Creating Artworks is My Self-Care Strategy

When and how I started to create art, the joy, the deep thinking and wonder.

Hello Beesee Beez,

At the end of a long hospital week, when the emotional weight of social work settled deep in my body, I found myself reaching for art just to breathe again. Supporting patients and families through crisis left almost no room for my own feelings or for tending to my home hive, so I started stealing tiny pockets of time to sketch, paint, or simply play with colour. What began as a quiet act of survival slowly became a grounding ritual—a way to process the day, soothe my nervous system, and reconnect with the parts of myself the hospital’s urgency often pushed aside. Long before I had language for self‑care, creativity had already become the practice that kept my inner hive alive.

I was born in the Czech Republic, and when my family arrived in Australia at age eight, art became my first real language. My teachers encouraged it, and since I didn’t yet have the words, I communicated through cartoon‑like doodles little characters, abstract blooms, and buzzing patterns that filled my schoolbooks and helped me settle into a world that felt so different from home. Drawing cleared space in my mind so I could focus on learning, and in art classes I threw myself into every technique and medium I could get my hands on, creating as much as possible in the time I had. Looking back, those early sketches were the beginnings of my own tiny hive my way of making sense of a new place, one line and colour at a time. My favourite show growing up was Maya the Bee. Decades later there is a whole YouTube channel dedicated to Maya, check it out it is Hive fantastic!

My mum gifted me a set of palette knives for my birthday in July 2019, and it felt like a nudge from the universe to dive deeper into creativity. Acrylics quickly became my medium of choice their thickness, versatility, and creamy, non‑toxic richness let me play, experiment, and build textures that felt deliciously alive lifting off the canvas.

Creating art has become an intuitive, lifelong learning journey where I keep challenging my techniques and growing through each piece. I work with bold brushstrokes and a whole swarm of palette knives, building textures that almost lift off the canvas sensory, dimensional, and deeply satisfying for the seeker in me. My little hive for all this making is a converted 1950s garage with a pitched roof and exposed beams, now my art studio and research nook buzzing together in one space.

Journal Notes

My brainstorming hive is always evolving—post‑its on walls, scribbles on tables, ideas buzzing everywhere. It’s my favourite way to brain‑dump when I’m stuck, and I’ve used it with students to spark rich, sky‑wide conversations. From there, my curiosity kicks in and I read… a lot.

Books, blogs, research journals, plus endless podcasts—on the go, in bed, or on slow Sunday mornings watching birds dance in the backyard. My studio notes are usually paint‑smudged, tucked into my visual diary, or stuck to whatever surface will hold them. Since starting my PhD I’ve learned to organise the hive a little better, but honestly, I’m still thriving in this beautifully creative, slightly chaotic buzz.

Botanicals

I draw on inspiration from my personal experiences with the natural environment by exploring local botanical gardens, walking trails at national parks, and my love for flowers, roses and gardening. I have beautiful roses in my garden and I literary ‘stop and smell the roses’, I started doing this because I noticed how the sweat delicious scent would ground me and bring me to the present. My florals are inspired by romance and beautiful bouquets, floral dresses and fabrics and are held in collections around Australia.

Cockatoos

I became fascinated with cockatoos and their cheeky attitudes and characters. I remember when my children were young and zoos were still a popular outing, we would study the characters and personalities of Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos, make up stories about them. I would then be itching to return to the studio to capture the playfulness in the paintings, while others are more serious and having a composed and self-assured manner. Painting keeps me connected to memories of the original experience and the emotion that inspired me, each cockatoo has a story inspired by reality or fantasy and is named by the artist or family.

Apples and Pears

Inspired by my experience at my first Clay Retreat Workshop and the emotions the process of creating these three imperfect pears evoked within. The background colour of each painting represents a mood that is linked to an emotion or a sense of being. Do colours evoke emotions within you? What mood are you in now?

Online sales

My artworks are currently sold through an online Gallery: Bluethumb. Shop art by Kat Schmitt - 28 artworks for sale on Bluethumb.

On a closing studio note, creating art has become one of the most reliable ways I tend to my inner hive. It’s where my nervous system finally exhales, where my thoughts soften, and where I reconnect with the parts of myself that get drowned out by the daily buzz of family and work.

Creating pieces for others gives me space to feel, process, imagine, and return to myself with a steadier hum. I’m deeply grateful for the way creativity keeps me grounded, well, and buzzing in balance.