ArtisNavi

March 2011

Interview and Web Feature

Read article on ArtisNavi here.

 A warm welcome to Artisnavi. Lets kick of with an introduction, tell us a bit about yourself and what inspired you to join the creative art&design community?
Well I don't think there was ever a conscious decision to join the art community, making art was just always something I loved to do from a young age. It was sort of a compulsive outlet. I'm not sure why I did it or why I still do it, it's just something that has to be done. I studied it throughout school but by the time I graduated I still didn't really know about illustration as a career choice. During college I had taught myself Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator, and how to code a little bit, which lead to a job as an interactive designer right after graduation. I learned on the job for several years getting more and more comfortable in Photoshop but somewhere along the way I realized I was still incredibly unfulfilled creatively. I started illustrating after I got home from the agency doing personal work and small projects, mostly for free. One thing lead to another and finally I'm able to make a living at the only thing I truly love to do. It took a lot of sleep deprivation, self doubt, and learning and that's still a constant battle but I feel very happy and grateful. Life is too short to not do what you love.

It's fair to say that you own a very unique and beautiful style. How did your style develop over the years and how important is the digital aspect to your creative work flow?
I think everything happened in just the right order that if I had had more of a plan in the beginning my work would look completely different. I've talked to a few illustrators who actually went to school for it and many of them said that school and critiques beat the creativity out of them, which I understand. I think with my personality if I ever thought there was a right or wrong way to do something I would be too afraid to fail and never would have gotten anywhere. Sometimes jumping in blind is the best way for me—which is also not to say school isn't great—I do wish I had learned how to paint better in school. By the time I started really illustrating by hand and trying to build a body of work I was already practically dreaming in Photoshop. I never felt like I could get my pieces to a point of polish on paper, so scanning, coloring, and enhancing the work digitally was the most natural transition. I used to feel really guilty about it. I wished that I was a true painter and could create finished pieces on canvas, but now I'm really starting to embrace the fact that the computer is just another tool for me just like a brush, pastel, or spray can. The digital side and the hand-drawn sides are equally important to process for me.

You are a member of both TheKDU and Depthcore. How has joining these two collective's effected your career?
I think most importantly it has connected me more closely with my peers who I absolutely love, look up to and get inspired by in a way unlike looking at art on blogs or in galleries. It has been so important to connect with people that do what you do and actually have real conversations with them about the behind the scenes of the business. I don't get to see them in person nearly enough because we are all so busy and sprinkled all over the world, but having an online community helps immensely. Overall KDU and Depthcore members keep me educated and motivated, and because they are such a talented bunch of boys and girls, it helps with networking and reputation by association. Both groups have been really integral in helping me find my stride when most of the time you feel all alone in the world.

Let's move on to the main feature of this interview. You recently created the " Perspective Series " which is personally my favorite series in the recent " Mirror " chapter released by Depthcore. Did this concept come to you after you heard the name of the chapter or was it an idea you already had in mind?
It was a theme I've been interested in for a while. I had a large scale tiger piece without about 8 tigers morphing into each other—I really liked how the tiger spots sort of took over and it became more abstract. I wanted to see how a similar idea on a smaller scale would work with girls. I think when you start using people as subject matter instead of animals you can start reading into it more. Originally it was simply more of a visual exploration but somewhere along the way it turned into the idea of either 2 people connecting and forming into a co-habitated identity like I think you do in long term relationships as well as the idea that depending where you are and who you are with, one person and can split into 2 very different looking people or identities. There have been times when I've been out and about and caught a corner of myself in a reflection and literally not recognized myself. That's a pretty shocking and jarring feeling and I think I wanted to have that same weirdness in the Perspectives series.

Could you take us through a quick process of how you executed this project. In particular how did you come up with the different perspectives for the three pieces?
First was the idea and then composition was sort of like putting together a puzzle. When drawing portraits I always have to start from reference images but I'm not the best photorealistic draw-er so once I get eyes, nose, and mouths in a place that looks correct enough, I tend to ditch the reference and focus on overall composition. It took me a few tries to get the faces to work together and I had a large bank of female faces in various angles to refer to. My life comes with a big eraser. This series actually had some of the least amount of digital work compared to some of my other work and I really only did minimal color and texture in Photoshop. Each piece was made in about 2 days.

When you presented such a project to your colleagues at Depthcore, how did they respond ?. Did you receive any critique?
My colleagues over at DC had positive things to say, but the thing that I really like about DC is that it's a really honest group. If you need to go back to work and finish up a piece more, they will tell you. For this series I don't think DC had too much feedback or changes but they always open my eyes to new ways of looking at my work. I always love that, and it's why I don't like over-thinking my work too much because someone will always see it differently, and that is much more interesting to me.

What can we expect to see from Sara Blake in the near future?
Much larger scale work! I've just completed some enormous murals for Nike which were a huge challenge since I'm used to working no larger than 19" x 24" generally, but they definitely got me really excited to start working large scale. My motto for 2011 is just "bigger, better, more detail." I tend to work really quickly, but I think I'm going to start spending much more time on single compositions. I've just started working a little more commercially so I'm hoping for some new challenges there and I would love to continue to do gallery work. Lately printing on fabric has really intrigued me too.

Thank you ever so much for providing us with this interview. Any final thoughts or words of advice you would like to share with us?
Work hard, love life, dream big, call your mom.