Posted: 31st July 2012 | By: creature

Artist Spotlight – #99 – Matt Witt

Matt Witt - Freak on the River

Artist: Matt Witt
Website: wakeupscreaming.com

Welcome to the last in our long running series of artist spotlights. Starting with Rachel Nilsson on 22nd April 2010 we have interviewed nearly 100 illustrators in the search to find out what it is that makes you guys tick. You can read all the 99 interviews by clicking here. Everything has to end and we thought what better way to finish off this massive series than with an interview with Creature founder himself Matt Witt.

Our artist Spotlight series gives a great overview of how Creature’s tastes and editorial direction have developed over the past two years. Plus it lends a unique insight into the lives and minds of the illustrators working today providing an overview of contemporary Illustration in the UK and elsewhere.

Our artist spotlight features will be replaced by a series called Around the World where we visit artists in far flung corners of the earth to get a taste for their inspirations and ask how the place they live in effects their work.

Here is the last artist spotlight interview – #99 with me, Matt Witt.  We hope you have enjoyed the show.

Who are you, where are you from?
I am Matt Witt I live in East London. I am originally from Salisbury Wiltshire.

What do you do?
I draw, I write poems, I sing songs, I make Creaturemag. By day I am a freelance designer. I have lots of fingers in lots of pies!

Why do you do it?
Because I love to create, I love to bring people together to collaborate. I spend far too much time in front of a screen but I don’t know how to do anything else. It’s been this way since I was a boy. I am still a child.

Matt Witt - Freak on the River

How do you create these images?
The pictures build themselves in my head before being transferred onto paper with pencil and then scanned in and redrawn in Illustrator or manipulated in Photoshop. I tend to sit and analyse the image for a long time. Its all about depth, angles, shapes, colours, creating mood, intensity and humour. I love visiting my imagination and wondering around to find new things to draw.

Who are your influences?
I am influenced most notably by the artists I collaborate with on Creaturemag. Drawing a day artists David Litchfield and Steven Kraan have always been a great influence because of their commitment to their own artistic development. My interest in drawing initially stems from watching endless cartoons and burying my head in illustrated books like Where the wild things are, The Hungry Caterpillar and children’s poetry as a child. I have always been encouraged creatively by my close friends and family which I am grateful for.

What inspires your work?
Psychoanalysis, meditation, dreams, thinking really hard for long periods of time. People, creatures, people pretending to be creatures, festivals, being. Life!

Matt Witt - Freak on the River

What do you like?
I like to be nicely surprised.

What don’t you like?
I don’t like to be horribly shocked.

Find Matt Witt here:
Portfolio: wakeupscreaming.com
Twitter: @creaturemag
Facebook: facebook.com/creaturemag

Posted: 17th July 2012 | By: creature

Artist Spotlight – #98 – Oli Rogers

Oli Rogers

Artist: Oli Rogers
Website: olirogers.artworkfolio.com

Who are you, where are you from?
Hello creature fans! I’m Oli. I’m an illustrator based in Northampton (the one in the UK). It’s a great town for things like soiled mattresses and dog eggs festooning the streets, but is also home to some talented artists and good places to do such things as consume booze and listen to live music.

I also go by the nom de plume of The Mighty Stegosaurus, after a ladybird who used to live in my room. He was the mighty one, not me, but I took on his name as a tribute when he sadly passed away.

What do you do?
I paint pictures, most of which feature at least one monster. I am hoping that people will pay me to do this for them, so if you are one such person then let’s talk! I write fiction and poetry too, which also tends to feature monsters.

Why do you do it?
Why would you not want to do this?

Oli Rogers

How do you create these images?
Well, I suppose the first stage is to use the power of mental thinking to come up with some kind of radical idea, such as a dreadlock-bedecked orang-utan armed with a stone axe facing off against a carnivorous horse as the sun rises over an epic mountain range. This is then transmitted from my brain to a piece of cheap copier paper, via a clicky pencil. After much scribbling and rubbing out, a drawing emerges. This drawing is scanned and then painted using a certain well-known piece of image-editing software.

Who are your influences?
Off the top of my head I would say Edward Gorey, Tove Jansson, Charles Vess, and Paul Bonner, but I wouldn’t even contemplate comparing my work to theirs, I just admire it. Like most artists of my generation I’m probably influenced just as much by pop-cultural stuff like comics, video games, music, movies and street art as by ‘artists’.

What inspires your work?
Besides being an illustrator I’m also a postgrad of Modern English Literature, so I tend to draw inspiration from things like late Victorian and early C20th horror, science fiction and weird tales. Otherwise, my own imagination generally gives me enough to go on.

Oli RogersClick image to enlarge

What do you like?
Good coffee, liquorice rolling papers, quality continental lagers, red wine… actually this is more like my shopping list. I like Forteana, loud and abrasive music, dusty museums and being an armchair socialist. And monsters.

What don’t you like?
Elitism, pretentious types, conformity, right-wing bigots, mindless consumerism, meat.

Find Oli Rogers here:
Portfolio: olirogers.artworkfolio.com
Twitter: @otheroli
Facebook: facebook.com/heisoli

Posted: 3rd July 2012 | By: creature

Artist Spotlight – #97 – Graham Carter

Graham Carter

Artist: Graham Carter
Website: graham-carter.co.uk

Who are you, where are you from?
Graham Carter from Brighton, Earth

What do you do?
I draw/paint/Wacom a selection of things that go round in my head. Things like Yetis, robots, origami creatures, clockwork birds, monsters, puppets, more robots and little people in animal costumes

Why do you do it?
A number of reasons really. I sometimes find it difficult expressing myself In the real world so it gives me a chance to be heard on paper (or screen). I just have an overwhelming urge to create pictures. Where that stems from I don’t really know – I just go with it…..

