Call Now: 602-307-9919

Kaitlin Walsh – Finding Art in the Anatomical

 In Podcast
Kaitlin Walsh

Kaitlin Walsh is an artist specializing in abstract anatomical watercolor as well as oil paintings. She started Lyon Road Art in 2015, where she married her graduate degree in biomedical visualization with her talent for painting. Kaitlin is a known figure in the anatomical art community, having sold more than 5,000 prints. She lives in Omaha, Nebraska with her husband and three children.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

  • How Kaitlin Walsh uses her degree in biomedical visualization in her career
  • Kaitlin’s process for creating art from anatomy
  • The timeline for commissions and style of research
  • The origin of the name Lyon Road Art
  • Seeing anatomy from an artistic and clinical perspective

In this episode…

Anyone who has taken time to study the human body knows how beautiful it can be. There is a level of detail and mechanical design that naturally lends itself to art. Most artists stop at the shape and the appearance of people without going beneath the surface.

Kaitlin Walsh is an artist who has made a name for herself by creating watercolor and oil paintings of human anatomy. She uses her passion and degree in anatomy to make vivid, beautiful pieces. Her work is hung up in doctor’s offices around the world. Now she is here to explain her process.

In this episode of the ListenUp! Podcast, Dr. Mark Syms interviews Kaitlin Walsh, the Owner and Founder of Lyon Road Art, to talk about her work in anatomical art. They discuss her research, why she started her studio, and some of her favorite pieces. The two also touch on her creative process and how to see anatomy through a different lens. Listen to the full episode to hear all of this and more.

Resources mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by the Arizona Hearing Center.

The Arizona Hearing Center is a cutting-edge hearing care facility providing comprehensive, family-focused care. Approximately 36 million Americans suffer from some sort of hearing loss, more than half of whom are younger than the age of 65. That’s why the team at the Arizona Hearing Center is focused on providing the highest-quality care using innovative technologies and inclusive treatment plans. 

As the Founder of the Arizona Hearing Center, Dr. Mark Syms is passionate about helping patients effectively treat their hearing loss so that they can stay connected with their family and friends and remain independent. He knows first-hand how hearing loss can impact social connection and effective communication. By relying on three core values—empathy, education, and excellence—Dr. Syms and his team of hearing loss experts are transforming the lives of patients. 

So what are you waiting for? Stop missing out on the conversation and start improving your quality of life today!  

To learn more about the Arizona Hearing Center, visit https://www.azhear.com/ or call us at 602-307-9919. We don’t sell hearing aids—we treat your hearing loss.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:04

Welcome to the ListenUp! Podcast where we explore hearing loss communication connections and health.

Dr. Mark Syms 0:15

Hey everybody, Dr. Mark Syms here I’m the host of ListenUp! Podcast where I feature top leaders in health care. This episode is brought to you by Listen Up! Hearing Center, I help patients to effectively treat their hearing loss so that they can remain independent and better connected with friends and family. The reason I’m so passionate about hearing loss is I lost my brother Robbie twice burst to hearing loss from radiation to his brain tumor, and then when he passed away, I only care for years I’m the E of E and T I performed over 10,000 ear surgeries and and taking care of many more with hearing loss. I’m also the founder of Listen Up Hearing Center and I’ve written a book of the same name. Listen Up!: A Physician’s Guide to Effectively Treating Your Hearing Loss. If you want to learn more about that go to listenuphearing.com That’s a listenuphearing.com. Today I have a great guest is Kaitlin Walsh. She’s an artist specializing in Abstract anatomical watercolor and oil paintings. I stumbled across some of her paintings on the internet and want to learn more. From a young age she exhibited mixed fascination about art and medicine. She graduated with a degree in biomedical visualization at University of Illinois at Chicago where she took a combination of fine art and med school click horses. Her primary motivation to entire focus her career on this passion portraying the beauty and complexity the human body through painting is when her firstborn spent several months in the hospital recovering from severe prenatal complications and early birth. Her son’s initially precarious health status, while frightening also compelled her to further appreciate the intricacies of functional anatomy. After spending some time honing your craft and increasing your inventory. She launched her study studio Lyon Road Art in 2015. She sold over 5,000 prints for work and is well known in the anatomical art community, which is a very small niche community, I assume. I mean, how many people are there doing anatomical art, you know?

