Fanartivation Interview with Itzcoatl
| Interviews by Fans | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Fanartivation Interview with Itzcoatl |
| Interviewer: | |
| Interviewee: | Itzcoatl |
| Date(s): | April 3, 2012 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom(s): | Merlin |
| External Links: | online here, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Fanartivation Interview with Itzcoatl was posted to Fanartivation in 2012.
This interview contains examples of the artist's work and their comments about them.
Part of a Series
Some Excerpts
Tell us a little about yourself!
At the moment I’m very much into Merlin fandom. It’s very odd with fandom I think, as it kinda picks you rather than the other way around. There are shows I’ve seen that are “better”, (cleverer writing, more adult storylines etc.), but although I may love watching them, they don’t actually make me NEED to paint them. I used to ADORE “Buffy” and fancy the pants off Giles, but I never once had the urge to do a painting for it.
I have a driving need to make things and I love to dabble, so I’ve had a go at loads of crafts: glass painting, silk painting, whittling, model-making, silver clay, cross stitch… If I see a craft I want to try it, (usually very badly but with great enthusiasm *G*)…but it’s painting and drawing that I always come back to.
I work full time, and have a long commute, so I’m too tired to do much in the evenings. I try to do something creative most weekends though, or it feels as though the weekend has been wasted, the housework tends to suffer quite badly though, (...my motto is that a little dirt builds up your immune system. *G*)
When did you first start drawing? Was it before or after you discovered fandom?
Long before fandom, some of my earliest memories involve drawing.
A friend and I discovered fandom at school when “Blake’s Seven” started: we joined the “Horizon” fanclub, went to our first convention, and were introduced to our first slash fanzines at a totally inappropriate age… *cough*.
In your opinion, which artwork of yours has the single most powerful moment? Could you tell us about the challenges involved in creating it?
Probably “Execution”I like to use reference photos to draw from. I can draw straight out of my head, but it seems to lose the realism and earthiness of something that is taken from reality. I don’t have a photographic memory, so I can’t remember exactly what light on metal looks like, or how folds hang in material etc. I can produce a basic shorthand version of it from memory, but it won’t be as “real” as if I look at actual photos.
For this painting I wanted someone roughly holding someone else in this position. I googled everywhere, you’d think it would be quite easy to find some sort of reference photo for this pose, but nada. I even asked LJ friends if they’d seen anything that might work. Ended up having to create my own pose loosely based on a couple of different photos, and as you can see, the anatomy is a bit out.
I was pleased with the emotion in Arthur’s face, and I think it tells a story, which is what I was going for. I was pleased with the smoke from the fire, which I made by putting my thumb in grey paint and then smearing it up the canvas.
The fire itself isn’t as good as it could be. This later painting with fire in it is MUCH better, I’m really pleased with the fire in this one. (The more you paint something the more you come to get a feel for how to create the illusion of it. Even right back to the cavemen doing art in the caves, most painting is magic, *G*, it’s tricking the brain into seeing something that isn’t really there, creating the illusion of a 3D object out of colours on a flat surface. I read once about some tribe somewhere who, VERY unusually, had no tradition at all of visual art of any kind. When they were shown paintings their brains hadn’t “learned” how to see them, and they just didn’t see anything more than a pattern of abstract lines and colours.)
What has fandom added to your life?
It gives me a focus and a “point” to doing artwork. With fandom pieces you get a bit of feedback and a sense that people are looking at your work. Also, reading fan stories, and seeing the art that other fans create, spurs you on with new ideas and the need to be better at what you do.