Artists interview: The Strumpet
Posted by Melanie Maddison on Wed Oct 26, 09:32 PM
Cover of The Strumpet by Ellen Lindner
The Strumpet is a new comic anthology from the ladies behind the Whores Of Mensa comics (which were published in the UK between 2004-2010). The Strumpet brings together a brilliant team of female comics artists from the UK and USA, to produce a transatlantic collaborative publication containing eclectic illustrative and comics styles and techniques, and unique stories around the theme of ‘Dress-Up’.
With Ellen Lindner (UK) and Jeremy Day (UK) at the helm as co-editors, The Strumpet is due to have contributions (amongst others) from Mardou (USA), Megan Kelso (USA), Lisa Rosalie Eisenberg (USA), Kripa Joshi (UK), Patrice Aggs (UK), and Tanya Meditzky (UK).
I spoke to these eight women about The Strumpet, their involvement in this first issue, women in comics, and about the Kickstarter campaign that is running to fund the publication of the first issue through a process of pre-ordering.
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Ellen, What prompted the move to relaunch Whore Of Mensa as ‘The Strumpet’, and how do the two projects differ?
Ellen: There are two main motivations behind the relaunch of the Strumpet. One is that our mission had changed – instead of publishing three artists on a regular basis, we’d decided to move towards a rotating cast, around the three original stalwarts. We thought this new approach warranted a new identity. Second, we’d had some trouble because part of our old name, Whores of Mensa, is a trademarked term. We wanted to be able to grow without worrying about that.
Where does the title ‘The Strumpet’ come from, and is it just a title, or does it dictate the theme of contributions to the comic?
Ellen: The Strumpet came from discussions we had as a group. The acting Whores of Mensa – that would be Mardou, Jeremy Day and I – wanted a name that connoted the same kind of free spirit and sass as Whores of Mensa (WoM), but that had less of a hard edge to it. We also liked the idea of having an avatar of sorts, a figure that embodied the lady-friendly ideals of our comic.
The Strumpet is a cross-Atlantic project, where do you currently call home?
Ellen: At the moment I live in London but I’m moving to New York. The Strumpet will be a wholly transatlantic entity – I’m hoping I can bring some cool Americans to the Strumpet’s banquet, while gaining a new audience for the UK cartoonists I’ve come to know and love. Hopefully it means we can promote the comic simultaneously in both places.
Patrice: England, though I continue to call myself an American
Mardou: St Louis, Missouri though I’m originally from Manchester, England. I married the American cartoonist Ted May, so hot love and comics bought me here.
Megan: Seattle, Washington.
Jeremy: Home is Oxford, in the UK, where I live with my husband, cats and haphazard garden. It’s a lovely city, especially at this time of year, when it’s filling up with new incomers, students and hopefuls. It reminds me of the first time I came here.
Tanya: London, England
Lisa: I currently live in Portland, Oregon, US.
Kripa: I was born and raised in Nepal, pursued my BFA in India (where I met my husband), then lived in New York for three years while I completed my MFA and now I have been in the UK for three years… so home has been always changing. I guess I have to call UK home right now… it is where I reside… but Nepal will always be home as long as my family is there.
Patrice Aggs
How did you become involved in The Strumpet?
Patrice: Through the indefatigable Ellen Lindner. I’m in awe of her.
Tanya: Ellen Lindner invited me to contribute.
Megan: Ellen, who is an old friend and comrade of mine from New York invited me to participate.
Kripa: Through the great Ellen Lindner! I met her a couple of times during various events and when I saw the Whores of Mensa anthology, I mentioned that I would like to be a part of it. She is a very welcoming and generous person.
Lisa: I was tabling at the 2011 Stumptown Comics Fest here in Portland, which is where I met our Fearless Leader of Strumpets Ellen Lindner and her husband Stephen. The three of us got to talking outside the awards ceremony on the first night of the Fest, and the next day we visited one another’s tables. I got her book “Undertow” and she and Stephen picked up the third issue of my comic “I Cut My Hair.” In August Ellen wrote and asked me if I’d be interested in contributing to The Strumpet, and I quickly took her up on the offer.
Mardou and Jeremy, you were original members of the group that created Whores Of Mensa (alongside Lucy Sweet). What are your thoughts on the direction that the idea has now taken with the publication of The Strumpet?
Mardou: My original idea was to base WoM on the comic ‘Triple Dare’, who was in that? Tom Hart, James Kochalka, Jon Lewis. I like that they each had 10 pages, so many anthologies around that time contained so many artists with just one or two page strips, they were a little dizzying. Having just myself, Lucy Sweet and Jeremy Day (nee Dennis) gave us a bit more room and we sort of juxtaposed our different styles around a common theme and created something a bit different. I’m still very proud and fond of it. Ellen joining us for the second issue was a dream and as I’ve stepped back from it, to focus on having a kid and working on a graphic novel, Ellen’s surged ahead. I think she’s created something more expansive but it still has that quality which sets it apart. Chic and slightly dirty-minded. Just like Ellen.