Kaitlin Walsh 1:56

There used to be nobody, I felt like I was one of the first now I have wonderful, great competition out there. But I would say maybe like 50 of us out there.

Dr. Mark Syms 2:07

So when you say anatomical art, you mean people who are doing artwork? Where are the anatomy is the subject matter as compared to anatomical Lee? Correct, like so Frank Netter, for instance, is the most famous anatomical artist, right? I

Kaitlin Walsh 2:23

would consider that illustration versus fine art,

Dr. Mark Syms 2:28

right? Because it’s that is a attempt to represent how it really is as compared to an artistic interpretation. Is that a fair statement? Yep. Okay, so tell me a little about like, you know, that your major is not common, I suspect. No, what was your you know, your thought process in terms of where that would be? Or so it sounds like you’ve always been wanting to be in this particular space. Is that correct?

Kaitlin Walsh 2:52

Yep. I’ve always like I like you said I already had always had a fascination with both art and science. When I was little, I painted and colored and drew every day of my life through middle school in high school, but then I started being getting super interested in anatomy. I blame my grandpa, he used to quiz us on anatomy. And if we remembered the interesting facts, he told us, he would like give us a nickel the next time. Yeah, he’s good. So he made them into like stories like sell the turkey tours, the calm this be Noid means Turkish saddle, and it cradles the pituitary, like, so interesting. So it gave me this fascination. So much so that I, for a little bit, wanted to go to pre med but I missed art too much. And so I was frustrated enough that I was Googling careers that could combine art and medicine. And then I found out there a couple of grad schools that offer that, that exact thing as, as a program, and I was stuck. I knew that’s what I was going to do with my life.

Dr. Mark Syms 3:50

So what is that? Like? In other words, the training? In other words, what does it mean?

Kaitlin Walsh 3:56

Great. programs do such a nice job because they paired us up with or put us in classes with dental students, PT students and med students. So we’re taking the same classes. And then we like dissections in a cadaver lab, we got to be right in there with them and and then we were able to take fine art classes that allow us to focus on those things. But then, what was fantastic was being able to see things from a clinical perspective. So I know what I’m seeing which parts are relevant to that your average clinician, which is important.

Dr. Mark Syms 4:35

Yeah. And so what’s your process? In other words, you know, I assume some of it, you create yourself. In other words, there’s areas that are of your interest, and then some of them are probably areas of other people’s interest. Is that correct?

Kaitlin Walsh 4:48

Yep, absolutely. I’d say 90% of the time I’m working on commissions so that doesn’t leave a lot of time these days for my own inspiration, but that’s okay. That’s what every artist strives for, right? To be wanted. Um, but so I either think of something or I get commissioned to paint something. And then the process is all about the source material. So I’m looking for both accuracy when I’m trying to find that source material, and then something that hits me or inspires me. Like, like I said, I sell, it just goes really cool. And so if I was looking for something I, the idea needs to be and what I’m portraying needs to be accurate. But I also need to find an image that really catches me that it’s like this, this orientation is particularly beautiful. If I throw these colors on it, I can really, really make it pop. So I’m searching for those two things. And I also be careful not to copy anything. So usually, I have multiple sources that bit ones books, websites, so I’m not you know, I’m so I’m careful that I’m not copying anything too directly. And it helps me be that much more accurate.

Dr. Mark Syms 5:48

So when you mean sort of You mean, like, perhaps different perspectives of the same anatomical structure or something of that nature.

Kaitlin Walsh 5:54

If you look up a specific structure, everybody’s drawn it or painted it or created it slightly differently. So which is correct, I can either go to a cadaver lab or I can kind of average what I see or go off the sources that I trust.

Dr. Mark Syms 6:09

And so do you draw it properly? Or how do you go interview represented properly?

