illustrations Archives

December 17, 2016January 2, 2018

Sonia Kolner Illustration

24-year-old Sonia Kolner is an illustrator and retail worker based in Oakland California. We chatted to Sonia about what inspires her dark illustrations…

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Inspired by Things&Ink Sonia created this illustration just for us…

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What medium do you use? How do you create each piece? I use mainly crowquill for my pen and ink work. I also work on printmaking from time to time, mostly consisting of lithography. I create each piece digitally and traditionally. The end result is always fully traditional, however I like to collage digitally beforehand. It makes planning a lot quicker and I can scan/scale elements easily. I am committed to the idea of being a pro at Photoshop slowly but surely.

What do you like to draw? I love drawing anything anatomy related, eyes, patterns, distorted or conjoined things. I also find comfort in drawing nature such as flowers, and of course snakes and bats.

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What inspires you? Really, really good music. I would say a lot of creative people whether it’s other artists, musicians, skaters, writers, etc. Also, any other unique beings who have their own style, tastes and opinions that I find to be inspiring and good to converse with. A few of my close friendships inspire me, as I find myself getting into unexpected deep conversations with them about life, death, trust, and everything in between. Often what inspires me as well is other people’s stories. I always treasure when someone trusts me enough to open up about their suffering and or other personal things. Because it’s an extreme challenge, those small moments inspire me and I hold them dearly. Other than that I would say last but not least, nature, animals, and old school Japanese art. The list could go on!

How would you describe your style? Organized chaos. Visually and emotionally.

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Are there any other artists that you admire, do they influence your work? Of course. My current favorites are Suehiro Maruo and Junji Ito. I love both artists work because of not only their talent, but also the psychological twists to their pieces and stories. I enjoy art that’s intriguing and leaves me wondering. I never liked comics, but Junji Ito’s Uzumaki series is gory, emotionally haunting and nothing short of brilliant. Besides them, about two years ago I used to have a long list of artists, but now I find I get most of my inspiration from old books, music, and certain conversations.

What drives you to create work that draws upon the motifs and the style of tattooing? Pen and ink stippling/hatching style is my driving force. I like how much dedication and patience it takes. I never used to think that my work drew upon tattoo motifs, until anyone who saw my work would asked me if I either a) Would design them a tattoo, or b) If I would consider being a tattoo artist. That’s when I started to notice a pattern and blackwork translates quite easily into a tattoo these days.

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Do you do commissions? Where can people buy your work? Absolutely. You can contact me through my website and we can chat. www.soniakolnerillustration.co. You can purchase my work on Society6 https://society6.com/soniakolnerillustration

August 25, 2016August 25, 2016

Lea Katz Illustration

19-year-old Lea Katz is a resident artist based in Melbourne, Australia, soon to be living in Bavaria, Germany. We chatted to Lea about the beautiful women she draws and how tattoos make her feel about her body…

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Inspired by Things&Ink Lea created this illustration just for us…

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What medium do you use? How do you create each piece? I work digitally and traditionally. For my digital paintings, I use a graphic tablet and Photoshop. When I work traditionally, I usually rely on pencils, ink and sometimes watercolour. I also love mixing my drawings with other elements to create a collage-like look. I have some gold paper for example, that I combine with my drawings, sometimes I use photos from magazines for that and on other days, I just take whatever I can find and glue it to my sketches.
When I get to work, my usual process is to start out with a very messy sketch that I refine until I’m happy with it. Once that’s done, I begin to work on details to achieve a semi-realist look on certain parts of the artwork (like the face, when I draw a portrait), when I’m finished with that, I start bringing in flat shapes and lines and in the end, I combine it with different scans (in digital paintings), older drawings and photos.

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What kinds of things do you draw? I love drawing portraits, but I also enjoy drawing flowers, nature and birds. Every now and then I also do some typography, but I really need

What is it about women that makes you want to draw them? I guess it’s something that I do since I’m a kid, so it’s almost like a habit now. I love women, I love being a woman (most of the time, at least) and women get so much shit so often, that I just want to celebrate women and femininity in my paintings. I draw them as queens, strong, proud and independent, cover them in gold and all things fabulous.

