Issue link: https://www.balharbourdigital.com/i/1170372
BAL HARBOUR 139 ON ANY GIVEN DAY, artist and fashion illustrator Katie Rodgers keeps a few essentials close at hand. "I love to have pastels with me all the time," says the artist over the phone from her Manhattan studio. "Watercolors and gouache are my main things I go to. en a good pencil. And paper is super important." With this handful of tools, and the occasional addition of glitter, sequins and gold foil, she composes impressionistic scenes that are delicate and floral, feminine and full of motion, where aqueous brush- strokes and loose, gestural lines show the application of the artist's hand. "Nowadays everything is so digital," Rodgers says, making the hu- man touch a hot commodity. Over the years, her work, under the name @PaperFashion, has been sought by luxury brands—the likes of Cartier, Valentino and many others have eagerly applied her visions to their cam- paigns, packaging design and displays. Last fall, when the French candle- and scent-makers of Diptyque commissioned her to decorate the interior of their West Village boutique, she transformed the space into a botanical wonderland, filled floor-to-ceiling with her imagery alongside live florals and other plant life, the foundational ingredients in a perfumer's lab. @PaperFashion's success initially caught Rodgers by surprise. Its or- igins trace back to 2009, when she launched a blog of the same name, a place to post watercolor sketches made in her free time while maintaining her day job as an apparel designer at Reebok. Painting had been a hobby since age seven, when she received her first watercolor palette. "I had no intention of it becoming a business," she says, until her work started to catch the attention of major brands. at same year, Coach approached her to illustrate its holiday campaign, and soon even larger commissions followed: a print for a limited-edition Lacoste bag, a holiday card for Swarovski, and characters for an animated children's story by Alicia Keys. Suddenly, her hobby became her full-time job. Nature has been a recurring theme and a constant source of inspira- tion for the artist, who grew up with chickens in the Georgia countryside. ese days as a New Yorker, she makes it a point to visit Central Park on a regular basis, and to maintain the small garden on the outdoor terrace of her studio complete with dahlias, honeysuckles, and their requisite com- panions: ladybugs, caterpillars, butterflies. "I have to be in nature," she says. "It took me a while to figure that out, but I just feel more alive and awake, and more inspired when I have that connection." is year, Rodgers has been focused less on brand collaborations and more on personal projects. One is a book of her own, the details of which are still under wraps, and another is her recently launched line of Paper Fashion art supplies. Her watercolor compacts resemble those of eyeshad- ow palettes, filled with shades that pop, sparkle and shimmer. e resem- blance to cosmetics, she says, makes paint more approachable and accessi- ble. "It's all about trying new things, playing with different materials and having fun with it, instead of taking everything so seriously," she says, especially to anyone outside of a fine art background. "When it comes to thinking creatively, art supplies can help fuel that." "I have to be in nature. It took me a while to figure that out, but I just feel more alive and awake, and more inspired when I have that connection." Garden Girl, one of Rodgers's recent paintings, exemplifies the impressionistic nature of her work.