Kaitlin Walsh 6:14

I vary it depends on what people are requesting. properly, I love to do It’s almost easier because I just kind of paint what I see and and know what it’s supposed to look like. But sometimes I like to do a really creative bent to it. I call it the wink wink. paintings where it’s like the clinician, the provider, or person commissioning, it knows what it is. But to anybody else, it just looks like an abstract painting. And those can be a lot of fun. But they take a lot of thought. And I have to really decide how I’m going to portray it in that abstract way. Like I’m painting. Right before this. I was painting progesterone, like how you made the molecule, the molecule? Yes. The How do I make that cool and abstract and fun. So it’s just kind of big and splashy, bold colors, big shapes, those hexagons and pentagon. So how do you do that? Big swatches of color, like focusing on the shapes and making all those the hexagons and pentagons accurately placed but kind of overlapping a little bit. So it just looks, you know, like an abstract,

Dr. Mark Syms 7:24

which is kind of interesting, right? Because the model, the molecular representation is also indeed that. In other words, it’s a system we use to represent molecules, but probably not the way the molecule actually, actually is. Right. So that’s kind of an interesting. So the molecular I think, is definitely China. How about anatomically like, do you try to do those in an abstract face too, as well?

Kaitlin Walsh 7:47

Absolutely. My very first one I did the one of my favorites is the brachial plexus. So it’s just you know, it looks like it’s a random braiding of just wavy lines basically on the page. But you know, I painted them in a very specific way. And that’s very indicative of anatomy. If anybody looked at the brachial plexus in a cadaver lab, it just looks like a big mess of nerves, but everything is put together so meticulously, in that specific, braided way. And that idea of that it looks like a hot mess, but it’s actually very particular is lends itself great to abstractness, because abstract expressionism is, you know, seemingly so random, but but I like meaning behind what looks seemingly random.

Dr. Mark Syms 8:36

There’s a meaning and beauty behind what doesn’t look like has an organization or

Kaitlin Walsh 8:40

a purpose, actually, thank you. You said it better.

Dr. Mark Syms 8:42

Right. And so that Yeah, it’s so you know, and how about the colors I mean, obviously, you know, live tissue has more vibrant colors than categoric tissue, but I wouldn’t say it’s particularly vibrant. So like the whatever’s behind you, is way more vibrant than most things that I would say are in the body in terms of experientially the middle bone

Kaitlin Walsh 9:05

is behind me. Um, yes colors I have to be very careful on because I know my target audience is looking for something a lot is patient facing what they’re looking for and they do not want patients to see the color red. Also like a stay away from gangrene colors. Does office don’t want yellow because it messes with how when they’re trying to match tea. So though I have to pick my colors carefully because of those parameters. And then I also want to get the chance I just tried to choose bright and vibrance because otherwise it’s just what people see all the time. That’s what sometimes it’s the only thing that makes it look abstract. Like painting the middle ear but doing it in bright turquoise is is enough to be like yeah, that’s different and cool.

Dr. Mark Syms 9:51

But I mean we the the piece behind you, I think is purple and orange or red. Maybe orange and red. Yeah. Yeah, and so that in of itself, obviously, especially, I mean, the purple, blue could theoretically be venous blood, but you know, it’s it’s not that blue. And it’s not that so that definitely has a vibrancy to it. Right.

Kaitlin Walsh 10:14

Right. But even these, yeah, these are ones I did for myself, I’m, it’s my pet project to paint all the bones in the body. But I would never paint unless somebody specifically requested red. I would never get to paint a commission this color. That’s why I often choose it when I get to choose,

Dr. Mark Syms 10:32

you have that much wall space, there are a lot of bones in the body.

Kaitlin Walsh 10:36

Working on it, unless you’re gonna do like the whole hand together. Um, some are in storage. Some have sold in my favorite like, it’s a Hangout by me.

Dr. Mark Syms 10:44

Okay, because I was gonna say, they’re a heck of a lot, right? So

Kaitlin Walsh 10:47

yeah, I’m gonna combine the some of them.

Dr. Mark Syms 10:50

And what medium do you typically work?

