Petra Stefankova

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creativity

Values of my artistic practice

Illustrator and designer Brooke Glaser inspired me today with her lecture on Skillshare focused on the topic ‘Make a Living as an Artist: Strategies for Crafting Your Creative Business’.

So I was thinking and came up with 3 most important values, that can be found in my works (as Brooke Glaser recommended us to define some of those). It is a fact, that my art is varied, it is applied to different customer needs from commercial illustration in books and magazines to art objects, drawings and paintings. These are three elements, that could be identified in my work in my opinion:

Authenticity

My work is originally based on the automatic drawing method and so-called unconscious doodling. I use also handmade materials such as handmade papers, marbled papers, handmade sketchbooks and art books. I transfer my signature style on different materials – canvases, textiles, wood, leather by drawing, painting or printing and laser burning.

Originality

A strong element of my work is a linear drawing and miniature drawing with an emphasis on the bold outline. Some of the artworks tend to be more abstract and use irregular shapes of patterns.

Playfulness

Colour palette is adjusted to a current mood from earthy and natural tones to fresh pastel colours, also with some use of black and white. My works often depict characters and people in different stylizations, who see the world by their many eyes.

Ilustrátorka a dizajnérka Brooke Glaser ma dnes na Skillshare inšpirovala svoju prednáškou na tému ‘Zarábaj ako umelec: Stratégie pre váš kreatívny biznis’.

A tak som sa zamyslela nad tým, aké sú 3 najdôležitejšie hodnoty, ktoré možno nájsť v mojich prácach (na základe odporúčania Brooke Glaser). Faktom je, že moja tvorba je rôznorodá, nachádza veľmi odlišné aplikácie od komerčnej ilustrácie v knihách a časopisoch po voľné objekty a kresby či maľby. Toto sú 3 elementy, ktoré v nich podla mňa možno identifikovať:

Autenticita

Vychádzam pôvodne z automatickej kresby a tzv. bezmyšlienkovitého „čmárania“. Využívam aj ručne vyrábané materiály ako su ručné papiere, mramorované papiere, viazané skicáre a „art“ knihy. Prenášam svoj rukopis na rôzne podklady – plátna, látky, drevo, kožu (napr. kresbou, maľbou, tlačou či laserovým výpalom).

Originalita

Silným elementom mojej tvorby je lineárna kresba a drobnokresba prejavujúca sa výrazným rukopisom obrysu. V niektorých dielach prechádzam do abstrakcie a kresby nepravidelných vzorov (patternov).

Hravosť

Farebnosť je prispôsobená aktuálnej nálade od tlmených zemitých a prírodných tónov k sviežim pastelovým farbám, ale aj s využitím čiernej a bielej. Moje diela najčastejšie zobrazujú postavy a postavičky rozličných štylizácií, ktoré pozerajú na svet mnohými očami.

Appreciation of painting

For 20 years I have been a digital artist. I started as a vector graphic designer and illustrator designing posters, logos and brochures. Later on, I worked on magazine editorial and advertising illustration commissions for clients in Italy, the UK and the USA. My characters have been funky and simple, very technical and based on computer-like geometry.

In the meantime, I was exploring automatic drawing as a technique for relaxation. They were just doodles to me, nothing much. So for the higher aesthetics purpose, I created 3D computer models of these drawings and suddenly became quite well-known for this type of work. It was more than 10 years ago.

I was pushing my drawing skills further every day. Of course, I had graduated from an art academy before, where I undertook the basic figure drawing training. I usually sketched on small sheets of paper, then larger and larger ones. My work was very abstract with some characters, heads, eyes and other figurative elements in it.

Another stage was a pure line work with black markers. These were just strange and funny characters connected by a single line all over the artwork. I used the style in a children’s book too and led a few workshops with kids thanks to the simplicity.

Then I did many more drawings on paper again. Now I realised that the stylisation of my figures was becoming more mature. I also translated some of it into vector illustrations, where every part of the human body was exaggerated. I used new drawings on paper as a starting point for my iPad creations as well.

After many years of doing creative artwork, I started to explore acrylic painting. It was not an easy process, I tested out gouache, oils, watercolours too. Finally, I arrived at a stage, when my art feels ready for people to appreciate it more and more. And it actually works!

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