Katheryn Kelty Krzycki - Painting as Katheryn Davis 1930-2009

Katheryn Kelty Krzycki, painting professionally as Katheryn Davis, died September 14, 2009 after a brief but intensive battle with cancer. She was born in 1930 in Glendale, Calif. and moved to the Oregon coast in 1977. She was involved with drawing and painting since childhood and later, as time permitted, painted while raising her five children. She studied art with many professional teachers, including renowned watercolor painter Rex Brandt, a personal acquaintance. She began painting full time in 1987 when she married Leroy Krzycki, a retired rocket scientist. She painted for some 70 years, attributing her talent to God.

Katy developed her own impressionist style in watercolor, oil and other media, deliberately playing down details to let the imagination of the viewer soar. She was a member of the Watercolor Society of Oregon since 1978 and held their highest competitive and honorary awards The WSO honored her for her 30-year membership with a retrospective show of 26 selected paintings and a lecture to over 100 persons at their 43rd Annual Exhibition at the Florence Events Center in the fall of 2008.

Since 1977, Katy taught watercolor workshops in California and Oregon, teaching the principles of art so each student could develop their own style. She instructed five workshops to the Greek Isles and painted on location in Greece, Portugal, Italy, Nova Scotia, Tahiti and Hawaii as well as many locations in the United States. She had a studio overlooking the harbor at her vacation home in the lobster fishing village of Stonington, Maine. Katy also loved to paint portraits and was a member of the Portrait Society of America and a member of the Figure 8 Portrait Group in Florence.

A prolific, dedicated full-time painter, Katy held over 100 individual and group shows in her lifetime and has some 1,000 original paintings in private and commercial collections in the United States and abroad. She was represented by commercial galleries throughout the United States and owned Quiet Waters Art Gallery on Sutton Lake north of Florence. She left a number of completed paintings which have yet to be framed and made available to the public.