Jeremy: If Whores of Mensa was Mardou’s brainchild, The Strumpet is Ellen’s; it’s a fantastic idea and I support it fully, but I’m not the best person to talk direction. Ellen’s in the driving seat for this one; I’m in the engine room, spinning dials.
What is your own personal history in making comics? How did you get started, and what sort of things have you created over the years?
Patrice: My first ‘comic’ was illustrating the hybrid graphic novel by Philip Pullman, Count Karlstein. Although I’ve contributed short pieces to anthologies and periodicals, my work in comics has mainly been by stealth; whenever I’m asked to do a children’s book, I manage to slip in at least one illustration that includes a speech balloon!
Mardou: I started drawing a Tank Girl rip-off when I was 17 but didn’t get too far. A few years later, in my last year of college I discovered Dan Clowes and Peter Bagge’s comics. Dan Clowes had this line in an Eightball comic something like ‘there are beautiful, 22 year old women who would rather read than watch television’, and I loved that and I was 22 at the time, so I sent him my very first comic and he wrote back saying ‘do more comics’. So I did, just kept putting out little books. I did a series called ‘Stiro’ with my friend Fortenski, he wrote it, I drew it, then I did a solo book called ‘Manhole’ which got some Arts Council funding. And with those books I started going to comics shows where I met Lucy and Jeremy and we started ‘Whores of Mensa’. I’m now working on a graphic novel called the ‘Sky in Stereo’, which I’m serializing as a mini-comic.
Tanya: In 2002 I was laid up in bed for weeks, I had at the time been trying to work with various people on creative projects, which led nowhere, never came to fruition, etc, so I just started drawing ‘milkkitten’, to entertain myself. The comic world was completely unknown to me, so when Mark from Page 45 [British comic book store] ordered a batch from me at a festival, it encouraged me to think of it as a real ‘comic’ and to continue.
Kripa: I started making comics while I was doing my MFA in Illustration at the School of Visual Arts (in New York) as a Fulbright scholar…. so I started quite late! As a part of the course we had to study the History of Comics. I had never thought about making comics before that. I was always interested in story telling, even as a child, but had never ventured into comics. In New York I came to understand the scope of comics and graphic novels… and that it was not just about superheroes. For my thesis I created a character called Miss Moti and made two comics about her called ‘Miss Moti and Cotton Candy’ and ‘Miss Moti and the Big Apple’. I drew inspiration from Little Nemo (by Windsor McCay) and the style of Chris Ware. Since then I have done several Miss Moti comics for anthologies like Rabid Rabbit and Secret Identities (Asian American Superhero Anthology). I have also created illustrations and comics for magazines and NGOs based in South Asia.
Jeremy: Like many comics types, I started at school, passing around sarcastic one-panel cartoons drawn in my ancient history workbook during class. When I went up to Oxford in 1989, I found the Comic Book club there (founded by Jenni Scott) and spent the next few years in a dizzy whirl of study by day and comics by night. These were exciting years for the small press; desk top publishing, scanners and printers becoming consumer items and then the internet, like a finally-delivered promise. During all this time I was self-publishing, usually solo comics, but occasionally in the women’s anthologies of the time like Erica Smith’s ‘Girlfrenzy’ or Carol Bennett’s ‘Fanny and Dykes Delight’. My comics were typically short-run mini-comics. Later I moved onto the internet, publishing my first comics online in 1999.
Ellen: I got interested in making comics while in secondary school, and after a few false starts actually succeeded in making some at university. I was also lucky enough to go to school in a town with its own comics museum, which was very inspiring (if worrying – Jaime Hernandez’s original art really mystified me, the man never made any mistakes!) My comics ambitions developed further when I went to France as a student – all of a sudden I was in a place where public libraries, bookshops, any place where printed media was sold pushed comics. Cartoonists were like rock stars there, cool guys and girls making wonderful stories on paper. I won a travel grant to extend my stay, a huge privilege – I spent the time it afforded me starting to do an adaptation of Christine de Pizan’s proto-feminist classic, ‘The Book of The City of Ladies’. In terms of making comics, I didn’t ‘get’ all of the processes right away – and I certainly had no idea about how long comics take, or how to develop my skills in an efficient manner. But I stuck with it. After Uni I met a lot of really great cartoonists – I’d moved to New York by then. At every stage I got little crumbs of encouragement that I took to heart, and they gave me the courage to continue. It’s taken a while but I’m now starting to make comics I’m happy with. I’ve done everything from educational comics on the Mayan ballgame to strips for ad agencies and video game companies – not to mention my own personal projects and contributions to great collectives like The Comix Reader.
