Who inspires me?

A wonderful artist that I deeply admire, Stephanie Corfee asked me if I wanted to join her for a bloghop called 'Who Inspires Me'. How could I say no to this?! Here is Stephanies post. I met Stephanie online last fall while taking the Lilla Rogers Studio course Make Art That Sells. The course helps illustrators of all kinds and designers of every stripe hone in on their strengths in the various markets available for licensing or the various publishing realms that get their work out there. We developed a friendly community during the course and i am so proud and lucky now to count Stephanie as a friend. Her work is thoughtful, lush and dreamy. Some of my favorites are below. I mean, can you handle it?! She is so prolific and just a magnificent artist. QUESTION #1 – WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON RIGHT NOW? I have a local to San Francisco client who is starting a line of childrens clothing, and I am coming up with some patterns and placement images for her line, so much fun! Also, I just found out that I am on the short list for Lilla Rogers gts, so I'll be sketching away for this as well. Another project I've got going on is for a friend who works at Pixar. She's getting married soon, and asked me to do an illustrated and hand lettered seating chart. I'm pretty excited about all of these projects! QUESTION #2 – WHY DO YOU CREATE WHAT YOU DO? I've had a lot of in-house design jobs and in the past had to tailor my work to be what the client wanted or to fit into a styleguide [I've also created a lot of styleguides that I then had to fit into!] and now that I'm freelance the emphasis is on the word 'free'. I want to continue to develop my own style and have people want to hire me based on my work rather than the other way around. I hope to someday illustrate a book or two, have a line of my fabric patterns out in the world, illustrate for magazines, and always keep interested in what I'm doing. I'm open to a lot of possibilities and am in love with the whole process these days, except the rejection. haha QUESTION #3 – HOW DOES YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS WORK? Usually, I work the best when I have some kind of goal: a project brief to work from either from a client or self directed. Then I sketch and brainstorm and try to develop different angles on a subject. Then, I'll hone in on the one that brings me the most joy to work on and build it out from there. Then, depending on the client feedback [sometimes I am the client!], I'll iterate and alter and hopefully arrive at 'done' at some point. And now for the most fun part...who inspires ME? I am inspired by so many people it was difficult to narrow it down to two, but for this post I had to. Ohn Mar Win just astounds me with her ability to put life into her work. Whether it's her fantastic lettering, or her believable and relatable characters...all of her works seems ALIVE to me. Like these boys: Can't you just feel their elation as they sneak off to throw the chicken into the pot with those veggies from the garden?! Just the texture and the vibrant colors she chooses are enough to send me but then her characters have SO MUCH personality on top of this. I could go on for days, really. But instead, lets look at her lettering. Just so much fun, you can really tell that she loves what she does. Another artist that really inspires me to follow my own ideas is Jo Chambers. Jo loves to give, for lack of a better term: personality to inanimate objects and especially to beloved pets. HOW MUCH FUN IS THIS? I mean... And her 'mantelpiece meetups' might just be the best idea I've seen in a LONG WHILE. Such an original. I really am excited to see what these amazing artists will do next, I'm such a fangirl and kind of proud of that fact.