It’s a new year and time for our next Featured Student! For January we are featuring:

Liz Orton

Instagram: @lizardillo

Can't decide what I love most about Liz's work; her beautifully crafted animal characters, all the incredible little details she puts into her work, or the humor infused into each illustration. I think you'll find inspiration in her artistic process and practice. Enjoy this interview that SVS Producer, David Braud, conducted with Liz.

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Liz, we are super excited to get to know you a little better. To start out, tell us a little bit about yourself - where you are from and currently live and how you spend most of your time. 

I live with my fiancé in Tamworth, Staffordshire, right in the middle of England. I have lived here all of my life. Tamworth is a town steeped in history and has a Saxon/Norman castle in the town centre which, growing up here, seems completely normal. I forget that not everyone can see a castle from their window.

We spend a lot of our time outside when possible. We love walking, hiking, mountains, coast paths, forests and nature reserves. I spend a lot of my time covered in mud. We like to travel around the country in our little 20 year-old Japanese imported campervan, a Mazda Bongo Friendee (actual real model name!). It’s named ‘Baz’ and we have to give it shouts of encouragement for it to get up hills. I find it really funny.

My partner is a very keen birdwatcher so we are often visiting places where there is something rare or interesting to see. I take my camera with me to do a spot of bird photography. My favourites to photograph are puffins, they are such great characters and extremely photogenic.

I have pretty much drawn all of my life, even to the point where I used to get told off at school for over-illustrating all of my work instead of actually writing it. I would sit for hours on end drawing and painting. My birthday and Christmas presents were pens, watercolour paints, pencils, pastels and paper. We used to have a small art shop in town where I spent a lot of my time when I was young. I used a lot of my spare time at school down in the art department wearing an old shirt covered in acrylic paint and getting messy. Art was my favourite subject. This is still the case today apart from watercolours and pencils seem to have been replaced by Wacom and iPad.

I was planning to do animation, illustration or a wildlife illustration degree at university but I ended up taking a graphic design course. I have been a graphic designer by trade for nearly 20 years and have been working in design agencies both as an employee and as a freelancer. I really enjoy it and I have worked on some amazing brands with great people. Luckily I am in a position where I can combine both design and illustration disciplines. My job can involve creating icons, logos and illustrations to follow brand guidelines so I have learned to create anything in any style over the years.

2020 really put a halt on my agency design work so I took the chance to work on my own illustration in addition to any remaining jobs I had. This is when I started SVS classes after listening to the podcasts for a couple of years. I have been doing a lot of personal work lately aimed at a younger audience, which I really enjoy. I've been working really hard on learning and developing to be able to pursue this kind of work. I hope that 2022 may just be the year it happens (fingers crossed!).

Are fish and chips your favorite? Cottage Pie? Curry? What foods do you love the most? What about drinks?

Even though fish and chips are a British tradition, I’m not that fussed about them. I don’t really like fish. I’m a spice addict and love a nice Jalfrezi or Dhansak curry. Thai food is also a favourite of mine and I would happily eat pizza for every meal, including breakfast. A good Sunday roast dinner is always a winner too.

I love cooking and over our UK lockdown tried to solve my Japanese food craving by learning to make sushi (veg, no fish involved). I’m actually getting quite good at it. We both love our real ale and continental beers and have a great selection of pubs in the town which we like to visit with friends. This ‘research’ did help with my SVS contest entry ‘The Buzz Inn’.

Animals seem to be a huge part of your portfolio. Can you tell us a bit about your love for illustrating animals?

I have always loved animals and I have always loved drawing them. They are so varied and interesting, I used to be obsessed with drawing horses as a young child, to the point where I was told to stop putting them in every bit of schoolwork. 

My parents had a set of Reader’s Digest field guide books of birds, animals, insects, trees etc. with absolutely beautiful illustrations which I used to draw and paint all of the time. I very nearly did a wildlife illustration university course to become the person who actually creates those illustrations before taking the graphic design route. I had pet cats which I used to draw too (mainly asleep!). 