Lisa: The earliest comic I remember making was at age 9. I drew a comic about a superhero named Super Chicken who fights the evil Colonel Sanders and wins. Throughout high school I made a number of bad attempts at Robert Crumb-style autobiographical comics pieces, but I didn’t start to seriously and consistently make and publish comics until I moved out to Portland five years ago. I have loved to draw as long as I can remember, in high school I got into writing, and though I had read comics my whole life I started to read a whole lot more in college. Although I was enjoying the art classes I was taking in college, comics inspired me much more. It seemed like the ideal way for me to draw in the style I wanted, and to tell the stories I wanted to tell. Indirectly, animated cartoons and children’s books led me to comics as well—the character design and energy of the cartoons; the text/drawing combination of children’s books. I moved to Portland knowing that there were a lot of cartoonists who lived here and thinking it would be a good place to get started, but I couldn’t begin to imagine how supportive the community would be. Part of that is the self-publishing/zine culture here: there are zine sections in all the libraries and plenty of book and comics shops that carry self-published material. That gave me a clear path to getting my work out there. I started drawing comics and self-publishing them through the Independent Publishing Resource Center, a non-profit workspace that has photocopiers, supplies, a letterpress, computers…plenty of tools to help you make something. I brought them to stores like Reading Frenzy and Powells, and sold them at shows like Stumptown Comics Fest and the Portland Zine Symposium, eventually travelling to farther-away comics shows in other cities. I met a lot more cartoonists at these shows, at gallery openings, and at drawing nights, and we exchanged work with each other. Through the cartoonists and small-press folks I met I got some of my first opportunities to be published by others, and to do some readings and presentations of my work. As for my work, I got started with autobio. “I Cut My Hair” began as a daily journal comic series, but the most recent issue is one longer story about cross-continental travel. Lately I’ve been working more on some fiction stories (aka thinly veiled autobio!), many of which star this little monster character who lives in a world of little monsters, which are really just stand-ins for people. He is the central character in my story for The Strumpet. This story is also one of a few pieces I’ve done with cats as characters, despite my distaste for them in real life.
< CLICK HERE to read their whole interview! >
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Artist interview: Caroline Paquita
Posted by Melanie Maddison on Thu Aug 11, 09:35 PM
Brooklyn, New York–based artist, Caroline Paquita, is the DIY-spirited artist behind the zine, ‘Womanimalistic’ and the yearly Paquita Calendar (which Pikaland featured in our rundown of the best 2011 calendars).
Her accessible lo-fi visual work is regularly produced with her own Risograph printer, lending it a distinctive and characteristic appearance and impression.
Caroline’s work takes much inspiration from nature and our environment, and her daily life and lifestyle feature heavily in her artistic practice. Her work helps create visual reminders for keeping motivation and everyday actions afloat. It aims to foster an environment and a positive space where the imagination and one’s intuition are actively encouraged, and where people can feel empowered via real objects, such as zines, prints and other tangible art.
Caroline is currently raising funds for her latest venture, Pegacorn Press, via an Indie GoGo funding drive. More details of this art publishing house (alongside a really great video showing Caroline’s art and printing processes [plus her chickens!]), can be found here.
Website: www.carolinepaquita.com
Blog: carolinepaquita.blogspot.com
Etsy shop | Pegacorn Press
Hi Caroline, how are you? Could you tell Pikaland readers a little bit about yourself and your art work?
Hello Melanie! Hello Pikaland! I’m doing great because I love summer a ton and this one in particular has been pretty amazing!
In regards to myself and what I do? First and foremost, I’m an interdisciplinary artist, who has dabbles in music here and there when the spirit takes me. The two meld together when I’m in bands and do artwork for fliers, records and whatnot, but predominantly, I’m more inclined to say that visual art is where my heart and soul really reside. Though I’ve done everything from drawing, painting, printmaking, photo, video and sewing- my mainstays this past year have been working on drawings for my zine, sketching up new paintings to work on this winter and learning animation.
What are you currently working on?
A couple projects that are on the table right now are: working on the yearly calendar that I have drawn and printed myself for the past two years, developing new comics and also putting together Pegacorn Press. The Press has been a project long in the making and something that I’m extremely excited about and like a mother, feel very proud of. It’s a small, queer, feminist, total-art-freaker publishing house that will specialize in small-run art books, comics and zines. The calendar, as well as a comic compilation (that will feature roughly ten different artists), is scheduled to be released this fall. All that being said, there is a ton of work to do in the meantime!
What is your artistic history, have you always drawn from a young age, did you go to art school? How did you first become interested in art, get started in making and creating art/embracing your creativity, and realise that it was something you would like to pursue?
