printmaking,” says the printmaker. Kate has recently begun printing multiple layer prints, and more intricate puzzle piece prints to further play with colours.
www.katemichelledesign.com
@katemichelledesign
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