Welcome to my
monthly interview feature! I’m so excited to be interviewing all the fabulous
artists, illustrators and designers I’ve meet over the years (both personally
and virtually!) and sharing their artwork and experiences here on Bird Meets
Worm. Look for a new interview on the first Tuesday of every month.
This month I’m delighted to be chatting up with the super sweet Illustrator,
Denise Holmes! She is a fellow Tugeau2 artist and I’m totally in love with her
darling artwork. Denise attended The School of
The Art Institute of Chicago and earned her BFA in 2003. After graduating,
Denise worked everything from a server to a sales associate until she
saved up enough money to pursue her dream of illustrating children's books. In
2012, after 6 years of freelancing, her hard work and perseverance paid off
when she was asked to illustrate If I Wrote A Book About You by Stephany
Aulenback, published by Simply Read Books. Since then she has worked on a
variety of projects, including The Yoga Game series and 2 children's
activity books. You can view more of her artwork here!
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| Jack and Jill went up and hill and read Denise's book! |
Q: You are a member of the fabulous art collective,
Happy Happy. What are the advantages of being closely connected to an active
art community as a freelancer? Dish with us about your experiences as a member
of the online group.
A: I have been freelancing for eight years and
most of those years were pretty lonely. I had become friends with Emily Balsley and Tammie Bennett over time and we all ended up taking Lilla
Roger's Make Art That Sells course together. Tammie had the great idea after
the class to start the Happy Happy Art Collective!
Being part of Happy Happy is one of the best
things. We started out as a group to get together and push ourselves to make
more work and we ended up all getting amazing paying work within a year. We now
talk daily about jobs, questions we have about contracts, gossip in the
industry and what is happening in our personal lives. It’s a great support
system and doesn’t make freelancing feel as lonely.
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| Would you like a spot of tea, kitty cat? Oh, yes, please! |
Q: Give us the scoop on your artistic process from
initial concept & sketches thru final art technique & finishing
touches. (I simply adore your whimsical linework & earthy, but bright
palette! Swooon!)
A: I start all my projects—be it client or
personal work looking around for inspiration. It could be in my book
collection, out and about in the neighborhood or on the Internet. Then I sketch
everything in my sketchbook with my handy mechanical pencil and bring it over
to my lightbox to ink it in with a nib pen (my favorite tool) and ink. I scan
everything into Illustrator and color from there. My color palettes are always
so similiar, I tend to work with a lot of the same colors. I have a huge color
spreadsheet in Illustrator that I keep adding pretty colors to. When I start a
project I go to the sheet and pick out what I think would work best. Last, I will
play around with adding textures and shadows and save it!
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| Let's go on an outer space adventure! |
Q: You’ve illustrated a handful of lovely
children’s books! Which one is your favorite? Then tell us all about it—how it
began, how it developed, everything.
A: I got so lucky—I mean it. It has always been
my dream to be a children’s book illustrator. I was a new mom and having a
rough day when I got the email. An editor at Simply Read Books contacted
me to see if I would be interested in illustrating a book they had in mind. It
just so happened to be If I Wrote A Book About You by Stephany
Aulenback. I got the manuscript and couldn’t believe what perfect timing the
story was. The story is about a mother’s love for her child and I quickly
replied YES! I said YES! And I actually had no clue where to start. I luckily
came across Susan Hartung
who offers a how to make a book dummy class online and I asked if we could
change it up a little to help me. She mentored me through the entire process.
Her critiques were the hardest I have ever endured, but it really helped me to
create the best work I could have made for the book. It’s silly but the
best part is getting to read it to my daughter. Who luckily asks for it pretty
often.
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| Sweetness abounds! Sunshine meooow! |
Q: As an Illustrator Mama, in what ways do you
balance your home life and your work life? How does your daughter influence
your artistic life, both personally and professionally?
A: If only I knew the answer! This is the
toughest thing for me to do. I try my best to balance work and life so that I’m
not super exhausted by the end of the day. My daughter is 3 and not in school
yet (can’t wait for the fall!) so I spend my mornings doing mom duty, cooking,
cleaning, playing, and trying to do a fun activity before lunch. We paint, make
projects, draw, read books and explore the neighborhood most days. After lunch
is her two-hour nap and that is where I bust out my emails, Facebook, blogs and
I write a list of all the things I need to get done for the day/week. 3 PM is
wake up time and we try to go outside until my husband gets home from work at
4. Dinner, bath, read books and she’s off to bed and I finally get to sit down
and work at 7. I do my best to respond to everyone’s email, but I spend the
next 4 hours working on my to-do list. It makes for a long day, but I end my
nights reading my on my kindle until I fall asleep. If I am on a deadline I
enlist the help of my neighbor to watch Hazel for a few hours in the mornings.
Oh, and I should add that my mom comes in once a month to help out, too.
I’m pretty lucky!
As for my daughter, she is such a huge influence
on me! To me she helped open up the children's book world even more. I get to
read books to her over and over and over again. I know what I love about them,
I know what I hate—what could I do better, what did they do to make this book
so great? It is amazing what my daughter likes and what she doesn't (we don't
always agree). It might be sort of like cheating!? We also get to draw together
a lot and I love being able to sit down with her and just doodle— not worrying
about how it will look or if the color is all wrong. I really love experiencing
childhood with her again.
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| Wouldn't you just LOVE to cozy up with this book?! Buy it here! |
Q: How do you market yourself to both publishing
and art licensing clients? What advice would you give to fellow illustrators?
A: This is a great question, because it is
something I have struggled with. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out how
to merge my two worlds together. To me it felt like illustration for clients
and picture book illustration were two different worlds. I kept trying to
figure out if I should have two separate websites, but in the end, I just
decided to combine everything into one portfolio. It works for me, it’s who I
am and I can’t separate them.
As for advice, I have seen it both ways, but I
feel like it’s great if you do different markets—the more you know about each
industry the more work for you to get! I love being able to bring in my
knowledge of design to my children’s books and my children’s book work into my
client projects. It really opens up your world.
Q: Describe your most perfect Sunday.
A: Coffee. With my family in tow, head up to
Logan Square Farmer’s Market to get some delicious food and hang out on the
grass with my cousin and her husband. A catnap in the early afternoon and then some
time to work in my sketchbook at my favorite coffee shop Star Lounge. Dinner at
The Chicago Diner, a nice evening walk around the neighborhood and end it with
gelato at Black Dog. Hang out on the porch with husband after the little one
goes to bed, drinks, talking, laughing, go to bed super happy because life is
lovely.