As long as I can remember, I’ve always created objects, drawn, and been engaged in some sort of artistic practice/process. It’s something that keeps me alive and refreshed as a person. My childhood in Miami was spent in special public school programs for “artistic” children and I feel fortunate that I was encouraged to develop my skills at such an early age. My mom, grandma, and great-grandma all were/are crafters/artists to some degree and to have a lot of supplies around the house, wear clothes that someone in your family actually made, and in general, have evidence of handmade things all around our house definitely instilled the DIY attitude in me by an early age.
I have a BFA in Creative Photography, with a minor in Art History. While I was in college, besides the photography, I worked on a lot of printmaking, comics, zines and played in a band that toured here and there. I travelled around the country fairly often and began to meet more and more folks who were artists/makers. It became more obvious to me that it was okay to live a more “unconventional” lifestyle (AKA, I could live however I wanted- I could create my own destiny!) and I’ve been working on setting that up for myself ever since.
I’ve always known that I’d be an artist (in my mind, I’ve always identified as one), but it’s most definitely, a difficult thing to try to make an income from. While the money from art comes in periodically, at some point soon, I’d like to attend a graduate program so that I’m qualified to teach on a college level. I’ve had so many truly amazing teachers in my life, that I honestly grew up thinking that all artists were teachers. Obviously, that isn’t the case, but hopefully it will be for me. I thrive off working with others, creating together and love to help problem solve. Without a doubt, I’d still work on my own practice!
“CLICK HERE”: to read the rest of Caroline’s inspiring interview!
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Artist Interview: Summer Pierre
Posted by Melanie Maddison on Thu May 26, 09:45 PM
Summer Pierre (Brooklyn, NY, USA) is a talented artist and illustrator (plus writer and musician to boot – Her creative energy makes me dizzy!)
I am so thrilled to be able to share this interview with Pikaland readers as Summer has a great deal of goodness to share both within her art itself, and through her eloquent and moving responses to the interview questions.
If ever you needed somebody to give you a push in the right direction, I think Summer’s your lady!
Website: www.summerpierre.com
Blog: summerpierre.wordpress.com
Etsy | Flickr
Hi Summer, how are you? Could you tell us a little about yourself and your art/illustration work? Are you working on anything at the moment that you could tell us about?
I am an artist, writer, and musician, although right now I am doing way more art and writing than music. I am the author and creator of two books, The Artist in the Office: How to Creatively Survive and Thrive Seven Days a Week and Great Gals: Inspired Ideas for Living a Kick-Ass Life. My hobbies are yearning and soul searching.
I am currently working on several illustration projects and a bigger life project I call 100 Things in 2011, where I am trying to do as many items as possible from a list of 100 things I want to do/experience in 2011.
I thought I’d begin by asking, since inspiration and ‘the everyday’ seem to me to be a huge part of your work; what is your art/work space like, and what images or objects keep you company on the walls/surfaces?
I used to have a narrow studio in our apartment, but then my son came along and now his crib is where my desk used to be. So now I have a corner of our bedroom where my desk, which is an old door on filing cabinets fits perfectly. I have a clothesline of pictures and objects that hang above it—including a sign I made for myself that says SUMMER PIERRE HEADQUARTERS. I have old photos, my own prints hanging, and I collect vintage looking food packaging and surround myself with it.
How do your surroundings/environment, and your attention to the details of them, affect your art and creativity?
How do they NOT affect my creativity? My home life, as in my apartment, is pretty colourful and lively and I love that it feels like an ever-evolving extension of my creativity. Where I live in Brooklyn is really becoming more and more a part of my visual language—I love the many cultures and how it shapes even what our grocery store is stocked with. I love the different streets and the architecture. I have always been a very visual person—and this can be wonderful and stimulating as much as it can be overwhelming and exhausting. Right now, it feels wonderful.
CLICK HERE to read Summer’s entire interview with Melanie!
Comments [6]
Artist interview: Sara Guindon
Posted by Melanie Maddison on Thu Mar 31, 10:00 PM
Sara Guindon (USA) is an amazing illustrator, animator, paper-puppet maker, and one half of the creative duo Pin Pals (alongside Samantha Purdy).
Blog: missguindon.blogspot.com
Website: saraguindon.com
Pinpals Blog: thepinpals.typepad.com/
Shop: etsy.com/shop/thepinpals
Hi Sara, how are you? What are you up to at the moment?
Hey! I’m doing well. I’m typing my answers in a really good neighbourhood coffee shop. At home I’m working on some rough illustrations for a children’s book about a loon.
How did you first get started in art, is it something that you’ve always been interested in and excelled at?
When I was little I used to sit outside my mom’s aerobic classes at the Y with a big shoe box of markers and lose myself doodling. I was always a big daydreamer and liked to make up stories and draw them out. My mother draws and encouraged me from a young age so it’s always been something I was interested in.
How long have you been creating art, embracing your creativity, and working towards developing your current style and output?