What inspires you? Huge inspirations for me are art history and music. I’ve always been a little art nerd and a huge fan of art nouveau and surrealism, which are two big influences on my work. Music is a big part of my life, I always listen to music, I love singing (even if I’m a horrible singer. Doesn’t stop me though) and there are always songs that just make me want to catch the vibe of it and put it in a painting.

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How would you describe your style? I’d say my style is a mixture of semi-realism, art nouveau, graphic design and sometimes surrealism. It’s basically a huge collage of styles that I love and try to combine into one piece of work.

Do you admire any other artists, do they influence your work? Definitely! Frida Kahlo, Alfons Mucha, Gustav Klimt, Cindy Sherman, Man Ray and Hannah Höch are people that never stop inspiring me. I love Frida’s self-portraits, Mucha’s girls and Klimt’s golden paintings. Cindy Sherman’s photography is simply fascinating to see, as well as Man Ray’s and Hannah Höch’s dadaist collages.

Can you tell us about your tattoos? I just got my first tattoo in March this year when I visited Amsterdam so I don’t have too many yet. My first tattoo was a beautiful little heart by Angelique Houtkamp, as a souvenir that reminds me of one of my favourite cities. Next, I got a flower on my wrist and after that Frida Kahlo from her “Wounded Deer” painting, which is a piece of art that has a lot of personal meaning to me. And since this Frida was tattooed in a more traditional style, I decided to get another one. This time, full on classic Frida as we know her. It was also my first tattoo in Australia, done by the amazing Marian Machismo.

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How do tattoos make you feel? Have they made you feel differently about your body? Tattoos make me feel great, they make me feel like a badass and I’m happy that they give me the ability to carry things that I love with me wherever I go. They definitely changed a lot about how I view myself and my body. I, like probably every person who had to go through puberty, have a lot of insecurities, I’m unhappy with that part of my body, this could be thinner, this patch of skin has too many freckles, blah blah blah. You probably know what I mean. Covering myself in art that I love changed the way I look at myself. I don’t look at my arm and worry about it being too fat or too whatever anymore, I look at it and see my beautiful tattoos and feel incredible. In fact, I’m happy for every inch of skin that I have because it’s potential tattoo-space.
Do you have any future tattoo plans? Definitely. My next appointment is in September, with Clare Hampshire from Hot Copper Studio here in Melbourne. And I have a lot of Australian artists on my list that I need to get a tattoo from before I move back to Germany in January.

Do you do commissions? Where can people buy your art? I do! I love doing commissions. I sell prints, shirts and a ton of products with my drawings on it via redbubble and I’m always open to sell my original, traditional drawings.

June 8, 2016

Oh Bones Illustration

25-year-old Brit is an illustrator, writer and musician from London. We chatted to Brit about her dark gothic archaeology inspired drawings and her tattoos…

Inspired by Things&Ink Brit created this self portrait just for us…

Do you have a background in art? How and when did you start drawing? I don’t have a background in art at all, I began drawing at university when I was studying archaeology – In the labs we had to draw the artefacts and bones. It was there I noticed that my drawings were good and not going so badly. I then graduated and moved to Amsterdam to do an MA in archaeology and I started drawing for an hour a day and thought, this is much better than being in a library studying. So I didn’t do the MA and continued drawing instead!

What inspires you? Being an archaeologist inspired me the most because I spent years researching the human psyche and behaviour throughout time. My speciality is death and burial, and I guess that often comes across in my art work. I also love poetry, which inspires my art quite a lot and along with every illustration, I write a poem.

What medium do you use? How do you create each piece? I use both digital and non-digital. I love using fine line pens and Indian ink to create my work. I like things to be imperfect because that way you seen the human in it.

What kinds of things do you draw? Usually I will draw people, disembodied limbs, plants – anything really. I almost always draw around a poem or song I’ve written, to give some visuals to my other artwork in my music and writing. I like it all to be one big art piece – audio, visual and written.

Describe your style? Tailored, black, kind of like an old fashioned 1920’s boy!

Do you admire any other artists, do they influence your work? I usually admire artists whose work is nothing like mine! It’s nice to clear my head of anything remotely like my work now and again, so I really like the work of Gordon Armstrong and Robert Saeheng they’re really great. But I also like old school artists like Patti Smith, her word work really inspires me in my own poetry and in-turn in the art I create around the words.

