How Illustrator Begin Drawing--Interview with Dreachie

We can see lots of illustrators active on social media, their unique drawing styles, and outstanding drawing ability attracting tons of followers. How do they create their unique styles? Why will they choose to run a personal social account to post their artwork?
Today let's meet a talented illustrator--Dreachie and learns how she begins her exhilarating art tour. 

1. Can you please tell us something about you? When and how did you fall in love with art? 

Hello, my name is Andy and I'm a 22 digital illustrator from Colombia! I’ve liked art ever since I was a kid and drew with those Kids Artist Set. But didn’t thought seriously about art nor did I thought I could actually make a living with it until I was 16 and had the chance to talk to an artist called Chiara Bautista.

2. Can you introduce your art? It seems most girls in your drawing are depressed.

Actually I wouldn't really call them depressed. My art focuses on nostalgic, dreamy and melancholic aesthetics; it's a theme I really enjoy working on since it allows me to convey emotions that are usually hard to express with words, which is something I struggle with and instead do it through art. Also, I think, there can be some beauty in the saddest things even.

3. What factors contributed to the formation of your artistic style?

My style is a mix of things I like & artists I admire; going from the coloring style, proportions, and other factors. What I did to develop my style was to pay close attention to what elements do I want to include in my art and wether do I like it or not. But I feel like I have different styles, from a stylish and doll-eyes style and a chibi style I like to doodle with for ideas or draw characters in.

4. Where did you find inspiration?

That's hard because I'm not always inspired and usually struggle with that. Though, I can find through a song I listened to, which leads me to daydream and create situations or relate them to an experience I've had before. And so to help me figure out an idea & / or find inspiration I like to scroll through my favorite artist's artworks and photography boards I have saved on Pinterest or Instagram. 

5. What does art means to you? To express yourself or to create something beautiful or anything else?

To me, it means to express yourself. And expressing yourself can be simply drawing something meaningful to you, fun, cute or something you enjoy. I like both art with some type of meaning behind it and art that got something that catches my eye: color, atmosphere, aesthetic. 

6. When did you start with digital art? Any tips for new beginners?

I got my first tablet in 2013 and started drawing with it on my pc. But it was so hard to understand and use at first that I ended up putting it away and didn’t draw for almost 6 months. I picked it up somewhere around 2014 but before all of that, I used to draw from time to time using a mouse in Paint Tool sai or MSPaint.

7. How did you improve your skills?

My skills improved the moment I started to be more serious about art, practiced and focused on working harder on my art after I graduated from the school in 2015 since I couldn't afford to go to university I ended up spending all of my free time drawing. I started following tutorials, learned about color theory all over again, etc. That was a lot of practice with good and bad drawings in the process. <br /><br />For any artist interested in starting with digital art I think it’s important to first get to know your art program and get used to the feeling of drawing with a tablet. Watching speed paints is also a good start, you can learn how other artists work digitally by learning from their process, follow different tutorials about color theory, art programs, brushes, and layers!! But overall, drawing digitally is almost like learning how to draw again, you’ll get the hang of it by drawing often and practice.