Name: Carina Povarchik (signs as Catru)
Describe your illustration style in ten words or less.
I’d go with eclectic, whimsical, happy, sweet, organic, and loose.
What items are an essential part of your creative space?
Natural light, complete silence or happy music, a clean and organized space or I’ll lose my focus. I do have tons of tools and materials though, but I need to organize them often so I can work.
Do you have a favourite artistic medium?
I love so many mediums that I sometimes feel a bit guilty I keep jumping from one to another haha.
But, I’d say that ink, watercolours, pencil and digital are maybe my top favourite ones. Although when I work for children’s illustrations I tend to use all digital most of the time because it’s quite practical.
Only 3 is really tough! In children’s illustration now I’d say Beatrice Alemagna, Ati Forberg and Isabelle Arsenault.
Which artistic period would you most like to visit and why?
The first one that made me wish to express myself through drawings was Quino. As maybe all in my generation, I grew up reading Mafalda, and I was in awe with her. Not only the content but also Quino’s ink drawings had me hooked.
Of course! I have about 2 main working spaces at home, a whole small room, that I call it my studio, a whole table in the living room. I have tons of different materials and tools, because I always get tempted to do something different in the week. Sometimes I want to draw with pencil, other times I want to paint a landscape in acrylics, then I want to do some ink work. Of course, if having deadlines things get adjusted accordingly. I’m lucky to have a nice natural light in my working spaces. And lots of birds coming to my backyard. I love that.
Take the time to learn it all, the best you can. Art foundations, and everything you can afford to learn in the specific area you may want to end up illustrating for.
Then, take the time to forget it all.
Some people can do their amazing thing without going to any art school, that’s true. But it may not be the case for everyone. So, learning can be a really useful thing to do.
Then, you need to forget it all and simply be yourself, so you can really give your something that’s unique to you, to the world. To others. You see, you need to know the rules of art well in order to break them in a brilliant way 🙂