Throughout art school I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with myself. I stopped drawing all together and became more interested in contemporary art and design. In my last year I started drawing more and that is probably when I really started drawing the way I do now, in around 2004.
Your current exhibition, Nightcap, is soon to come to a close at the Assemble Gallery in Seattle. The show pieces looked so great! How has the exhibition been?
Nightcap was a lot of fun! I really wish that I could have gone to Seattle for the opening. It was exciting to show my work so far away in the USA and the ladies at Assemble are the bee’s knees.
I read that a lot of the ‘Nightcap’ exhibited work is ‘a collection of collaged drawings depicting loners, drifters & night owls experiencing silent intimacy with one another or with the artificially lit world that surrounds them’, and I got to thinking, does such work mimic the life of you as an artist? Is art creation for you a process of solitary or lonely pursuit?
Around the time of my show at Assemble I was going through a particularly lonely time. We had just moved to Denver and we were adjusting to a new city where we didn’t know a soul. I was feeling displaced and especially shy. On top of that, I went from working in a studio with others to working from home. That circumstance may have contributed to my description of the show. A lot of the settings and imagery I use are from my past. The first memories that come to mind right now are a lot of waiting around in donut shops and bus stations when I was younger. I like those places where you can be surrounded by people and still be alone, I find it really comforting. I guess you can apply that thought to most situations in life but certain places bring that feeling out for me more than others.
CLICK HERE to read the entire interview!
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Artist interview: Kristyna Baczynski
Posted by Melanie Maddison on Thu Mar 10, 09:09 PM
Kristyna Baczynski (Leeds, UK) is an illustrator and creator of small-press sequential art projects; drawing, screenprinting and animating creatures, cartoons and comics. I’m lucky enough to live in the same city as her and have been able to see first-hand a lot of her crazy-talented work.
Kristyna is a firm believer in her tried-and-tested technique of listening to Chromeo and/or Kiss on headphones and taping pens to her hands in order to banish creative blocks – thank goodness, as she’s got a lot of talent to let loose from those hands!
She’s is currently exhibiting work at the group show, Over Them Hills at Common (Manchester, UK) until May 12th 2011.
Blog: kriskicorp.blogspot.com
Etsy: www.etsy.com/shop/kriski
Hey Kristyna, how are you? Are you currently working on anything you could tell Pikaland readers about? I get the feeling you have lots on your plate and up your sleeve at any one time?
Yes, currently working on a jumble of projects (your hunch was right). I’ve been painting the walls at Common in Manchester (UK) this week for an exhibition called Over Them Hills which runs until May 12th. It’s a really talented group of Leeds (UK) artists involved; Matt Saunders/Rabbit Portal, Fon/The Pern and Lord Whitney. I am also contributing to a few more comics collections/anthologies and will have a comic strip out globally on Free Comic Book Day – but can’t really say any more than that. I also just opened my Etsy store this month, too.
What was your favourite project that you worked on last year? (You seemed so busy, productive and prolific in 2010)
The whole year just ramped up in activity as it went on, a little art shuttle rocketing off into the unknown. So much came my way; incredible people and projects.
I’ll have to make this selection more than one, though. Indecision is a terrible affliction. My favourites would certainly be contributing to Issues 2 and 3 of Solipsistic Pop and my debut solo show From Pictures To Houses. Being asked to speak on the Self Publishing Masterclass panel at Thought Bubble was just magical, too.
What is your artistic history? How did you get started, and how long have you been creating art, embracing your creativity, and working towards developing your current style and output?
From building toys and scribbling in colouring books as a little girl, to reading comics and painting terribly as a teenager, drawing and making have always been things that I loved to do. It may have all started with the Crayola carrycase my mum got me when I was 7. But, continuing to make habitually through to adulthood means I’ve kept exploring pictures and found my own process.
I started taking illustration more seriously after I decided not to follow my original plans for a further education in BioChemistry (The UCAS form was filled, clutched awkwardly in my ink-stained, sweaty palms) and jumped ship to set sail for creative shores.
Through University I worked hard and developed my addiction to productivity, then after graduating I’ve worked harder and harder to keep improving.
Why do you create? What is it about being creative that makes it something important for you to do?
Creating is an absolute necessity. It makes me happier and more satisfied than anything else. It’s an addictive cycle of learning and achieving, criticising and improving. Being creative may well be a learning process, but you should never stop learning. There is an infinity of knowledge and information to discover about the world.
I’m often overwhelmed by how much I will never see, but by equal measure remain perpetually fascinated. Being creative can translate this wonder into something very personal and unique to you and means you can be continually engaged with the world by interpreting it into something completely new.
How easily did learning to draw well come to you? I recently read a theory that says no one is born able to draw well but that some people just pick it up quicker than others, and run with it.
I’m sure this theory is absolutely true. Most people use pens to communicate through writing every day. Drawing is an extension of that communication. A pen nib migrating to the page margins for a quick doodle – This is just the start!
