General News

Katia Howatson is thriving within Orangeville’s art scene

January 8, 2026   ·   0 Comments

Written By CONSTANCE SCRAFIELD

From small town Quebec, Katia Howatson feels right at home in Orangeville.

“Even though Orangeville is growing, it still has that small town feeling,” she said.

Compton, Que. is where she grew up and spent a lot of time outside. Her art is inspired by nature’s art.

In an interview this week with the Citizen, she said, “I came to Ontario when I was 19. I am outdoorsy. I like to hike and bird watch. I love to travel and I have been to Europe and the Caribbean. I love the colour of the ocean there.”

In fact she and her fiancé are getting married on board ship in the spring, on a cruise liner during their tour of several islands.

“I grew up doing a lot drawing outside,” she said. “My family are all artistically gifted. My mother illustrated and my brothers are also talented artists.”

Studying graphic design at collage in Quebec was interesting but Howatson felt as though she wanted more. Oddly, that wish took her life on quite a different tangent because of the movie Mr. Holland’s Opus about a composer’s struggle learning sign language to communicate with his deaf son.

Howatson became fascinated with sign language and took a course in Quebec, When she moved to Ontario, she went to George Brown Collage to learn sign.

“It is not hearing people’s business to teach sign, so I enrolled in the sign language interpreter program,” she said. “I was an interpreter for 15 years, doing mostly educational sessions in classes in collage and as a freelancer in community businesses interpreting at work meetings and later at hospitals for meetings with patients.”

As with so much else, the COVID-19 pandemic shut these times down and she started doing art. Very much a board gamer, she had acquired a substantial number of games and started using board games parts.

“They’re rather ephemeral,” she said.

She assembled them in patterns and would take a “bird’s eye photo: and reassembled the pieces back into their broad games, all on black cloth.”

Check them out on Instagram @boardgameartcreations.

She got a job working with a Toronto artist as an assistant and that gave her the bug to start painting. It was Matthew del Degan who created the Lovebot in TO. He was doing a new exhibit and needed an assistant.

They worked together for most of 2024 until the work was done.

“After I settled here in Orangeville, we set up a room for my studio,” Howatson said.

She’s gotten into gelplate printing (jelly printing) on her own textures.

“Jelly is a rubbery pad the size of a sheet of paper,” she said. “I squirt acrylic paint colours that blend for a good effect on the pad and then roll it with a roller to imprint on it with things from the garden.”

After that texture is finished to her satisfaction, she uses Japanese paper to lay on top and lift. The paper will transfer the texture and the fragile collage is glued onto the canvas.

Her animal depictions are light-hearted, tender, as though for a child’s eyes. When it comes to the painting, she has to use enough paint to cover the texture left by the collage.

Three of her delightful pieces are hung at the new exhibition, Gathering Light, at the Headwaters Arts Gallery at the Alton Mill Arts Centre.

Howatson’s ambition is to grow her audience by showing in different galleries and to exhibit in different locations.

It’s been inspiring for her to connect with the arts community, she said.

“Networking and, as important, to support other artists,” she said. “My partner is very supportive of my art ambitions.”

Readers Comments (0)