This is where the doors close, the music goes on, and the actual making happens.
I wanted to give you a bit of a look behind the scenes at how things work in here, because my process isn’t about sitting down with a rigid plan. For me, making art is about two things: absolute play, and strong instinct.
My practice runs on two very different gears, but they both come from the exact same intuitive place.
Sometimes, I walk into the studio with a crystal-clear image already fully formed in my head. I know exactly what I want to create, what the textures should look like, and how it needs to feel. On those days, my hands are just trying to catch up with my brain to bring that specific image to life.
But just as often, I work by simply playing. I’ll come in with no plan at all, spread materials across the desk, and just experiment. I’ll mess around with chemicals, mix paint colors, brush layers on paper, and see what happens. There’s so much fun and pure joy in just seeing how different mediums react to each other without worrying about making a “perfect” piece of art.
Because I guide my work entirely by intuition, I don’t tie myself down to just one tool. While the darkroom is a huge part of my life, it isn’t the only thing that happens in here.
On any given day, you might find me working on:
Alternative Printmaking: Getting my hands dirty with traditional chemistry, light exposures, and paper washes in the darkroom.
Gouache Paintings: Playing with the opaque, rich, and matte textures of gouache on heavy paper.
Sketches from Photographs: Using a physical photograph I’ve taken as a starting point, then translating those shapes and shadows into a raw pencil or charcoal drawing.
Because I create through experimentation and gut feeling, my work can look quite different from one month to the next. For a long time, I used to wonder how it all fit together.
But over time, I’ve realized that what ties every single piece together is the slow, deliberate pace and the sheer joy of the trial-and-error process. I often don’t even see the common thread in my own work until I stop, look back over months or even years of making, and realize that my intuition was guiding me along the same path the entire time.
Everything you see in the shop or in our DIY kits comes directly out of this space, these experiments, and these moments of play. Thanks for stepping inside and being a part of it.
— Karen
© 2026 Wildkin & The Darkroom.