Date: Fri 22-Nov-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Illustration: C

Location: A11

Quick Words:

Proctor-Festival-illustrator

Full Text:

(Festival Feature on Kim Proctor, line illustrator/garden illustration, 11/22)

Festival Features-

A Formal Fine Arts Training Works Its Way Into K. Day Designs

BY SHANNON HICKS

A landscape designer and illustrator, Kim Proctor has been in the process of

closing up shop for the season with one business while becoming more involved

in her second avocation in recent weeks. In the winter, the Newtown resident

returns to her illustration and graphic design work, going back to landscape

design in the spring. Another immediate project of Kim's has been the creation

of line drawings for the historic homes tour program for this year's Newtown

Holiday Festival.

Kim first became involved with the Holiday Festival last year, when she was

asked to do four drawings of homes for the walking tour program. Festival

co-chair Judy Pierce had recommended Kim for the job after Kim did landscape

architecture work at Judy's home.

Organizers must have been happy with what Kim turned in because this year,

Holiday Festival publicity chairman Doreen Kelleher asked Kim to help redesign

and rework some of the advertisements for the festival. Knowing the quality of

Kim's work and her attention to details, once Kim had the information to be

included in the ads, she was given carte blanche for design and layout.

Additionally, Kim did two new drawings of houses this year - the Fulkerson

home on Currituck Road and the Fuller residence on School House Hill Road -

both of which are on this year's walking tour, a popular attraction to the

festival every year.

Kim does house drawings, supplemented with watercolor highlights, of homes in

the area, works she uses for her own advertisements in local papers. Her

business is K. Day Designs. Homeowners impressed with what they see can hire

Kim to execute a drawing of their home, which is one of the things that keeps

her very busy during the winter. This is Kim's way of getting back into the

swing of graphic design/illustration while finishing up landscape projects for

the year.

She also designs logos and ads for others, one of which appeared in the May

1996 issue of Connecticut magazine for stonework/stone sculpture specialist

Tim Currier's business, Sticks & Stones.

"I always hate to see [landscaping] come to an end," she said last week. "But

I've always enjoyed New England architecture, especially old houses.

"They seem to focus on old houses for the house tour, and I think you never

really understand how a house is put together unless you're an architect or a

builder.

"With me being an illustrator, if I draw a house, and draw all the details,

then I understand a lot more how the house is put together."

The site of this year's Festival Gala - a formal dinner and auction the night

before the festival, also to benefit the Family Life Center - will be at

Wendell Stonaker and Dan Blakemore's house, a beautiful Victorian on Sugar

Street.

"I never realized how much went into that house, being an old Victorian house,

with all the architectural details along the roof line and the railing, along

the front porch, until I started to draw it. It's really quite a house," she

said.

Kim used the house for her illustration/graphic design ad. She has also

offered her home illustration service as an item to bid on that evening.

Rather than plant herself in someone's front lawn to do sketches, the process

of doing a home illustration for Kim begins instead by photographing the home.

She then uses the photos to draw from, working at her home studio. This

practice is what allows Kim to work year-round on home illustrations.

"It's nice to come back to my own little space, put on some music, and draw.

"And when I'm doing this in the middle of the winter, I'm still in the midst

of [summer]," she continued. "It can be sleeting and snowing, and I'm back in

the garden."

Working at home does not interfere with Kim's concentration, either, she says,

because her son, Ross, 11, and daughter, Lee, 7, know the studio is where Mom

works. It is tightly organized, Kim says, and it is a definite work space.

Kim has always tied house drawing in with her landscape work because, she

says, a lot of times people cannot visualize an overhead plan - "A lot of

circles and so on don't mean a lot to them" - but offer a perspective drawing

of a house with its proposed landscape superimposed, and visualization is much

easier. Kim started this practice in 1973, when she was working in Fairfield

for Oliver Nurseries.

"Artwork and landscape have always gone hand-in-hand," she said. "I think it's

a little more unusual... but I think it makes a big difference [for the

customers]. It makes it a lot more fun for me, too, because I like to do

this."

Kim had formal training in fine arts, during which time she was always working

in nurseries, receiving a horticultural education at the same time.

After working for others for two decades, Kim started her own landscaping

business, also under the K. Day Designs moniker, in August 1995.

"I have thoroughly enjoyed this," she said. "It's been nice to set my own

schedule, and not be responsible for anyone else. I have yet to get to the end

of the year and close out the books, but I think I may actually have made some

money out of it," she said with a laugh.

Clients are located throughout Fairfield County, but Newtowners can spot Kim's

work locally (and publicly) at the corner of Route 25 and 302. Kim helped

design the plot of land adjacent to the police department, and has also been

called in as a consultant in the Memorial Garden going in at Trinity Episcopal

Church on Main Street.

Kim and her husband moved to Newtown 15 years ago, and have enjoyed bringing

their two children up in the community.

"I like working on projects in town. One, because you get to know so many

people, so you get that much more connected with what's going on in town. And

also because you feel like you've made some kind of investment in the town

itself."

Not only has Kim and her husband invested plenty of time and energy into

making a comfortable home for themselves, but the town's festival planners

have returned the favor by investing in Kim's talents.

"The Family Life Center Holiday Festival has become such a big deal in town,

with so many turning out - there's so much effort that goes into it by dozens

of people - and for a good cause," Kim said last week.

"It's nice to be a small part of that."