Kaitlin Walsh 10:53

Typically, I do watercolor, I say it’s a great medium for moms. Easy setup, easy, teardown, kids can’t make a mess of it. So and that’s kind of what I’ve become known for. And I can produce watercolor relatively quickly, especially since a lot of the watercolor effects, you can only achieve by moving quickly, that needs to be wet. But when I get a chance to work on a pet project, I usually, you know, the bones and other things. I like to render an oil, those just take months. And they they’re way messier and way more arduous and you need chemicals, specific chemicals for them. So so when I get a chance I do oil, but I’m better known and a big producer of watercolor, and watercolor.

Dr. Mark Syms 11:36

So let’s, let’s talk about your timeline. Okay, so somebody calls you up they want to do you know, I don’t mean the actual passage of time. I mean, your investment in time, I think people sometimes under estimate how much time and work there is involved in you know, because they just kind of like, okay, great. I’m glad you did that. But what like the so the whole process, somebody says to you, I want to do something. And so what how does that look like? So can you go through kind of the whole process from start to finish? Yep.

Kaitlin Walsh 12:06

It’s basically it’s a four-week turnaround time. And I stick to that pretty well, when people put in a commission, you get into my queue. And a lot of that time is research on the subject matter going back and forth with the customer to make sure we have this same style is the same, the same plan moving forth. I don’t like to do sketches for people, mostly because what with watercolor, it’s just the effect that I Yeah, yeah, it’ll just mess people up and give them different expectations. So I was produced that thing. And then if you want me to repaint it, I’m willing to repaint it, the painting of it, I work on painting simultaneously, because a lot of effects happen at specific times in the drawing process. So I don’t need just mean like two on the same day. I mean, like, I literally have them side by side on the table, and I’m jumping from one to the other. Interesting, I’m waiting for one to dry, well, well, then I can get the effect on the other one. And then it has to dry some have to dry completely so I can layer things on top. So because of that sporadic process, I I jump around between projects and the whole thing, the whole painting and then scanning it in and getting a snapshot for the customer. And matting it and sending it usually takes about four weeks.

Dr. Mark Syms 13:29

Do you do pencil before? Or do you just do it freehand? Well, watercolor,

Kaitlin Walsh 13:35

I do a very minimal sketch I the basic parameters, basically then once I have it sketched out, I know where I can deviate from my final paintings look nothing like my sketch. But it’s the starting off point. But since watercolor so translucent and see and shows through I don’t I’d have to erase a lot if I did a lot of sketching anyway. And I, I like flying by the seat of my pants.

Dr. Mark Syms 13:59

Have you ever done a time lapse photography of your project?

Kaitlin Walsh 14:03

Oh, lots, I put a lot of them up on Instagram. I kind of have to as an artist maintain a social media presence to to show what you do. I find it very stressful. Painting is relaxing and fun, and I love it. But as soon as I know a camera’s on here, it’s like, oh, the person is going to be bored if I spend too much time on this one area. So I do it once in a while, but I don’t do it on every painting.

Dr. Mark Syms 14:28

That’s great. And so what are the sizes of your pieces usually,

Kaitlin Walsh 14:32

the standard sizes we offer just match up with standard frame sizes. So if somebody puts a commissioning the options on my site would be five by seven eight by 1011 by 14 and 16 by 20. When I paint for myself or for

Dr. Mark Syms 14:47

sometimes that’s way bigger than a 16 by 20 behind you

Kaitlin Walsh 14:51

right so when I’ve been for myself I obey all these go into competitions and I found thinkers better it gets the attention a little bit more for art shows and Things like that. And if I’m helping to fill up clinic, they’re often wanting bigger pieces. Watercolor paper comes in size 22 by 30. So that’s what I often that’s a personal favorite size to painted.

Dr. Mark Syms 15:17

Okay. And so I was about to say I assume a decent amount of your art is publicly displayed, or at least places where the public can get to.

Kaitlin Walsh 15:25

Yes, my favorite thing is when a random we, my husband and I, we moved a lot. He was in the military for a while. And so I know people around the country and they’ll just text me I was at the doctor’s and I saw one of your paintings, so that I was feels good. And yes, they go and shows here and there. Which is always exciting.

