In 1980 an investor sent Katchen to Nigeria for 6 weeks. While
there she sketched subjects for a suite of etchings.
Beauty Shop” is
one of the prints from Nigeria:A Suite of 10 Etchings. This
etching was hand-pulled from 2 colored plates by master printmaker
Betsy Margolius and then hand-colored by the artist.
Around this time she began
to paint the first of her large, commissioned oil paintings.
In the early
1980s Colorado was a booming energy center. A petroleum engineer
sent Katchen to an oil rig to capture the essence of the industry.
“Roughneck” was
one of the finished oil rig images, all purchased by petroleum
companies. This is a monoprint with pastel.
By the mid-80s
she had moved to Los Angeles and began to focus on pastel painting.
She began to
receive national recognition for her pastel paintings. In 1985
The Artist’s Magazine, a national publication with a circulation
of 250,000,featured one of Katchen’s paintings on the cover.
By
the end of the 80s Katchen had 6 published books. Planning Your
Paintings Step-by-Step is shown here in the Dutch edition. Her
books have also been translated into French and Chinese.