Patty Kane Studio & Gallery

The Naples Art District is home to dozens of art studios, ateliers and exhibition galleries that afford art enthusiasts and collectors an opportunity to watch painters, sculptors and mixed media artists create artworks in a wide variety of genres and media. Among them is the working studio of watercolor and acrylic artist Patty Kane.

Her Art. Patty characterizes herself as a watercolorist. Although she also does some acrylic painting, her medium has been mainly water based for more than 20 years. It’s her passion for technique and color mixing that renew her passion for the medium day after day.

Her technique involves patiently layering transparent color, allowing the pigment and paper to do a lot of the work in producing the bursts of color she loves so much. While she works en plein air, her process is deliberative. “I usually start with a black and white value study,” Patty explains. It’s a way for her to really observe the subject matter. “I don’t do anything fast. I seem to be a turtle not a rabbit. When I’m at the beach, I’ll take a small palette and maybe just the color sepia to just kind of match my lights, my mediums, my darks.”

Dedicated to practice, Patty typically experiments with different types of paper, sizes and color combinations. “I may do four or five versions before I settle on a final composition.

Kane works with a very limited palette. Most of her compositions are limited to three colors, sometimes four, like two yellows one red and one blue. “If you understand what the pigment is going to do on the paper, you will choose your paint wisely,” Patty points out.

Because of her fondness for color mixing and layering, her motifs heavily focus on sunrises, sunsets and, of late, stormy skies. “I’m very inspired by the dramatic light of sunrise or sunset,” Patty effuses. “I try to capture the light.”

Once her value study is done, she begins to block in the composition, paying particular attention to color. “I’m not a fast painter, so lots of times I sit there and just try to capture the color and the big shapes of what I see. Then I take a photo and come back to finish the painting in the studio.” Patty cops to being easily distracted by what’s happening at the beach. More problematic, the light changes very rapidly both at dawn and at dusk. “So I try to capture what I see as best I can, focusing mainly on the color because I am generally able to remember the shapes later on.”

There’s something therapeutic about painting at

“Pear Lineup” by Patty Kane, watercolor, 2009

sunrise and sunset. She paints virtually every single day, and starts most mornings on location before the sun comes up. “I love that time of day, when you hear the first bird and see the first rays of the sun slanting into the morning sky. If I start my day like that, I can pretty much take anything that life throws at me that day.”

Morning light is tantamount to rebirth for Kane, and ending her day back at the beach for sunset, well, it doesn’t get much better than that. “It’s a winding down type of feeling,” she acknowledges, coupled with an element of hope and surprise, even on a cloudy day when you think the day is going to pass into darkness without much fanfare or fireworks. “Then there’s that one pop of light and I just sit and stare.,” Kane muses. “If I’m with a group of friends, I look like a space cadet staring off into the sky,” she adds with a self-deprecating chuckle.

And then there’s the stormy skies that just come rolling in with big black cumulus thunderheads and sharp streaks of lightening. “It just blows me away. So yeah, I’m pretty attracted to skies lately,” Patty expounds. “I’m inspired by a 5 mile radius around where I live. It’s beautiful down here. I just pinch myself because this is where we live.”

But visitors to her studio/gallery will be delighted to find that Kane’s repertoire of motifs includes more than beaches and Florida skies. She is also known locally for warm and easy landscapes featuring coconut and royal palms, lazy pool scenes, florals and panoramas of the golf courses in and around Southwest Florida. “I do play, and have stunk up a number of the courses within that five mile radius I mentioned before,” she laughs. In total, her body of work has been described as “loose, juicy and full of color.”

“I paint what I love and I paint it often. My art brings so much joy to my life.” And she hopes to share that joy with those who have occasion to view her work.

The Studio/Gallery. Kane’s studio/gallery is a rectangular storefront located on Shirley Street. Paintings hang salon style from the plain white walls, but the center of activity is the work bench and easels that command the back third of the space.

The advantage of visiting Patty in studio is that at any given time, you can see her finishing up some composition that she started the night before or earlier that morning. It’s no imposition. Patty actually welcomes the audience. “In art school, I was in a fellowship program where they forced us to paint in public places. I was scared to death at first. People would stop, stare and talk to me while I was painting. It wasn’t long before I realized that I had simplify my shapes to be able to paint and talk at the same time. So now I’m pretty good at painting while I’m talking to people, and I actually look forward to having some company here in the studio while I’m painting.”

Patty also makes it worthwhile for visitors to return time and again to her studio gallery. “I rotate the paintings I have on display here in the studio,” she entices, “so when come visit me, you’ll always find something new to see.”

Classes and Workshops. Kane teaches small classes of no more than six students in her studio, and larger classes and workshops at the Fort Myers Beach Art Association on Mondays and the Centers for the Arts Bonita Springs on Tuesdays. (At one time, she also taught at The von Liebig Art Center and BIG ARTS out on Sanibel, but she has scaled back her teaching schedule to concentrate more on her art.) She teaches primarily to share the joy she experiences when she’s creating a new composition from the daily images that pass before her ever-curious and assessing eyes.

“I teach because I want my students to experience the same joy in their lives.” It is that enthusiasm and sincerity that won her The Arts Educator of the Year Award from the Center for the Arts of Bonita Springs, where she teaches a variety of classes throughout the year, including her highly popular Alla Prima, All Fun course in which participants create a finished painting in just one sitting.

“Patty Kane is always working to become a better artist and teacher,” said Jake Hand, adult visual arts director at the Center for the Arts of Bonita Springs. “She is the consummate student of the arts, always exploring, investigating and learning. In turn Patty generously passes along what she has learned to her students with spirit and gusto.”

About the Artist. Patty began her dream of leading an artistic life by studying at the Crealde School of Art in Winter Park, Florida. When Kane is not teaching, she is painting and submitting her work in juried shows. At present, her overarching goal is to obtain her signature membership in the Florida Watercolor Society, “which is not an easy thing to do.”

Address. The Patty Kane Studio & Gallery is located in Artisans Plaza, 5760 Shirley Street, Suite #9, Naples, FL 34109.

Hours. By appointment or by chance.

Website and Telephone Number. Patty’s website is http://www.ArtByPattyKane.com. You can reach her by telephone at 321-277-9880 or by email at Patty@ArtByPattyKane.com.