Dr. Mark Syms 15:45

Oh, that’s great. So what’s the furthest geography? Do you know where your pieces are the furthest away? It’s,

Kaitlin Walsh 15:52

I’m proud to say it’s harder to find a place where my pieces aren’t. And those are prints, not originals. Originals? are usually stateside, they’re just harder to ship. But I’m in every content continent except Antarctica. Just shipped a big one to South Africa. Middle East

Dr. Mark Syms 16:12

is different, right? So the prints can be requested in different sizes and formats, I assume. Yes,

Kaitlin Walsh 16:18

exactly. Yep. So prints are different originals, go through different processes, then you get the original painting with my signature on and those are mostly stateside, or sent several to Europe, and Australia and Canada.

Dr. Mark Syms 16:34

So if people want to look at your work, where would they go?

Kaitlin Walsh 16:37

Not just to my website?

Dr. Mark Syms 16:39

No, they don’t I mean, yes. What is your website? And where would they go? Like what would that be? You can?

Kaitlin Walsh 16:45

Lyonroadart.com L Y O N

Dr. Mark Syms 16:49

Lyon the origin of the name? Are you online?

Kaitlin Walsh 16:52

Are you my That’s right, became a grown up, if you will, I began, I lived online, rode out in California. I, I got married. And then that night, went on a honeymoon and from there moved to California from Chicago where I was in grad school, and then got my first big girl job. And then two weeks later found out I was pregnant. And then, like, eight weeks after that, I found out that there are huge issues with my pregnancy. And always and my husband was in a really difficult residency. So a lot of things happen all at once. And I just, I just had a grew up and it was, it was very challenging. But it sounds like accelerated everything happened all at once. It seems like a different person now. But I think, yeah, those things will change you. So you’ll only live there for a year. But that was when most of the big events in my life happened. So that’s why I named my, my business lion

Dr. Mark Syms 17:54

River. That’s great. And so of all the pieces you’ve done, what is the favorite, you know, top three things that you’ve rendered in terms of structures,

Kaitlin Walsh 18:03

um, my sphenoid bone which sold and it was, that was hard to say yes to that sale. But um, I love the sphenoid that one story about my grandpa, that’s, you know, he loved the scenery. So I did and then it’s just interesting bone anatomically. And it’s just plain beautiful, because it looks like a butterfly. So I have one that this big of the sphenoid that I that sold, I have a heart dissection. One, I have a series where I painted that I just wanted to do on my own. They were displayed at a hospital in Wisconsin for a long time. But since they’re based off just dissections and dissections are, you know, they are gross, there’s no way around it. So I love taking those photographs of the straight up dissections and making something beautiful from it. So it was just a matter of different orientations for the for this. It was dissection of the heart, doing a zoom in and using a different palette and all of a sudden it goes from gross to like super interesting. And is is that a real thing? Or is that an abstract painting? And I have one of the hearts and then one of the orbit that I love that, you know, an eyeball but nobody, it looks more like a flower.

Dr. Mark Syms 19:17

Yeah, well, I’m obviously partial to the temporal bone being that I’m an ER doctor, but it’s a very complex bone, but it does not have this tree like this.

Kaitlin Walsh 19:26

That one won a big award in Iowa once but that’s a big rendering of the temporal bone.

Dr. Mark Syms 19:33

That’s great. That’s wonderful. So why was your grandfather so interested in a temporal bone? I mean, the sphenoid bone he liked the

Kaitlin Walsh 19:41

temporal bone to um, I think it was that cool story of the soldiers because that it was named that what was he an anatomist? Or what was it? He was a dentist but like me, we just have this weird thing in our DNA like we just find it fascinating like he would. I don’t think my brothers and sisters care as much as I do. But he and I could just Can we still try to tap one another and like interesting little anatomical factoids? He just had a really good memory. And like,

Dr. Mark Syms 20:08

that’s great. No, I just just kind of curious, you know, it’s not typical, I think grandparent grandchild fodder. So it’s a little unusual, but it’s great. It’s sparked a passion in you, which I think is really wonderful. I mean, this stuff behind you is really amazing and really beautiful. So, I mean, that’s what drew me to, you know, I was like, there’s gotta be people out there doing this type of stuff. And I stumbled across your stuff. And so I thought, Oh, I’ll invite her to talk about the process. Because I think the process is really fascinating in terms of how you guys get from, you know, what is considered the real rendering, anatomically, to doing something artistic, I think that’s the jump that is hard for me to understand. And actually, not many fall to you, it’s kind of hard for you to explain, because it’s just kind of, I figure out what it is, and then do it a different way. Right.

