The Lab / Handmade work & side projects

Made by hand.
Improved by getting it wrong.

Stained glass, collage, clay, paint, and a few experiments that are still finding their shape. Most started with “I can probably make that.”

The coloring book Handmade work

Published project / Coloring book

Please Lower Your Expectations

An Anti-Motivation Coloring Book

Cute creatures. Deeply unhelpful advice.

A coloring book pairing cheerful characters with dry humor, petty bureaucracy, and instructions that make relaxing suspiciously complicated.

15 designs and one intentionally unfinished prompt. Published in paperback.

My role: Creative concept, humor, art direction, and editorial selection. Illustrations developed with AI assistance.

View the paperback on Amazon

Inside the book

Three pages from the published edition. Select a page for a closer look.

Smiling flowers staffing a Lost and Found counter beneath the caption: Misplaced your dignity? Here it isn’t! — “Misplaced your dignity? Here it isn’t!”

A tangle of cheerful creatures with the caption Trust the process. It has no idea either. A mandatory coloring procedure ends with Relax immediately. — “Trust the process. It has no idea either.”

A long line of little creatures waiting beside an empty armchair and a ticket dispenser, with the caption: You deserve a break. Please take a number. — “You deserve a break. Please take a number.”

Little things I’ve made

Practice makes… satisfactory.

I’ve made maybe three things for myself. Almost everything else was made for someone. These are gifts, experiments, and one first attempt I briefly considered withholding. Humbly submitting the evidence: I’m learning.

I don’t like anything going to waste. I collect security envelopes, save avocado pits, and apparently consider junk mail an art supply.

Swipe or scroll to explore. Use the arrow keys when the gallery is focused.

Handheld stained-glass bottle with orange flames, iridescent glass, and dark soldered seams — 01 / Stained glass
A little fired up.
A bottle, a flame, and a very literal excuse to play with color.

Several birthday presents disguised as a pink iridescent tiered cake with gold trim, paper flowers, and pretend candles — 02 / Birthday gift · Presents in disguise
The cake was a cover story.
My friend thought I’d made him a fake birthday cake. It was actually a bunch of different presents I’d made to look like one. I freaking love this.

First clay and resin experiment: an uneven, colorful face with blue eyes and orange swirls — 03 / Clay + resin · First attempt
For the sake of transparency.
I said I wouldn’t share my first attempt. Anyway, here it is. Next slide for why I kept going.

Later polymer-clay and resin flower with rainbow petals, a smiling yellow face, and black outlines — 04 / Clay + resin · A later attempt
Okay. We’re getting somewhere.
Same materials, another try. This is why the questionable first version counts.

Older cardboard collages of Alice and the Cheshire Cat, covered in cut-out photocopied book text, including a small text tattoo on Alice’s arm — 05 / From the archives · Cardboard collage
Made of their own story.
Alice and the Cheshire Cat, built from cardboard and covered in cut-up photocopies of Alice in Wonderland. Alice even got a little arm tattoo. I was committed to the bit.

A stainless-steel bowl of deep reddish-brown dye made from saved avocado peels and pits — 06 / Avocado dye → Recycled paper
Not blood. Six months of avocados.
I saved peels and pits in the freezer for six months, learned that most of my dye came from the pits, and used it to make paper out of junk mail. Trash had other plans.

Framed watercolor of a smiling abstract face against yellow and orange, with the words yesterday I was blue — 07 / Watercolor · During Covid
Yesterday I was blue.
I painted this while experimenting with watercolor during Covid, with a Beatles song stuck in my head. The important word is yesterday. He looks happy because today, he isn’t blue. This one means a lot to me.

Lucky cat drawing surrounded by pink and red blossoms, holding a gold oval with lettering created as a reference to a friend’s band — 08 / For Mike Champagne · 2018
A little luck, for Mike.
I made this for my friend Mike Champagne, who spent a lot of time in Japan. The lettering on the gold piece was my nod to his band, The Balls.
He had such a good heart and was gone too soon. I think about him all the time.

Sketchbook page of layered colorful paint with little figures and forms outlined in the shapes — 09 / Paint + drawing · An experiment
No idea. Started anyway.
I had no idea what to paint, so I put down a bunch of different colors and tried to make art out of the shapes. That’s pretty much it.

Hand-built pink air-dry-clay mail holder shaped like an open envelope, decorated with white daisies and gold edges, shown in progress — 10 / Air-dry clay · In progress
Much harder than it looks.
A mail holder I made by hand out of air-dry clay. Pink, daisies, little gold edges. Very cute. Very hard.

Colorful geometric sun drawing with the message You are the sun, surrounded by densely drawn black-and-white patterns — 11 / A gift of encouragement · 2022
You are the sun.
I made this for my cousin as a little encouragement. Sometimes the thing I want to say is something I can make.

Handmade blue tissue box covered in pressed flowers with gold-colored edges, made as a bridal-shower gift — 12 / Pressed flowers + resin · Bridal-shower gift
Twenty years, and a lot of flowers.
A bridal-shower gift for a friend I’ve known for over twenty years. Entirely handmade, with resin and pressed flowers, then sealed with varnish.

Large abstract painting displayed on a white wall, with layers of ochre, peach, teal, green, and blue splatters — 13 / Large-scale painting · A gift for a coworker
“Just buy the canvas.”
A former coworker asked me to paint something. I told him to buy whatever size canvas he wanted and I’d do it for free. It was huge. I was scared.
Now it’s in his backdrop for virtual meetings, and he tells me he gets compliments on it all the time. Makes my heart swell. It’s much prettier in person.

Mixed-media collage of magazine faces, vivid green and orange paint, and an Emily Dickinson poem at the center — 14 / Magazine collage + acrylic + watercolor
A little Dickinson in the middle.
I cut up a bunch of magazines, added acrylic and watercolor, and put an Emily Dickinson quote in the middle. I love this one.

Square abstract painting filled with bright orange, pink, yellow, blue, and aqua splashes and loose overlapping shapes — 15 / Paint experiment
Straight up dopamine.
Sometimes success doesn’t need a plan. Just a bunch of colors and seeing what happens.

VOID On hold · Prototype showcase

A diagnostic experiment for questioning your first explanation and finding one useful next move. Development is paused. The predefined web demo shows how I translate a reasoning process into a usable flow. See the systems context.

View the preserved prototype

The actual through-line

I learn by making the invisible visible.

01See the finished shape.

I need to understand what the parts are trying to become.

02Find the failure point.

The seam, curve, gap, or sequence that will decide whether the whole thing works.

03Build a repeatable move.

Once the problem makes sense, I want a method I can use again.

Commissions

Want a piece of your own?

Bring me the odd object, tattoo flash, color obsession, or “this might be impossible” idea. Let’s see what it wants to become.

Let’s talk commissions commissions@robertskatielee.com

Same instinct, fewer sharp edges

The stories are built the same way.

Read the creative work

Made by hand.Improved by getting it wrong.

Please Lower Your Expectations

Inside the book

A little fired up.

The cake was a cover story.

For the sake of transparency.

Okay. We’re getting somewhere.

Made of their own story.

Not blood. Six months of avocados.

Yesterday I was blue.

A little luck, for Mike.

No idea. Started anyway.

Much harder than it looks.

You are the sun.

Twenty years, and a lot of flowers.

“Just buy the canvas.”

A little Dickinson in the middle.

Straight up dopamine.

I learn by making the invisible visible.

Want a piece of your own?

The stories are built the same way.

Made by hand.
Improved by getting it wrong.