MacDirectory Magazine

Jason Seiler

MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.

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where I have my own unique voice and it always excites me and pushes me creatively.  When drawing a caricature of someone, you need to understand what you are seeing and then take it to a different place.  Depending on the publication or person I am working for I greatly enjoy the moments when I can push the exaggeration more and have more creative freedom as an artist.  Some publications ask that I be a bit more conservative and this can be equally as challenging artistically when trying to capture the true physical and emotional characteristics of my subject.  I also enjoy painting realistic portraits which are usually done for publications like TIME, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, etc. For portraits, my methods or way of thinking is different.  Drawing realistic portraits is more like doing math, less creative than doing caricature, and if you paint too realistically then what is the point of using a painting, why not just use a photo?  So, for this reason after making sure that my proportions are correct and drawn well, I rely heavily on creating a beautiful piece of art by making sure that my painting is aesthetically powerful.  I want to be expressive with my brushwork as much as possible.  What I enjoy about painting portraits is challenging myself and trying to get the most accurate likeness as I can. Capturing the "character" or "essence" of a person is by far the most important, more than just the physical details of a person.  It is difficult to describe, but I feel the trick there is making sure you are able to find the best reference possible of your subject, that is of course if you are working from references.  I usually try to paint a person how I see them in my mind’s eye.  I also try to capture something magical in their eyes and mouth, something that expresses who they are and almost makes them feel like they could blink.   First and foremost, I am a traditional artist, which means I prefer oil painting, watercolor, acrylic or gouache, over digital painting.  Early on in my career, I only used traditional mediums. Now, I most often paint traditionally for my personal work or for private commissions.  The reason I switched over to digital for my illustration work was that the deadlines for most magazine work is insane!  A friend of mine talked me into trying it.  First, I bought a small cheap tablet, not made by Wacom, I don't remember the brand.  I used that little tablet for quite a while, until it was so scratched up that it was no longer usable.  In that time of using it, I taught myself how to paint digitally and I had done quite a few magazine illustrations with it.  There

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