Can you tell us about your tattoos? I don’t have too many tattoos, definitely under 30 but most of them I love, even though some of them are definitely bad prison style ones. I have some plants, pinky promise hands, trouble making pigeons, dead fish, skulls, love letters, words. Everything! My first one was was just a small one on my foot in Hebrew, nothing too interesting!

How do tattoos make you feel?
My tattoos mean a lot, I’m sure a lot of people say that. Because most of my work is visual, it’s a way that I express myself, so I really do try and add some depth to the things I get tattooed! But sometimes you have so many tattoos there’s only so much meaning behind all of them – some don’t mean a whole lot, but there’s always a good memory behind getting it tattooed.

Do you do commissions? I do commissions, I do ink originals and screen prints for sale on my shop, but I also do a lot of album cover work, tattoo designs and logo designs.

Where can people buy your art? They can head over to ohbones.com and find my shop that way, I will be stocking up for the summer soon, so there’ll be some new T shirts and badges!

March 24, 2016

Illustration: Melly Em Clark

24-year-old Melly Em Clark is an full time illustrator from Lincoln, UK. We chatted to Melly about her art based around themes of feminism, fashion and body positivity…

Inspired by Things&Ink Melly created a tattooed babe just for us…

Do you have a background in art? How and when did you start drawing? It’s hard to remember when I started drawing as it feels like something I’ve always done! I was encouraged from an early age to be creative by both my parents and my schools-school provided great projects and my parents always took me to creative activities outside of school, so I’ve always been motivated to make things. While I struggled in other subjects, art always felt fun and something I was confident doing- it was only when I was nearing my GCSEs that it occurred to me that I could make art for a living. I studied Illustration at the University of Lincoln and graduated in 2013, and last May I took the plunge into full time self employment! While at times, I feel limited by Art being my only strength, my love for drawing is still strong and I still find it incredibly fun!

What inspires you? Content-wise, I am inspired by inter-sectional feminism and pop culture. There are many feminist artists, writers and creatives that I look up to, and strive to be like-this is always a drive of mine when creating new work. Like most people, I’m constantly devouring films, books, television and social media, and can find inspiration from any and all of these. Style wise, I love 20th century fashion illustration by artists such as Rene Gruau and Lucia Lerner. While I don’t agree with a lot of the messages portrayed in mid century advertising, the vivid colour schemes and sense of playfulness are always something I try to recreate in my work. Contemporary artists I admire are Jon Klassen, Grayson Perry, Johnny Hannah and Meg Hunt.

What medium do you use? How do you create each piece? My work is predominantly digital-I start by hand drawing each piece, taking time to draw each section separately and arranging them together in Photoshop. Then comes the process of colouring in the piece digitally. I used to paint every piece by hand and simply edit in Photoshop, and while now I work in digital techniques, I still like to keep the texture of paintings, and include a lot of hand painted textures in each piece. As I have a tiny studio, working digitally works better for me, but I still like to crack out the paintbrushes once in a while and I love supporting artists that continue to work in traditional mediums.

What kinds of things do you draw? This can really vary- most of my work focuses on themes of body positivity, but I’ve also made pieces based around themes like baking, fashion trends and inspirational quotes. I try to keep my work feeling positive and playful, whatever the content. I design prints to sell in my Etsy store, but my ‘bread and butter’ comes from custom artwork, which can vary from family portraits to logo design, so my drawings can differ daily!

Your illustrations focus on body positivity is this something you like to advocate? Body positivity is something very close to heart. Like many people, I’ve spent many years hating my appearance, and my general outlook on life has improved since learning to love myself. As I can struggle to articulate my thoughts into words, I started to create artwork that expressed a body positive theme-my first ‘bo po’ illustration was a piece entitled You Don’t Need Abs To Be Fab. Once made, I posted it online and the reaction was bigger than I could have expected. Since then. I’ve aimed to make art that helps people feel better about themselves, even if only in a tiny way. I know so many wonderful people who advocate a body positive lifestyle, and I’m definitely inspired by them. I think we all deserve to feel great about ourselves and love our bodies, and it’s important to me to get that onto paper.