A lot of people discourage themselves by being too judgmental of what they think ‘drawn well’ looks like. Just change the standards by which you measure this. You don’t have to be able to draw a photo-realistic still life to make beautiful pictures. Someone like Jeffrey Brown, who has a loose, immediate drawing style, still makes compelling images that tell funny, moving stories. His style isn’t technically challenging – simply black pen on paper – but he achieves perfectly wonderful pages of drawn comics.
Don’t be put off by expectations and keep drawing every day.
CLICK HERE to read the entire interview!
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Devon Smith
Posted by Melanie Maddison on Wed Feb 23, 09:10 PM
Devon Smith, hailing from Wellington, New Zealand is a fine artist and illustrator, who draws and paints the most delicately beautiful and enchanting work I’ve seen in a while. It was a real pleasure to be in touch with her to learn more about her and her work.
Website: www.devonsmith.co.nz
Blog: deerface.blogspot.com
Etsy: www.etsy.com/shop/deerface
Flickr | Facebook
Hi Devon, how are you? Could you tell us a little about yourself?
I am a little cold right now, it started raining on my way home so my socks got a little damp. I am a girl (despite my name) and I am 24 years old. I live in the capital city of New Zealand and paint and draw a lot.
What are you currently working on?
At the moment I’m working on a series of paintings about hypochondria. So far I’ve painted spider veins, rabies, gingivitis, and various fungal infections. Basically things I worry about getting. It’s all a bit gross, but surprisingly cathartic.
Has art always had a place in your life?
Always always. I was lucky enough growing up to have parents that pretty much let me make as much mess in the pursuit of creativity as I wanted. Before I started school nearly every day I would pack a backpack full of drawing supplies and go on little expeditions to draw in the trees and on the beach by my house.
How did you first get started in art, is it something that you’ve always been interested in and excelled at?
I’ve always been interested, but certainly never excelled. Art was actually my worst subject throughout high school, and at best I was a mediocre student at Art School. I think most importantly I’ve always enjoyed drawing, and this beat out against discouraging low marks in school.
How long have you been creating art, embracing your creativity, and working towards developing your current style and output?
Again, always. I think I started developing my current style towards the end of my teen years. I kept pushing myself to draw in an original style, but it took relaxing about it somewhat for anything to actually come out. It certainly changed a lot throughout my time at Art School, and I like to think it is always changing at least a little bit.
Your work regularly focuses on girls, and I once read you describe your work as: ‘I create imaginary worlds full of dreamy girls and their animal familiars.’
What is it about these female subjects that leads you to illustrate them over and over again?
It is hard to say exactly why I paint and draw what I do. I never sit down with plans in mind, I very rarely use reference images (and if so, it’s usually after I’ve roughed out a drawing), I just start drawing and see what comes out. I think because I am female I place a little bit of myself in all the characters I illustrate. That’s not to say they look anything like me, but I guess they are the sort of girls I aspire to be. They are always strong ladies leading interesting lives, and are a bit of an escape if I am feeling low about something or obsessing over my own character flaws.
What stages, from start-to-finish does a piece of your work go through, and over what time frame?
It usually starts with a little scribble or sketch. I keep a little notebook tucked in my back pocket at work and draw in this throughout the day. It might start with a face I like, or be a thumbnail of a whole painting, but it’s where things begin. This then travels to my studio where I’ll start drawing it out with an HB pencil on nice watercolour paper. Sometimes I’ll rough things out on scrap paper first, to save my good paper from the inevitable over-erasing that goes on. Then I outline figures and important things with an H pencil, then spray that with workable fixative so it doesn’t smudge when I get it wet. Then a layer of red mechanical pencil details, then blue. Next is paint, and I just build that up, usually over a few days until I’m happy with it.
It’s hard to say exactly how long things take, as I’ll generally get the bulk of a painting done in one day, but will keep returning to it for the next few weeks to refine things.
CLICK HERE to read the entire interview!
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Artist interview: Lilly Piri
Posted by Melanie Maddison on Thu Nov 11, 11:00 PM
Lilly Piri is a 25-year-old Australian illustrator/artist, who currently lives in Germany. Her art has a divine softness to it that draws me into her beautiful worlds again and again.
Website: www.littlegalaxie.com
Blog: lillypiri.blogspot.com
Web store: www.littlegalaxie.com/store.html
Etsy: www.etsy.com/shop/lillypiri
Facebook: The Lilly Piri Facebook Page
Could you tell us a little about what you are working on at the moment?
At the moment, I’m working on some pieces for upcoming group shows, things for my etsy shop, and personal work involving acrylics and oils.
How did you first get started in art, is it something that you’ve always been interested in and excelled at?
How long have you been creating art, embracing your creativity, and working towards developing your current style and output (a style that, I must say, is unmistakably yours)?
