Sound Colour Vibration (Music | Art | Film | Technology | Science | Culture)

Sound Colour Vibration is very proud to present volume 40 in our ongoing online art gallery features under the moniker Creator Wave. This new online art feature focuses on David Cristobal, an illustrator from Spain whose works are as detailed and adventurous as they come. We found David through a recent Juxtapoz Magazine online feature and we’re really pleased with the response he gave us when we contacted him. As an artist from Spain with highly gifted skills and concepts, it is an honor to present this interview and online art feature in our Creator Wave series.

www.davidcristobal.com

EO: With so many mediums of art to choose from, what led you to emphasize your talents towards illustration?

DC: I´ve chosen illustration by chance. After I finished the school of art, I’ve been working for many years in a primary school. During this time I didn’t paint at all, I was just making music (I’ve been playing music since I was 15). In that time I was painting only for people
who was asking me works. When I moved to Milan, I was back to drawing again and I started with pencil (a technique that I’ve almost never used). Basically, I started to draw because I was very attracted from the interpretations of words, concepts or ideas that came directly from me or inspired from other people or artist, but trying to create a personal style. Also working in the school during many years helped me a lot to know a lot of illustrated children books and novels.

EO: As an artist from Spain, is the architecture and culture around you something that is absorbed heavily into your art? If yes, how so?

DC: Actually no, at least consciously. I’ve always been thinking that almost everything has something that inspires us during all our lives. I think music is the aspect that much, has influenced me… and still.

EO: What galleries, mentors, friends, family and any other people people in your path with life have become critical pieces to the evolution of your artistic abilities?

DC: I wasn’t living neither really influenced by an artistic scenario, only when I was attending school for art that I met a professor that influenced me a lot, and from who I was learning much. When I’m drawing sometimes his advices come up to my mind… but I need to thank MY LOVE, for supporting me and for making me get back
to my work.

EO: What have been the biggest goals you have achieved so far through your art?

DC: This interview.

EO: What type of environments do you best work in?

DC: In particular I draw human beings, body parts and animals. In a few occasions I put some objects inside. Actually in my last works I did not even use a scenario, I just concentrated myself on the main subject and then I put one or two elements in the picture.

EO: With art evolving into online mediums as much as it has into any other, do you think this has brought value to the art community at large or brought it down? Or are you indifferent on this subject?

DC: I think it is a positive thing. It’s opening worldwide in a very “easy” way. For me the real problem is the way and how the people use it. Internet is just perfect to always know more things but in the end if you like an artist, just support him/her. The same for the artist, you find more demands but also more more opportunities.

EO: Who are some of your favorite illustrators?

DC: I really don’t have any “favorite” illustrators but if I have to choose one I go for Norman Rockwell because he uses the right mixture between illustration and painting.

EO: Will you be doing any art showings that you’d like to talk about with us?

DC: In the last period, I’ve been working in a project about making T-shirts. After the summer I’ll be present in a collective exhibition; another personal one at the end of this year.
Then a couple of arts magazines will printing out some of my illustration. Last but not least, I’ll be continuing with the “Neverending” series “Beauty last forever”.

EO: When you are entangled into a lengthy process in creating a piece, do you fall in love more with those deeply planted work runs or does it become a battle that sometimes wins against your psyche and you wish the piece would finish itself?

DC:  I’m telling you, this question is very hard for me. Let’s try to make a point. Every time I have some ideas I start to think in take about my time to realize them. Working in a “slow” way but right in the moment when I start, I want to see it all finished. The good thing is that I’m fast, but sometimes the bad thing is that I’m loosing particulars…

EO: For anyone out there whose in the beginning stages of studying illustration, what type of advice could you lend them that you received or wish you had received in your beginning stages?

DC: Studying, observing and working hard.

EO: What has been your most challenging piece to create? What piece took the least amount of time to create that you are just as happy with?

DC: My “Longer work” isn’t actually ready yet. It’s a series I started since many months, it’s called “Virgins, Dust and various Insects”. My hope is to finish it one day (every time I came up to this series I feel a kind of paralysis). The idea seems very nice to me and i really want to finish. When I start to realize that some works take too much, I leave it for the future  more creatives) days. I feel very easy with myself with this way of working. Without any doubt, the work takes less time in doing it. “Now that I’m older my heart is colder” from “Beauty last forever” series… I wake up in the middle of the night, I drew it, went back to sleep and when I woke up in the morning I didn’t remember almost a thing. It was just a very nice experience that I hope can happen again soon. Basically it took me one hour and a half to do it.

EO: As an illustrator, I’d imagine you enjoy animation. I absolutely love the film Fantastic Planet. Do you have any favorite animation films or is animation not really your thing?

DC: i really adore cinema, but as it happens to me with music, I don’t put everything in one kind only, but I try to focalize my work around the artist. It doesn’t matter which kind of work he/she does. I actually discovered this movie recently and I’m impressed firstly from melancholic blue faces (or moving) of children that reminds me of some kind of dolls. To be honest if I have to choose a kind I certainly wouldn’t go for animation.

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Creator Wave Volume 40
David Cristobal

www.davidcristobal.com