Can you tell us about your tattoos? What was your first, do you still love it? How do they make you feel? I have eleven tattoos in total, my first was just before I turned 21. To symbolise my Irish heritage, I got a small claddagh design on the inside of my wrist. Since then, I’ve embraced the idea that tattoos don’t have to have a story behind them, and have covered myself in tattoos with no tale or theory behind them. Over three years, the quality of my first tattoo isn’t great and I would love to have it reworked-it’s a simple line drawing and I would love for it to be more intricate and colourful. My biggest tattoos are floral designs, but I have a few other pieces, including a kraken taking down a ship, heart finger tattoos, a stag, a fox, a kewpie, and an Adventure Time inspired tattoo, all of which I’m still head over heels with!

Do you do commissions? Where can people buy your art? Most of my custom artwork operates via my Etsy store where I have listings for personalised portraits, business design packages and invitation design, as well as my pre-made art prints. Alternatively, I can be reached at mellyemclark@gmail.com for commission enquiries!

Follow Melly on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tumblr for body positive art work…

December 22, 2015

Rosey Jones Illustration

23-year-old Rosey Jones from the Netherlands creates bright and bold illustrations. We chatted to Rosey about what inspires her, her fashion style and her awesome tattoo collection…

When did you start up your company/big cartel store? I started my store exactly 10 weeks ago! It’s funny to think my intentions were never to make prints of my designs, it was coincidence that I got asked to make one of the designs I handpainted on a tote digital for a band from the UK – then I realised I could do this with more of my designs and eventually the main focus became making designs for prints instead of hand painting them on totes. That’s kinda how this all started!

What kinds of things do you create? My main focus is on making artwork for my prints, besides that I also handpaint tote bags that I sew myself too, but I haven’t got as much time for it at the moment. The designs on my prints vary from teacups to roses and from donuts to daggers, I literally just draw whatever I fancy at that exact moment which could be anything really!

How do you create things, what is the process? I try not to think too much about what I draw so I usually just start sketching up some stuff that comes to mind, which usually happens when listening to music (might explain why half of my designs got lyrics included in them), then when I start seeing it come together as a whole I redraw my sketches with a sharpie, scan the image, and colour it digitally. I love the mix of it being both analogue and digital without it being super obvious how it’s done (if that makes any sense).

Do you have a background in art? After I graduated high school I worked for Vans for three years so I had time to build up a portfolio – my biggest dream was to study photography. I eventually got accepted in the school of the arts in which I’m a third year photography student now!

What inspires you? Literally anything and everything inspires me, I get fascinated by small things really easily which makes it quite easy to stay inspired all the time! Also cool looking people and nice tattoos inspire me a lot, and seeing amazing artwork of others always makes me want to get better at what I’m doing. I’m crazy lucky to be surrounded with passionate people, it’s really hard to be uninspired or unmotivated when the people closest to me are so supportive and hard working themselves.

How would you describe your style? Both fashion and art. I would say my artwork is pretty much the exact opposite of the way I dress, my artwork is all bold and bright while my clothing style is literally all black everything most of the time! I like simplicity, black jeans, black tee, black denim jacket and some sneakers to go with it (ok, maybe some dr martens when I’m feeling adventurous). I think for some strange reason my glasses make my outfit look a lot more fashionable as people keep on asking me where I got them from.

What does the word beauty mean to you? Not much, if there’s one thing I learned over the past few years it’s that beauty is relative.

Can you tell us about your own tattoos? I got quite a few tattoos for a 23 year old but then again, I started getting tattooed at the age of 16. My goal has never been to get covered as quickly as possible and I’ve never been one to get a whole suit planned out on my body either. Lately the main focus is on my legs as I just find that super pretty, finally got my second knee done too woo hoo! Couldn’t be more excited about that. Most of my pieces are done in the traditional style which is what I love most, there’s some very colorful ones and also some black ones but I think they go really well together. When I first started getting tattooed I always made sure I had some story to go with it but now I don’t really care about that anymore. Now I just want to get things tattooed that I find pretty or funny without it having to have a meaning – my latest addition is the donut design I drew myself. I’m super happy with how my legs are looking, all my favourite tattoos are on there.

Which was your first, do you still love it? My first tattoo was Stay True on my wrist, got it done in Germany when I was 16 and knew nothing about tattoos or how they were supposed to be done. This might explain why it’s upside down too, but I don’t really regret it, it’s something I still stand for – wouldn’t say I love it but I wouldn’t get it covered either!