Well, drawing was something that I especially enjoyed doing. One early memory is, we were on holiday, and I was sitting with my watercolours and painting a seagull from life. I also drew countless horses from horse magazines growing up, I think this served as part of a solid drawing foundation. So, I know everybody says this, but I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. Everybody draws in school, some people just keep drawing once school is over. Life drawing in art school also really opened my eyes. There’s drawing, and then once you learn life drawing, it’s like you can see things on the page in 3 dimensions. Life drawing really changed my way of seeing.
How did you gain the confidence to make art your career?
I wouldn’t say I gained the confidence to do it, I just did it. I tried to promote and put my work out there, and it just fell into place after that. The Internet has made it really easy for creative people to show their work, and it played a huge role in getting me started.
Why do you create? What is it about being creative that makes it something important for you to do?
It sounds weird, but it helps me stay sane. I feel very restless if I haven’t had time to make something. It’s like most people have something they do as an outlet, or to relax, or just something that makes them happy. Sometimes, I get an idea for a drawing, and I just have to make it.
Where did your interest in soft, delicate, subtle imagery come from, and how has your art developed over the years to incorporate it?
This started because, colour pencils are just so time consuming. If you want a smooth colour, you have to really work at it with many, many layers. On the earlier ones, I would be making the fourth layer of colour and think ‘you know, this looks cool just like that’. It’s like how sometimes an artist prefers the sketch to the finished piece. It’s also sort of like a whisper this way.
A lot of your work is incredibly, beautifully detailed. A lot of this attentive detail occurs in small-scale images. Do you have a love for small, intricate things?
Yes, I absolutely love small things and have a nice little collection. I also love small boxes. It just goes back to childhood: my parents had a collection of super small toys and collector items that I wasn’t supposed to play with, but I did, anyway. Now, I’m grown up, and can have my own. Hurrah!
The careful, intricate detail in much of your work would suggest an eye for detail, and possible perfectionism.
What is your view of perfectionism in art, and more specifically in your own art work?
Well, I think everything has its place in the scheme of things, but perfectionism can become a real block. Personally, I have to be careful so that I don’t let the perfectionist take over, because then I would never, ever finish anything.
…. CLICK HERE to read the entire interview!
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Artist interview: Lauren Carney
Posted by Melanie Maddison on Fri Oct 22, 12:37 AM
Lauren Carney is an amazingly friendly artist, illustrator and crafter from Brisbane, Australia who constantly made me giggle while we were setting this interview up!
Lauren is exhibiting in the Samhain Art Exhibition (29 October – 2 November 2010) at White Canvas Gallery, Queensland.
Website: www.laurencarneyart.com
Blog: www.laurencarneyart.blogspot.com/
Etsy: www.etsy.com/shop/dizzylittledotty
Facebook | DeviantART
How are you? What are you working on at the moment?
I’m really well, thanks for asking! I’ve been quite a busy little bee over the past few weeks! I’ve got a group exhibition coming up next week, so I’ve been trying to finish off some large water-colour pieces for that! Then the weekend after I have the Finder Keepers Spring Markets on, where I will be selling my wares and meeting very lovely art folk! Crazy right?
How would you describe your art?
The content of my work is whimsical and curious. Romanticism plays a large underlying theme and I think that is portrayed by the fanciful characters within each illustration. My artwork touches on a variety of mediums, mostly traditional mixed with digital illustration. The linework is messy but heavily detailed, the colours are bright, and the subject matter is a quirky!
A lot of the characters in your work are very cartoon looking (a good thing!), are you a fan of comics?
I’ve never been that into comics, but always wish that I had been! I was never really able to get my hands on them as a kid, because I grew up in a small town with a shortage of cool comic books in general. However I did have a huge cartoon fixation from my younger years, and that has stuck with me to adulthood! So I think that has a strong influence over me to this day!
What puts you in the best mood for drawing?
Well I have a confession, just of late I’ve been watching Coraline and Fantastic Mr Fox each day to get me through my creative block! I’m pretty sure I watched Coraline fifteen times last week – I’m a little bit addicted. But hey, I churned out eleven paintings that week, so it must have worked? But apart from obsessive movie watching, I generally sit down with a cup of tea in the morning, and look over my favourite blogs, with some Neutral Milk Hotel playing in the background. Then I’m good to go!
What materials do you most often/ most enjoy working with?
Moleskin Art Diary, A 0.005 Art-line Pen, Watercolour paints and different textured papers.
CLICK HERE to read the entire interview with Lauren!
Comments [3]
Artist interview: Lilli Carré
Posted by Melanie Maddison on Sat Sep 11, 12:36 AM
Cartoonist and animator, Lilli Carré (Chicago USA) is the writer and illustrator of the books Nine Ways to Disappear, The Lagoon, and Tales of Woodsman Pete, and has contributed comics strips to anthologies such as MOME. Lilli also creates the most wonderful moving drawings. I love the way her mind operates, and the amazing illustrated work it creates!
