Hello. I'm Kathryn MacHugh, an Irish artist and designer based in the Netherlands with a passion for turning ideas into visually compelling stories. With a background in architecture, I specialise in creating digital art and now I am taking on a new career path.
When I'm not designing or studying, you can find me baking, exercising, looking at vintage clothing and playing video games.
Art and Design Background
My journey in art and design began when I was a young child drawing birds and making homes and furniture for my toys. Since then, I've honed my skills through a degree in Architectural Design from IT Sligo and other online resources such as a course in Visual Development and Art Direction from CGMA.
I studied Architectural Design RIBA Part 1 at ITSligo, Ireland and graduated in 2019. The course focused on designing places for people that were functional, relate to their surrounding area and re-imagine the existing built environment. The building designs centred on interpretation of place, regionally transformative architecture, regeneration of built heritage, human experience and perception of space.
I took the Visual Development and Art Direction Mentorship course from CGMA at the beginning of 2021. This was a 10-week mentorship course focused on learning how art direction helps tell the story and fits within the production pipeline. We chose a short story to work on, created a visual planning sheet and developed the designs. I focused mainly on the sets and environments and really enjoyed the course.
My Design Process
I love engaging in hands-on projects, whether it's sketching, building props, models and sewing. I always sketch my ideas in my notebooks testing different iterations. Then I usually bring the sketch into Photoshop to flesh out as there is more choice for colours, tracing over my designs many times and having reference photos on my canvas. If the project calls for it I will make plans for the building and then generate a model by hand to test the ideas, or I will figure out different ways to make a prop from materials I have on hand. For my sewing projects I start with a basic pattern and alter it according to the design or I will make a pattern from scratch.
I draw inspiration from nature, and my work often reflects concepts of “connections”. In my architecture projects, I aim to bring these ideas of connections into the design by connecting to the building site through views and material choices.
New Career Direction
As I mentioned, I am taking a new direction with my career. For as long as I can remember I thought I would become an artist or a designer, but after moving abroad and learning more about myself I realised these dreams mostly came from what other people said I was good at. I had grown to dislike creating art and that is something I didn't want to see, so I began looking into new career paths. After delving deep into many career options, I began looking further into astrology. Astrology is something that has always interested me, and ties into so many things I like and have studied previously. I can use my love of architectural drawing to draw up charts using precise measurements, look for patterns in charts, investigate a chart to gather information and assess it, my fascination of the night sky since I was young, so it all seems very fitting for me. I look forward to learning more and in the future having my own astrology practice.
Contact
Thank you for visiting my portfolio. Want to work together? You can contact me below, I'd love to hear from you.
Thank you!