Recently, the very talented Patience Brewster, has been inviting artists to get involved in Artist Appreciation Month by answering a few questions about themselves as an artist and their work! So here's my little Q&A, I'm a bit of a rambler when I get going so some of these answers ended up quite long!
Don't forget to check out the Patience Brewster website, she's an artist and designer who creates the most beautiful and unusual ornaments and figures! You can check out her website HERE! Don't forget to have a look at her beautiful Christmas ornaments too!
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| Me as an exceptionally cool kid in an exceptionally 90's outfit |
1. As a child, do you recall a significant moment when you felt truly affected or inspired by any particular artwork or artist?
I don't know if there are any specific moments that stand out, but there are a number of things I loved when I was younger that I think really started me on this path of illustration. I've always, for as long as I can remember, watched and loved Disney films! I've been obsessed with them for my entire life and that is still a HUGE influence to me now, I have a growing collection of 'The Art of...' Disney books which are really inspiring. I also adored The Beano and The Dandy comic's when I was little, every Saturday my dad would go to the newsagents and get me a little bar or Galaxy, a box of orange and lime TicTacs and The Beano and Dandy and I'd sit and read them whilst I watched SMTVlive! It was my ritual! I remember for one Christmas or birthday I got a little 'make your own comic' thing and I spent ages coming up with all the characters and stories and I was honestly convinced this little homemade, felt-tip pen comic book was going to be a huge success! As a teenager I became a little interested in Anime because I was obsessed with the Kingdom Hearts franchise and so I pretty much divided my after school and weekend time on either drawing all sorts of fan art and posting on DeviantArt or playing The Sims 2! I've posted a couple of my old (very cringey) pictures from those days below!
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| Kingdom Hearts Fan Art - 2008 |
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| A picture I did in 2009 |
I was big into Tim Burton as a teenager too and based my A-Level final project on his kind of style really. And here are a few images of that project..
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| A-Level Hansel and Gretel Project - 2010 |
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| A-Level Hansel and Gretel Project - 2010 |
I was always convinced I was going to go down the Animation route and initially that's what I was looking at when I was starting to look at universities but when I was looking round..I think it was the University of Lancaster's Art and Design show I saw the Illustration work and decided that that was what I was more drawn to and from that day on I was looking at Illustration courses!
2. As an artist, what do you hope to convey with your work?
I think most of all I want to make people smile. I love pretty things and that's what I really enjoy drawing. I'm quite an easy-going, lighthearted person and I think that comes across in my work. I'm always surprised, when I look at all of my work together, how colourful and bright it all is. It's like looking at a bag of pick'n'mix! I think at the minute I'm at that stage where my work is quite pretty but as I develop I want it to become slightly more magical and mystical and for there to be a hidden story in every image. I think the closest I've got to that feeling so far has been my Little Red illustration, it's definitely the piece I'm proudest of so far and I think it's got such a great atmosphere and depth, that's the standard I want to maintain and eventually exceed!
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| Little Red - 2015 |
3. What memorable responses have you had to your work?
This is a tricky one because I haven't really a huge amount of experience in this. I'm relatively new in the illustration world and I've only really started making my mark this year! I'm always so grateful for any kind of acknowledgement of my work from an audience. I was actually really blown away at an exhibition this year for the Little Red piece that I mentioned earlier. I went to the 'Meet the Artist' evening of the exhibition and some one bought the piece as I was there and I got to meet the family and talk to them a little about the piece and there were a few other people that night that were interested in the piece and I was really sort of surprised at the attention I got! It was really lovely to meet these strangers who loved my work! It's always nice to hear you're doing alright, especially in such a competitive field where it's hard to think you're good enough! So when you do hear things like that it's so encouraging!
4. What is your dream project?
This is an easy peasy question to answer! My absolute dream project would be anything to do with a Disney Princess! Working for Disney has always been such a huge dream of mine and it always will be! Whether I ever get there or not it's always good to have that top thing to aspire to, it's great motivation. Who knows, I'd probably collapse if I ever got the email!
5. What artists, of any medium, do you admire? (Famous or not!)
I've got a couple of artists whose work I'm completely in love with and are a huge inspiration to me at the minute. First of all there's Brittney Lee who I discovered either while I was doing my A-Levels or when I started University, I can't remember exactly when I found her but I was big into creating illustrations from paper and card at one point and I found her while I was researching that and as I've learned more and more about her and seen more of her work I've just admired her more and more! I couldn't tell you one specific thing about her work I like because I literally love everything about it!! This leads me onto Lorelay Bove who I discovered through following Brittney Lee. I love how textured her work is and how expressive it is! And another one of my favourites at the minute is Abigal L. Dela Cruz (or hyamei)! I found her through Twitter and her work is so beautiful! The way she uses colour is just so clever and I wish I had the same kind of knack for colour as she does, it's definitely something I'm trying to improve on and looking at the way she uses it is a big inspiration to me at the minute!
So there you are that is my Q&A! It was really fun doing this and if you have any more questions for me I'm happy to hear them and answer them. If in the future I get enough questions I'll do another blog post to answer them all! In the mean time don't forget to follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Facebook for more regular updates!
Thanks again to Patience for getting me involved! :)