{interviewed by Melanie Maddison}
Website: www.lillicarre.com
Blog: www.lillicarre.blogspot.com
Animations: On Vimeo
You were recently in Sweden for the Small Press Expo in Stockholm – how was the trip, and how was the expo?
It was really fun! I was glad I was able to make the trip, because the volcano in Iceland prohibited a fair amount of people from being able to fly into Sweden for the expo, but I was able to get there after zigzag bus trip from Oslo. I enjoyed exploring Sweden, and the comics show itself was great. There was a lot of great self-published work and many more international publishers and creators than I get to see at shows in the US. I was exposed to a much larger range of styles and formats than I I’ve seen before, it really got my juices flowing to see and talk to these other creators. It was interesting to notice differences such as how many comics from Sweden were completed purely in pencil rather than pen, and some of the different inventive binding techniques and storytelling styles and things like that.
What links does your illustration and comics work hold to that independent/DIY culture and community of alternative press and self-publishing?
I think of myself primarily as a cartoonist and an animator. I started making comics by printing them at school and self-publishing short stories and collections of my comics work and trading them and putting them out in stores and mailing them to a few people. I still try to self-publish, and I love to seek out and stumble upon other self-published work that excites me. There’s something very unique about ideas going directly from one person’s head and hands straight to paper with nothing else to taint it. That’s what I enjoy about experimental animation as well, that it feels like you get to be inside someone else’s head with nothing to interfere.
You debuted some new silk-screened books in Sweden that you’d bound yourself. I hear that this project was a result of your residency at Spudnik Press.
Could you tell me more about how you’ve been getting on with bookbinding, and how/why you got into making your own editions of books in this way?
I wanted to experiment more with screenprinting and playing with the overlapping of different transparent colors, so I decided to work on a small batch of stories that I could draw in a more graphic style, allowing me to play with these techniques. Like I mentioned above, I wanted to make a little batch of handmade hardcover books because I myself love the feeling of holding a handmade object in my hands that has some straight from someone’s head and hands and is completely unique, so I wanted to make something like that and experiment in the process. I had never really bound hardcover books before, so making 45 of them really pounded it in. I’d like to make more small editions of books this way.
How has your time at Spudnik been for you? How important to you has being there been, in terms of being a part of and receiving-and-contributing to: creative community, collective working, and skills sharing?
Working at the print shop for 3 months was a really good experience. Especially in contrast to how I usually work on projects, which is holed up in my work room in my apartment, staring at blank pieces of paper! Having to be at Spudnik for a certain amount of time each week was very helpful. It made me print and pull ideas out of my head that otherwise I might not be as active about working on. It was also really fun and helpful to be around the other regular printers in the shop, witnessing how they worked, what they were working on, and having good company while doing an otherwise pretty labor-intensive project.
CLICK HERE to read the entire interview!
Comments [1]
Artist interview: Laura McKellar
Posted by Melanie Maddison on Wed Aug 25, 11:34 PM
This week’s interview is with Laura McKellar, an artist living in Melbourne who has an amazing series of work – digital prints on fabric, which she then hand-embroiders. There’s more to this crafty lady than meets the eye, so read more about her in this interview with Melanie Maddison, our chief interviewer on Pikaland!
Website: lauramckellar.com
Blog: lauramckellar.blogspot.com/
Online Shop: www.lauramckellar.bigcartel.com/
Zine: iloveokay.com/
Zine blog: www.iloveokay.blogspot.com/
Etsy: etsy.com/shop/sirseven
Hi Laura, could you tell us a little about yourself, and what are you currently working on?
I am a freelance graphic designer living in Melbourne, Australia. I’m currently working on artwork for exhibitions, album artwork, illustrated ceramic brooches, some logos and thinking about my next issue of my zine Okay.
How long have you been creating art, embracing your creativity, and working towards developing your current style and output?
As a little girl I was encouraged to be creative. My sisters and I would spend a lot of time drawing and painting and using mum’s Derwents.
My uncle and grandfather were both photographers and I was influenced at an early age by them. I collect film cameras and use my photographs with illustrations. I am drawn to images I find in old 50s & 60s pattern books and have collected many which have had a significant effect on my work.
I studied graphic design for 5 years at college but I’ve been making things for as long as I can remember. Learning to use design programs on the computer has definitely influenced how I design my artwork.
How did you first learn to access your creative and artistic talents, and gain the confidence to make art your career?
I grew up in a very creative environment. My aunt is a professional illustrator so from a very early age I learned with a lot of hard work and dedication that it is possible to make art your career. I also learned at school that I could make a living from being creative and have since pursued it!
CLICK HERE to read the entire interview!
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