Member of the Month - Interview with GirlCanSmile

Sep 9, 20167 min read

Deviation Actions

Published: Sep 9, 2016

2.9K Views

Every month we select one member to be exposed on the homepage of the group and we will do a special feature and a short interview.

Set of amazing photo manipulations and short interview by talented artist from Scandinavia.

1. Can you give us a little insight as to what goes on in your mind when you create your pieces?

Where do your ideas stem from?

When I create I am completely focused, I think i tend to enter the world of whatever it is I'm creating and can't really see or hear anything around me. Sometimes before I begin I will have the entire piece completely planned in my head, but rarely it end up looking exactly like I imagined.

I try to portray an honesty cause I find few things in life to be either black or white. I'm inspired by everything from broken hearts to children's laughter. Bloody knees and rainbows.

Sometimes i have no idea where the piece will go and I let it guide me, I can begin with a faint idea or a distant feeling. I find inspiration in everything, usually my works tend to be a balance act of dark and light, youth and wisdom, terror and delight.

2. Which of your pieces are you most fond of and can you tell us a little about them?

That's a hard one cause I tend to be overly emotionally invested in everything I create. In some ways I think most of my characters are related, or at least live in the same weird little village.

I am a bit extra fond of the paintings, especially the ones painted from scratch that have an emotional meaning, such as the scarf:

I still haven't figured out what they are, or who they are but I imagine them being a mix of your best friend next door and some far away alien you will never officially meet, yet meet every night.

3. What advice do you have for the beginning Photo manipulation artists?

Patience. I nearly gave up trying to figure it out, so many times. I went from being a traditional painter, to trying to learn photoshop and photo manipulations. I hardly knew how to start up a computer...it was so frustrating and complicated.

I also began painting digitally with just a mouse, but later realized that long term that just won't cut it...so i got a wacom tablet, something I strongly recommend for anybody painting digitally, it will open a new artistic world for you.

As far as photo manipulations, I would recommend learning the basic of Photoshop first, don't complicate it too much. Make sure you develop your own style and voice, experiment, you don't have to follow any trends or patterns or "must's".
Technically advanced you will get in time...so make sure you don't lose what's artistically YOU while getting there.