Kaitlin Walsh 20:53

And I still will remember stories told an anatomy class in grad school. And it’s just like, things that were interesting from a clinical perspective. And because it was so interesting, from a clinical perspective, it just it, I remembered it and made me latch on to it. And I just wanted to make it interesting visually as as well. I mean, how the fingers move, the tendons of the fingers are just kind of special and different. And the cone and the eardrum. I can’t remember the specific name, but but they just got in my mind because the you know, my professors would spend extra time on it. So then I want to spend time on it too. Well, I

Dr. Mark Syms 21:33

mean, is it that kind of art, right, taking something that people understand and rendering it in a different way that makes it beautiful or interesting, right? I mean, it But although I will say, you know, if you look at netters work, for instance, it’s beautiful in and of itself, right? I mean,

Unknown Speaker 21:46

absolutely.

Dr. Mark Syms 21:48

Amazing. His work

Kaitlin Walsh 21:49

is astonishing, just his different vantage points. You could tell he was a clinician first and an art just because the the views that he took are just so helpful. And then the final rendering is so beautiful.

Dr. Mark Syms 22:01

Yes, I there’s actually a medical school named after him now. Oh, really?

Kaitlin Walsh 22:05

I don’t know. Connecticut. Very cool. Yeah. Her granddaughter daughter came to speak at one of our

Dr. Mark Syms 22:13

at our school year think that yeah, that’s really great. So Kaitlin, what’s your favorite sound?

Kaitlin Walsh 22:18

Oh, um, rain. That one’s really simple for me. I crave it. I love rain. I lived in California for a while. And in during a drought season, which it always is. Drought I found out means really beautiful every day and dang it. I didn’t love it. I missed the sound of the rain. I want to when it’s raining out, I don’t feel like I need to be outside. I always feel like I’m supposed to be outside when it’s beautiful. So rainy days are my happy place though. That one’s easy.

Dr. Mark Syms 22:48

Yeah, everybody. This is Kaitlin Walsh. She’s an artist who does Abstrakt anatomical watercolors and oil paintings. And again, Kaitlin, if people want to get a hold of you, how would they do that? What is your website? And how would they get a hold of you? Sure. It’s

Kaitlin Walsh 23:01

a lyonroadart.com LYONROADart.com. And if you googled my name to Kaitlin Walsh, that will pop up. But Kaitlin’s hard to spell So good luck with that?

Dr. Mark Syms 23:16

Well, I’ve been to the website, the work is really beautiful. And I think people should go take a look and check it out. Because there’s really some amazing artwork on there. That is really just a beautiful rendering of the human body and, and anatomy and molecules. I know you do as well. So it’s really cool stuff. So I appreciate the work you do. I think it’s pretty amazing. And congratulations for just kind of going out and doing it and making it viable.

Kaitlin Walsh 23:40

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Dr. Mark Syms 23:43

Coming on. This has been great. So everybody again, it’s Kaitlin Walsh. You can go check out her website. And if you want to connect her I think they can probably connect to you with LinkedIn or there’s a contact form too.

Kaitlin Walsh 23:53

Okay. Yep, yep. Yep. And Facebook and Instagram,

Dr. Mark Syms 23:57

Instagram and Facebook. Right. Sorry. I want to be visual. So great. Thanks, Kaitlin, for coming on. I really appreciate your time.

Kaitlin Walsh 24:03

All right. Thanks so much.

Outro 24:09

Thanks for tuning in to the ListenUp! Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get updates on future episodes.

Recommended Posts