Style Imitating Art | “Frida Kahlo and Her Pet Deer Granizo” by Katherine Quinn

teal maxi dress, white and green floral kimono robe, thrifted style, preloved fashions, red Panama hat, red cowgirl boots, winter boho outfit, thrifted scarf, thrifted belt, macrame belt, bright floral scarf, Shelbee on the Edge

About Style Imitating Art

Style Imitating Art is hosted by Salazar of 14 Shades of Grey, Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, and Marsha of Marsha in the Middle. Style Imitating Art challenges us to draw style inspiration from pieces of art. Every other Monday, one of the hosts, acting as presenter, selects an inspiration image that they will each post on their blogs. The following Monday, each host shares her art inspired outfit. Participants are invited to submit their art inspired outfits to the presenter by 10:00 p.m. EST on the Tuesday following the hosts’ art inspired outfit posts. The following day, Wednesday, the presenter will share all of the submissions on her blog.

You don’t have to be a blogger to join either! In fact, you don’t even have to join but you can still use the art to inspire an outfit just for the sake of trying something different. If you want to share your inspired outfit, we invite you do so on Instagram or any other social media platform that you prefer. Just be sure to tag Salazar, Shelbee, or Marsha so the hosts know you have joined. Go have some fun in your closets and join the SIA challenge next week!

This Week’s Presenter

It was my turn to choose our inspiration artwork for this round. Since March is International Women’s Month, I wanted to continue Marsha’s trend from our last challenge of choosing a female artist. Actually, I have chosen a female artist 4 out of the last 6 times that I picked the art. So for this one, I chose a female artist’s depiction of another female artist! Yay women, let’s celebrate us!

The Artwork

“Frida Kahlo and Her Pet Deer Granizo” by Katherine Quinn

About the Artist: Katherine Quinn

Katherine Quinn is a contemporary artist and illustrator who lives on a little hill in Pakipaki in the rural countryside of New Zealand with her husband Jono, their cat Rosie, and their two clown fish Luna and Scout. Her love for drawing and creating began at a young age. She was blessed with parents who nurtured her creativity, allowing her to do all the things she wanted as long as she cleaned up after herself!

Katherine enjoys drawing whales, fish, and other marine life which was influenced by her father who was employed by a local Marineland and collected books and photos on marine subjects. For 21 years, Katherine worked at a local college ordering their art supplies until her recent retirement which has allowed her more time to focus on her illustrations and pattern designs from the comfort of her kitchen studio.

For her earlier works, Katherine preferred watercolor pencils. She would then scan her watercolor images into photoshop for a quick clean up. A few years ago she transitioned to Procreate in order to speed up her illustration process. Katherine finds this new method allows her to be more adventurous with her ideas.

For Katherine, repeating patterns feel like magic and color plays a large part in creating a sense of belonging. If you take a scroll through her illustrations and pattern designs, you will very quickly see the magic that she creates. Her artwork can most definitely be described as “fun, quirky, calming, charming, distinctive.”

About the Art: “Frida Kahlo and Her Pet Deer Granizo”

Today’s illustration of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo with her pet deer Granizo was created for the 2020 book, Pets and Their Famous Humans, written by Ana Gallo and illustrated by Katherine Quinn.

This 48 page hardcover book, which measures 8.32 x 0.44 x 10.7 inches, is geared towards readers aged 7-10 (grades 2-5). It provides a collection of charming illustrations combined with pet-related stories about some of history’s most famous scientists, artists, writers, and musicians.

As described on Amazon:

“Did you know that Mozart’s pet starling was the inspiration for his Piano Concerto No. 17? Or that writer Dorothy Parker loved animals so much she let a pair of alligators swim in her bathtub? These are just a couple of the stories in this delightful and surprising collection that profiles the strong bond between humans and their pets. Some of these stories are touching: Frida Kahlo memorialized her pet deer Granizo in her painting The Wounded Deer. Some are a little quirky: Albert Einstein, convinced that his parrot, Bibo, was sad, told bad jokes to cheer the bird up. Each of these wonderfully entertaining stories is made even more appealing by Katherine Quinn’s captivating illustrations. Rich in detail and reminiscent of folk art, they capture the humor and poignancy of these fascinating pairings. Together these stories and illustrations will create lasting impressions that will help young readers identify historic figures and spark joy in friendships with the animals in their own lives.”

Helpful Links:

About My Outfit

This was a really fun outfit to create. At first, I hated the base layer. But once I had it all together, I really kind of loved the whole mismatched look.

My initial inclination was to style my bright green floral kimono robe with the bird pattern to reflect the green floral background of the illustration. But I have previously styled that green kimono for three other Style Imitating Art challenges…here, here, and here…so I decided to focus instead on Frida’s outfit in the illustration. She is wearing a teal dress with an orange leaf print jacket, a short red beaded necklace, and a red and white floral head band.

I created the base layer of my outfit using the three main colors of Frida’s outfit…teal, orange, and red. I layered a bright orange long sleeve tee shirt underneath a sleeveless teal maxi dress and wore a tan thrifted belt that is close to the color of my tee shirt. Next I added lots of red bits with a short red beaded necklace, my red Panama hat, and my red cowgirl boots. I absolutely hated this combination until I added my white floral kimono robe with the rich green trim.

As a final thought, I added a newly thrifted scarf in a bright floral pattern to tie together some of the mismatched colors in my outfit. And to represent Miss Frida’s deer, I wore a pair of thrifted wooden earrings with leopard spots which are very similar to the spots on Granizo’s back!

This challenge is yet another example of how pairing together unlikely things can result in something really unique and colorful and totally in my style wheelhouse!

Most of the snow melted over the warm and rainy weekend, but my fight with the wind was a real struggle! As quick as the snow has disappeared, it is coming back just as quickly later this week. My sources indicate 2-3 inches of snow on Friday, 2-4 inches of snow on Saturday, and another 4-5 inches of snow on Sunday with high temperatures settling around 23˚F (-5˚C) to ensure that it will not melt this time. Ugh. I am so ready for spring.

I hope you have enjoyed this round of Style Imitating Art. If you want to play along and create your own outfit inspired by this colorful illustration, I will feature you in my gallery post on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. Just be sure to submit your photos to me at shelbeeontheedge@gmail.com by 10:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, March 10, 2026. In the meantime, be sure to check out Salazar’s interpretation as well as Marsha’s take on it.