My favourite characters have always been animals. I have always liked and created anthropomorphic characters in preference to human characters. It’s fun to express their personality and behaviours in unexpected ways. I feel I can convey a message or story much better via a squirrel or panda than an adult or child. My favourite animations were animal based too, Dangermouse, Count Duckula, Dogtanian and the Three Muskahounds to name a few (all 90’s UK references sorry!). I used to like to draw these characters. The first books I ever bought with my own money when I was 6 or 7 years old were Garfield books, in fact every time the book fair came to school I ONLY bought Garfield books.

Nowadays we are often out in the countryside or at RSPB nature reserves. Birds feature in my art a lot because we spend a lot of time looking at them.

Your work is also infused with lots of humor. What drives this aspect of your art-making?

I used to watch a lot of British classic comedy as a child with my Grandad, he had a great sense of humour and was always telling jokes and playing tricks. I like comedians such as Eddie Izzard who are surreal and alternative. I watch stand-up comedy, humorous quiz shows and comedy sketch shows. I also have family and friends who are equally as silly as me so we all like to have a laugh.

I grew up reading Garfield, Peanuts, The Perishers and other comics. I absolutely love Aardman animations and feature films (Morph, Creature Comforts, Wallace and Gromit etc..). The concepts, humorous hidden jokes and details in Aardman’s animations are just amazing. It would be my dream to work on an Aardman feature film. I have an Art of Aardman book which is fantastic and shows all of the concept work and processes. I thoroughly recommend it.

I’ve always loved making other people laugh and be happy. I found that I can make people smile with my illustrations and it is a great way to try and bring a little joy to someone.

In terms of being a professional illustrator, what recommendations can you give with regard to young artists attempting to forge their path in this field? 

Draw, draw and draw some more! Take or watch tutorials. If you are at art school or college then try to learn as much as you can while you have the chance. Ask for help, ask for feedback, get reviews. Don’t take it to heart if the feedback is trying to correct something, listen to it, take it on board and use it to help develop. It’s all part of the learning process.

Do something you enjoy when you have a chance. If you like to draw dogs riding skateboards while eating exotic looking ice-cream then do it. If your school or work life doesn’t allow this then do it as a personal project (I think there’s a 99.9% chance this will not be a live brief). Doing your own work is a good way of finding your style and building on your formal learning. Sometimes you can learn one thing from doing another. Struggling with perspective? Then draw the dog skating towards you from an angle using a perspective grid and blocks. Now it’s fun AND learning at the same time. Commercial jobs can sometimes be quite restrictive so it’s good to let loose once in a while. Personal work gives you the chance to learn in a less formal way and you can always apply these skills to your academic course or a professional job later on.

Join a community, in-person (hopefully) or online. Create a network even if it's just people from your course or friends. Support and advice from peers is invaluable. I have really enjoyed being part of the SVS community and have met some wonderfully supportive people there.

This may be quite obvious but always be polite and professional. I am a freelancer and it’s amazing how many people I’ve worked with repeatedly over the years because we work well together. No-one really wants to work with someone they don’t like, no matter how great their work is. It’s a big world out there but it’s amazing how many people know each other in the business, especially in an industry where people move jobs quite frequently. Word-of-mouth is one of the best (and cheapest) ways of promotion. A recommendation can be better than a job application in many cases.

Be patient. You may be lucky and things just happen. You may get setback after setback, but if you think about it, every setback is a learning opportunity. So keep developing and keep trying. 

What’s your own practice as an artist look like? Do you have set times of the day you work? Are you more productive in a certain space? And what about inspiration?

When I am not freelancing at an agency I work at home (which is most of the time now). I have used a Wacom Cintiq 22HD for the past 7 or 8 years, mainly using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Recently it’s my iPad and Procreate which are being preferred. I love the fact you can just work anywhere, like the sofa, or even in a campervan on the Outer Hebrides.

I’m not a morning person. I listen to people explaining how they get up early and go for a run and then have loads of work done by 8am. No way can I do that. I’m always half asleep in the morning. I can’t really eat until 10am (unless I’m at a hotel and there’s a breakfast buffet - that’s the exception to the rule). I’ve always been a night owl. I start around 9am normally if I am doing my own work and tend to do tasks that are not that creative first, I’m most creative in the afternoon/evenings when I’ve kicked into gear. I would work until the early hours of the morning if it was a realistic option. I think I may be living in the wrong time zone.