Graham Carter

How do you create these images?
I’m always exploring different ways of image making. Usually it goes – Thumbnail sketch – computer – layers – screen print. Good ol’ fashioned drawing and painting can be enjoyable too though if I find the time. For my recent show I produced several wooden characters
Sculpted from many individual laser-cut parts

Who are your influences?
I always forget several crucial people when answering this question but I’ll just fire a few names out in no particular order. Chris Ware, Shaun Tan, Tara McPherson, Pete Fowler, Wes Anderson, Batman, The Simpsons, Charley Harper, Kuniyoshi, Pixar, Samurai Jack

What inspires your work?
I think a lot of my work is born from a subconscious fusion of various elements over a long period of time. Be it nature programmes, film scenes, Old travel/film posters or random thoughts on a long train journey.

Graham Carter

What do you like?
Peanut Butter, Camper Vans, Peter Cook, Spaced, Chevy Chase, Bonsai Trees, Morph & Cheese

What don’t you like?
Large groups of men (except my own friends!), ‘comical’ radio adverts, shallow people, Gangsta Rap, tanning booths & Michael McIntyre. I could Go on.

Find Graham Carter here:
graham-carter.co.uk

Posted: 26th June 2012 | By: creature

Artist Spotlight – #96 – Nick Alston

Nick Alston

Artist: Nick Alston
Website: www.nickalston.co.uk

Who are you, where are you from?
I’m Nick Alston. I studied up in Scotland, but I currently live in London.

What do you do?
I’m an illustrator. In reality, that means that I sit at my desk drawing whilst listening to 6Music. Like all other aspiring illustrators I’ve had to do a whole host of other jobs, but this is the only thing I want to do.

Why do you do it?
I think that if I weren’t doing this I’d be doing something else that required some sort of creativity. The main reason is because it’s fun. I guess it’s a way to make sense of the things that you see or hear – whether or not the end results makes sense is another matter…

Nick Alston

How do you create these images?
I hand draw my illustrations and then I usually use Photoshop to colour them. I undertook an internship at a print studio after finished my undergraduate degree – which got me hooked on screenprinting. This has informed my way of working – I kind of always imagine my work becoming a screenprint even if it doesn’t end up that way.

Who are your influences?
As far as artists / illustrators, there’s too many to name really, and they pretty much change all the time. I think it’s healthy to have a wide range of influences to keep your mind open to new ideas and possibilities.

What inspires your work?
Just looking and listening to everything around me, jotting ideas down, and then returning to them when I sit down and work. My sketchbooks are usually a bit of a mess of ideas that will never see the light of day.

Nick Alston

What do you like?
Music, cooking, nature, boxing and dreaming. And drawing.

What don’t you like?
‘Baby on Board’ signs on cars do my nut in. I’m not huge on Mayonnaise either.

Find Nick Alston here:
www.nickalston.co.uk
www.flickr.com/nickalston

Posted: 12th June 2012 | By: creature

Artist Spotlight – #95 – Huw Barrett and The Animal Kingdom

Huw Barrett

Artist: Huw Barrett
Website: theanimalkingdom.co.uk

Who are you, where are you from?
Hello, My name is Huw Barrett, I am a web designer/illustrator, originally from Pontypridd in South Wales, currently living in sunny Cardiff.

What do you do?
My full time job is website design, which has thankfully led me onto other creative paths such as art and illustration. As long as it’s doing something creative, I’m all for it!

Why do you do it?
One of the best reasons for starting The Animal Kingdom was to accommodate all of the little doodles I have drawn over the years. It’s also a great antidote to web design which is more fluid, whereas once I’ve completed an illustration there are no outside influences making me change it, no tinkering (hopefully)!

Huw Barrett

How do you create these images?
As with most illustrators, my first tool is a pencil. I just start sketching away and see what comes up. I didn’t really attend any design courses so I’m pretty much self taught illustration and web-design wise, having studied BA (hons) engineering and a Masters in Computing. I am sure there is still plenty to learn and I would love to learn to incorporate a bit of 3D work into my designs too!

Who are your influences?
The Bauhaus, Super Furry Animals, Pete Fowler, Corbusier, David Attenborough, Jospeh Heller, Matt Joyce, Mr Bingo

What inspires your work?
The need to always to be active. I don’t think I will ever be the type to sit down every night and watch Eastenders, if I wasn’t drawing I’d be doing something else creative.

Pete Fowlers Monsterism is a big influence. I like the idea of creating the characters, but also the world in which the characters live in, hence my website being a bit more involved than a static portfolio format.

How does the place you live impact upon your work?
Very much so, I have been lucky enough to display some of my artwork in a number of exhibitions in The SHO Gallery in Roath, Cardiff. Through my website design I have also met other artists and designers such as Mr Shrew, Weknow and Ysbryd-yr-Nos, who formed the ‘Masseye Collective’ and invited me to join a few year ago. Also, my girlfriend is an Art & design teacher and practicing artist in her own right, so I also have an honest critic in her!

Huw Barrett

What do you like?
Music, films, crap jokes, down to earth people and toad in the hole:)

What don’t you like?
Red trousers and Fearn Cotton.

Find Huw Barrett here:
Buy The Animal Kingdom book here
www.theanimalkingdom.co.uk
‏@animalkingdoms

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