Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Interview: Discovering the world by drawing it, right where I am

Before the summer, I got interviewed by about my work as an illustrator, and how I got into that work. Maria, who did the interview as a part of her studies at Westerdals, said it was okay that I show it to you on my blog. Her whole assignment is a lot bigger, This is just her interview with me. The whole interview is in Norwegian, though.





For those of you that don´t read Norwegian, I´ve translated three of the paragraphs:

How did you learn to draw the way you draw now?

When I was small, my mother would send us to all kinds of creative classes. I enjoyed those! Me and my brother were A LOT at the library as kids, they often had to kick us out as we would often just keep hanging out until closing time. I read and reread all the comics they had. Besides all the creative classes I would just draw, draw, draw. Lots of copying, and a few books about how to draw different things.
I´m self-taught, and that´s a nice way of saying that I don´t want to have to listen what others want to teach me. So then I ended up doing a lot of the learning by myself.
As an teenager, I didn´t want to take a formal education in visual arts. Because drawing would then turn into work, and work is boring. I imagined that I would have to draw lots of things that I did not enjoy drawing, and I was afraid it would kill the joy of it. How much this teen-rethoric would have matched up with reality is another thing.

What is it that keeps you going on?

I really enjoy making things myself. I really like it that I can write my own stories. I have not made my best drawing yet. There are a lot of nice things in the world that I would like to draw, especially people. I have very little need to travel to other countries. I know it´s not the same, but I discover the world by drawing it, where I am.

How do you keep yourself creative?

One thing is that I trey not to get over-saturated with visual impressions. I almost never watch movies, no gaming and very little TV. It stifles my own creativity. I can´t come up with my own ideas if I´m mostly looking other other´s. By limiting the visual impressions, I hope that I am more open to see the world that is around me.

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