Lately I have been looking on Instagram for inspiration. I like to discover work and artists that I would never come across normally. The same goes for Pinterest when researching for a project, one thing can lead to another and can end up with me searching for their IG account and following them. I have discovered so much via socials. I like buying artist’s art books. My most recent purchases are Derek Laufman and The Etherington Brothers ‘How to Think When You Draw’ series. Both were Kickstarter campaigns. I also subscribe to Character Design Quarterly magazine.

I watch SVS classes, artist’s process videos, animations (if you have the My Neighbour Totoro DVD and it has the option of watching the film as the artist’s sketched storyboards, then watch it, it’s amazing!). I also listen to music and podcasts (3PP is one of those) while I work. I set a bit of time aside if I can to enter art prompts to challenge myself to follow a brief, which I really enjoy. 

I have a very overactive imagination, it’s hard to reign it in, I think that may help the creative process as sometimes I see things in a completely opposite direction, whether that is a good or bad thing I’m not sure!

We’d love to see some of your work. Can you share 5 or 6 pieces with us?

Buzz-Bee was a SVS monthly prompt entry for a Fairy-tale character. I had a lot of helpful feedback from the SVS forums to help with elements of this character, for which I was very thankful. (Created in Photoshop) Buzz-Bee Illustration is at the top of the post.

Below is ‘The Buzz Inn’. SVS monthly prompt entry for a Fairy-tale Inn. Inventing funny pub names is a great game. As the prompt needed to relate to the bee character from the previous month it was a great chance to have a bit of fun and really go for it with the bee related puns. Elements of the design are based on local pubs in my town and the UK in general. (Procreate and finished in Photoshop)

‘Chaffy’s Bird Box’. It’s always exciting when Chaffy comes to town. With a variety of treats from seeds to worms there’s something for everyone. Keep your eyes on the sky. If you see him flying past then give him a wave or a shriek; he’ll be right down with something tasty for your beak. (Procreate)

This was one of a series of designs that I created for a company called Industry & Supply. They create illustrated merchandise featuring classic bikes, 4x4s and cars. I created a set of designs for the younger market to be used on tshirts, hoodies and stickers. (Adobe Illustrator)

I love drawing food. I think watching episodes of Man v Food was the inspiration for this. This was an exercise to try and add some movement to an otherwise static object. (Procreate)

I started sketching the word sushi that was made of sushi with a ballpoint pen in my notebook while working at an agency. I went on to try and create it into a full illustration as a personal project so I could practise perspective where you create basic boxes to make complex shapes. It's not all technically sushi but I used some artistic licence to create the letters. This is a different style to my other work but it was a perspective exercise predominantly. I may redraw it when I have time as I like the concept more than the finished image. (Procreate)

Liz, You’re art is fantastic!! So fun to look at, so many details. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Last question: What are you dreaming up for 2022? Travel, new experiences, new art-making?

I’m really looking forward to 2022. I’m kicking it off with a three month illustration mentorship program to help to develop my style, find my niche, improve on my weaknesses and develop my strengths. I’m so excited about this. I’m hoping it will help me to make that final jump from ‘designer who illustrates’ to ‘illustrator with design experience’. I would love to do work for games, animation and perhaps editorial and packaging. I definitely need to work on environments and, my nemesis, drawing PEOPLE! (Aaaarrgghh!) I have already had some portfolio advice and was recommended to reconfigure my website to promote the kind of direction I would like to pursue, which is illustration. I’m in the process of that now so there’s no going back!

I started a small online shop at the end of 2021 so I am going to give that a revamp and create some new illustrated products this year. I would love to create some collectable characters.

We will hopefully be exploring the Scottish Shetland and Orkney Islands in good ol’ ‘Bazza the Bongo’ campervan.

Most excitingly we will be planning our wedding!

** Happy new year everyone, hope you have a great 2022 **

Liz, thank you for sharing your story with us. It’s wonderful to hear about your journey as an artist and we wish you the best as you continue on this path!

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