@celiajacobs

Instagram: @celiajacobs Website: www.celiaj.com  

1. What's your story? Where are you from?

I was born in Portland, Oregon, and lived there until I moved to sunny southern California for school four years ago. I just graduated so the rest is looking wide open.

2. Tell us about your aesthetic.

My aesthetic is pretty colorful, soft and a little hard, sweet and a little weird. I like everything to look purposeful, but like a hand made it purposefully, so it got a little messed up on the way. It’s a hard question! I hope to make really ordinary stuff with just a little more magic on top.

3. What is your favourite medium and why?

I’m really obsessed with colored pencils. I’m a drawer more than anything else (I like to paint but I’m really slow and kind of awkward at it!) so I feel most comfortable holding a pencil. With colored pencils, I can stay in that comfort zone but still get a lot of nice colors and flat shapes, plus all kinds of textures and lines. Also I use Prismacolors, which are super waxy and feel so good, like pushing butter into paper.

4. What is your artistic process like?

My process is pretty straightforward–put most simply, I sketch out the drawing then color it in. I try to picture what a piece is going to look like beforehand so that the act of drawing is mostly brain-hand translation. I also like to do a lot of research and get myself into Google wormholes.

5. Who and/or what inspires your work?

Of course I love to look at a ton of contemporary illustrators, plus painters and fine artists from both today and way back when. Outside of that, I’m really inspired by the natural world–landscapes and plants and animals. I always feel good and energized if I go outside and hang out with some trees. My friends inspire me a lot too, both with their artwork (I’m lucky to have really talented friends) and their sparkling personalities!

6. What role does art play in your life? How does it change the way you view the world?

Sometimes I don’t realize how much art affects my life until I realize that I’m inside it all the time and I just don’t see it, like how you don’t see the atmosphere. It’s everything! I think by drawing and making art all the time I’ve been working on the superpower of looking really hard at stuff. It’s made me a better observer of details and the coolness of every ordinary thing in the world.

7. Where did you study?

I just graduated this spring from ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. I was lucky to go to school with really cool, talented, hardworking students and teachers.

8. Where do you see yourself in five years? Working in an agency?

With a dog! Hopefully working solely as a freelance illustrator, for myself and collaboratively with friends. I want to do my part and work with scientific/environmental outreach and education. And own a dog.

9. What about in ten?

Eventually I think it’d be cool to teach or do some kind of art direction. I want to draw forever. If I age faster than expected, maybe in ten years I’ll be like Matisse, drawing from my bed with charcoal attached to a pole.

10. What do you hope to achieve with your art?

I really want my art to make people happy. Sometimes it’s sadder work, but I hope it reaches out and connects with people and then they’re happy that we’re connected. I try not to take myself too seriously, but I want to put out a lot of honesty and heart. Aww.

11. Now, tell us a little more about you as a person: what is your favourite food?

I love breakfast! Like a good American breakfast with soft scrambled eggs and potatoes and avocado, now that I’m kind of Californian. And bottomless black coffee and mimosas.

12. Favourite book?

I really like magical realism. “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez is a classic and might be my favorite.

13. Favourite genre of music?

Once Spotify sent me an email that said I listened to a lot of “Freak Folk” in 2016. I don’t know what it means but I love that name and it sounds pretty right!

14. What are your hobbies?

Besides drawing all the time, I like to play music–I’m happily mediocre at it and I have a lot of fun starting to write (and never finishing) little songs. I love to cook and eat. I like hiking and camping and driving through different landscapes.

15. If you weren't an artist, what would you be?

Sad! Or a biologist or a park ranger. Or a writer, definitely, but I think that might still be a kind of artist. Not that a biologist isn’t.