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Sarah Mason: flora and fauna illustrator interview

Sarah Mason

Freelance Artist

A specialist in stylized fantasy, flora and fauna illustration; Sarah Mason talks tools, techniques and offers some fantastic advice for running your own Kickstarter. Find out more…

Sarah's website

Adam

Tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you, what do you do, and where are you located?

Sarah

My name is Sarah; I specialize in creating art focusing on the themes of fantasy, flora and fauna. I live in the Midlands, UK. Using very gentle colors, I often combine traditional techniques with contemporary themes; gravitas and whimsy, lines and colors. My strengths lie with watercolors, ink work and Photoshop for digital coloring.

Adam

Tell us about the last thing you created. What challenges did the image present? Did you learn something new?

Sarah

The last piece I created was “Peonies,” a new snake piece for one of my personal projects “Pretty Phobias”. Although serpents are one of my strongest subjects to draw this piece proved a challenge, as I decided to extend the undulation of the snake. I really wanted the snake to coil around itself and the flowers in a way that was natural but didn’t interfere too much with the composition. I usually keep the colors for my snakes very subtle, but I learned that sometimes having twostrong, contrasting colors (while maintaining a limited palette) can prove to be extremely effective.

A personal piece for my project “Pretty Phobias,” created with traditional inks and colored on Photoshop.

Adam

Your art centers on animals, both real and fictional, what do you find attractive about drawing and painting animals in particular?

Sarah

Animals come in a vast range of shapes, sizes and species. Studying a new animal, looking at their anatomy and how they are similar yet so different from a relative species, fascinates me. I enjoy creating art that embodies the flow and movement of each animal, stretching their bodies and capturing their mobility in whimsical ways.

Traditional ink piece created for my project “Extinction” after two recent news of climate change claiming their first victim of extinction, the Bramble Cay Melomy.

Adam

What tools, techniques and software do you use, either for work or personal projects?

Sarah

The tools I use most frequently, and am most proficient with, are watercolors, inks and Photoshop. My watercolors are a combination of half pan Winsor and Newton and half pans made from Daniel Smith watercolors. Daniel Smith watercolors have a much richer pigment and enable me to create more vibrant colors, while the Winsor and Newtons allow me to keep the softer tones.

For inks, I use a range of pens: Copic 0.03 Multiliners and Staedtler 0.05 for fine details and Tombow and Kuretake Sumi brushes for weightier, more defined lines. All of these pens are waterproof to ensure I can paint over them later if needed.

Photoshop is my primary program for coloring pieces digitally. I will scan and clean my ink pieces which are drawn on smooth white card, then proceed to color them using the “Multiply” layering options in Photoshop.

Small, fun traditional ink piece for one of my Patrons who have signed up for the monthly art tier.

Adam

How do you keep your portfolio up-to-date? Any tips?

Sarah

I constantly draw and try to do it at least once a day for practice. This keeps my art in a constant motion of improvement and I often do larger pieces every week or so that are used to update my portfolio. Most of my finished pieces are done in two days or less, so keeping my portfolio up to date is a never-ending task for me! One tip for keeping your portfolio up to date is to give yourself a drawing routine. Whether that’s sketching every day or working on a piece bit-by-bit, just make sure you’re doing something to work towards that new piece of work to proudly display in your portfolio and rotate it to replace older works.

Adam

What piece of art are you most proud of and why?

Sarah

The piece of art I am currently most proud of is a serpent piece called “Undulance,” which was a watercolor piece created late last year. It was a dive back into watercolors after a small break and everything about that piece just came together so smoothly. I faced many challenges while painting it, as watercolors can be temperamental and it’s very easy to mess up, but the final outcome for “Undulance” embodied everything I love about what I create; line flow, gentle colors and a strong subject. It also was a “level up” piece, which helped me create my newest piece “Peonies,” another creation I am very proud of.

Adam

Tell us about your book “The Masonry” How did you find that experience? What advice would you give to artists considering Kickstarting their own project?

Sarah

“The Masonry” came to life through a challenge known as a “Sketchbook Slam,” which was to fill a six-hundred page sketchbook in thirty days. The challenge was a giant learning curve and allowed me to loosen up and focus more on getting sketches and ideas down as opposed to trying to make every single sketch perfect. To celebrate completing the challenge, I created this book to share with everyone so they could look through it at their leisure. Advice I would give to artists considering on creating their own Kickstarter project are three things:

  1. Plan well ahead of time. I mean well ahead. Make sure you cross every “t” and dot every “i.” Get your costing down to the very penny and consider your time frames carefully. Mishaps can happen, life can get in the way and it can inevitably push the timeframe back. It’s better to set a later shipping date and fulfill it early, than deliver it late. While “The Masonry” was live, I suffered an incident that broke my dominant wrist. Obviously unforeseen, but it did push the time frame back a considerable amount. If you plan ahead and make sure you’re ready to get the ball rolling as soon as it’s funded, you should be fine and it’ll make your life easier.
  2. Give yourself enough time to advertise. People say two weeks is ample enough time for small Kickstarters, but for large projects try to get people involved from the very beginning of the project. It will build up anticipation and excitement for the launch, and post it on your platforms every day. Keep people in the loop, and even involve them by sending out polls to morph the project, or a Patreon so they can see behind the scenes if it’s a really large project that will take a considerable amount of time.
  3. Communicate. Make sure you keep everyone in the loop with what’s happening through your campaign before, during and after it goes live. And be honest. Backers appreciate honesty. If you mess up, that’s okay and it happens – just be open with those who backed your project. They will appreciate it and will most certainly come back if you release another project in the future.

Personal sketch piece of a kestrel, using Faber Castell Polychromo pencils on smooth white card. Testing limited tones with simplistic shading techniques proved to be quite effective.

Adam

What are your artistic ambitions?

Sarah

I would absolutely love to do more talks and attend future conventions and be featured in a few more magazines to help get my name out there. I would also like to get my main large project “Beautiful Beasts in Blossoms” off the floor and start working towards completing that in a much more in depth manner. My main goal is to build an established artistic base for myself and my work that people can admire and relate to.

Adam

Who are your favorite artists, traditional or digital, and can you explain why?

Sarah

I would say my top two artists are J.A.W Cooper, her work embodies flow and her line work is to die for. Cooper’s work captures everything I love in a simplistic but strong style and I can admire her work all day. The second artist is Claire Wendling, who has an amazing skill for creating gorgeous poses in creatures while keeping the anatomy perfect. Her sketchbooks are beautiful and provide an abundance of knowledge in pencil work I can only dream of one day being able to do.

A traditional ink and watercolor piece of a serpent coiling around flowers and organic elements. I enjoy drawing and painting snakes as they’re so flexible and can be morphed into any composition you want.

Adam

What can we expect to see from you next?

Sarah

I am currently working on two projects branching from “Beautiful Beasts in Blossoms.” The first is “Pretty Phobias,” which is a project focusing on the common creature phobias people suffer from and turning them into illustrations capturing the beautiful sides of them so we can see them from a different angle. The second project is called “Extinction”, which focuses on the animals we have recently lost on this planet due to our destructive actions. Both projects will be progressively posted on social media, but you can have a say in what goes into these projects and see all the behind the scenes as a Patron.

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