Interview with Serena Phu
Tell me a bit about yourself. Where are you from? How did you decide to become an artist?
I was born and raised in central Connecticut with my parents and brother, all of whom enjoy art in some capacity (my brother is currently a hobby artist, and when I was younger my mother would often paint and tell us about her brief time in art school; my dad will occasionally doodle).
As a child, I would spend my free time drawing cakes, and later on my brother introduced me to anime, which started my foray into drawing people. When I entered the 6th grade, I made an unknowingly powerful decision that art would be my schtick.
How do you start your day?
I wake up between 8:30 and 9:30am and usually check social media on my phone, to catch up on artists I follow, as well as general current events. Once I’m satisfied or feel I’ve spent too much time in bed, I’ll wash my face, brush my teeth, and head to the kitchen to eat breakfast and drink water/tea.
I typically go to bed with an idea of what I need to do once I start the next day, so I try to get right into it, despite my lethargy. Although, if I’ve woken up to a very time-sensitive plan of the day, I might skip breakfast until I’ve finished the first important task.
What does your workspace/studio look like? What aspects of it are most important to you?
My workspace is rather cluttered at the moment! I tend to have a variety of stuff-making schemes, dabble in several different mediums, and hold onto a plethora of objects, materials, and doodles that I think could contribute to my work at some point.
My studio room has a wall of shelves that are mostly organized by type of object/what they’re used for/how often I might need to access them. I’m also a fan of tiered rolling carts, so I have 3 in my studio; one for watercolor & acrylics, one for oil paint, and one for miscellaneous things with a focus on merchandise production (screenprinting materials, tape, sticker paper, and some of my inventory).
I have a desk set up right in front of a south-facing window, and a drafting table on the opposite side of the room. On the walls, I tape up my paintings, useful notes or color studies, and in one section of wall I have hooks that hold badges I’ve accumulated from the conventions I’ve shown at.
What’s your favorite medium, and why do you love it?
My absolute favorite medium is oils, for sure. I love the tactility of the paint, and the way that it and I seem to both leave our own personal trademarks on a piece. I’m fond of how easily I can achieve immaculate, realistic detail or large but still visually interesting spaces, depending on what I need.
What tool has improved your workflow or creative process recently?
I’m constantly relying on the lists I jot down in my Google Keep app. I have so many lists, both personal and work-related, with things like tasks I’m in the middle of, long-term plans, ideas I have for pieces I want to make, and so on. I find myself overwhelmed very easily, mostly by my own choices as I try to be in the middle of several different projects at once.
Maintaining lists allows me to redirect my focus on a whim and gives me a mental “shelf” where I can passively keep tabs on everything I’m doing, and not have to think about all of them simultaneously at every moment.
When you’re feeling “artist’s block,” what do you do to get “unblocked”?
Most of the time, “artist’s block” comes to me in the form of a lack of activity. I feel most “blocked” when I haven’t made something that makes me feel genuinely excited or happy or satisfied for a long time, and I usually have to realize that first before I can address it.
Once I have, I go back to the list of ideas that I haven’t gotten a chance to work on yet, and pick whichever one I’m most interested in. If I’m in between a lot of projects, I make it a quick study or even a sketch, just so I can get something finished and rejuvenate my motivation.
What’s particularly inspiring to you right now? Where do you go when you need a dose of creative inspiration?
I don’t have an immediate go-to for inspiration resources per se, but I do take a lot of inspiration from fashion, so I may go to social media to find people’s fashion snaps or some streetwear blogs, especially Japan-based street fashion photographers. One of my favorites is Tokyo Fashion, which I tend to go to if I’m trying to think of an outfit design for a character.
When we’re not in a pandemic, I usually try to travel. It never has to be anywhere far, but I find that seeing new things gets my gears turning. I especially get hyped up whenever I see very modern architecture or interior design. If I can’t find that, I always feel inspired by very dramatically lit clouds; most of the time I don’t even have to look for them, but I’ll simply glance up and see an intense vision in the sky, and it always urges me to paint.
What’s a favorite project that you’ve worked on so far in your career? What did you love about it?
One of my favorite projects that I’ve worked on will probably always be the series of paintings I had done that were based off of a music video by the K-pop group, BTS. They were very self-indulgent pieces for me, but I was very satisfied with the process of painting them, and overall they are a nice showcase of my capabilities with oil paint. I made them in undergrad and presented them to my professors and colleagues at the time, and felt validated to know that they could be addressed as serious pieces outside of the context of my being a fan of a music group.
What is your dream project in the future?
For sure, my dream project is to work with BTS on basically anything. A lot of the themes that inspire me to make my own work are themes that I can also find in theirs, which means that a) I’m very interested in what I interpret as the intent of their work, and b) I think I’d jive really well with any creative project that they could ever invite me to work on.
In a more general sense, I come from a fine arts mindset, as that was what I studied and got my degree in. I’m very much into taking the stuffiness out of fine arts and bringing it to a more modern and accessible (perhaps even “mainstream”) landscape, and would love to get myself to a point where I could do a collaboration with a huge brand or non-painting artist, similar to how Takashi Murakami has done so many unconventional collaborations from the art-world perspective.
This is also why I’m interested in illustration, because of how it combines fine art with practical appeal — for example book covers for mysterious or fantastical novels that share my work’s aesthetic.
What advice do you wish you could give your younger self?
I wish I could tell my younger self to just do what they liked, and to not worry about looking smart or clever.
How do you balance work and art with personal life?
A lot of my personal life is actually, in ways, intertwined with my art. As someone with an interest in clothing, for example, I’ll be drawing and need to look at reference pictures of clothes and fashion, and doing that research will satisfy that itch for me. A lot of the people in my life are also involved in the arts, so I find that talking to them will often lead to discussions about art, which motivates me to get back to work, haha.
The thing I enjoy about being an artist is that more often than not, when I find something I become interested in, I try to express this excitement through drawing. Eventually, whether I consider it work or play, everything in my life coalesces.
What’s an example of a past rejection or “failure” that ended up helping you? How did it help?
As a sort of continuation of the advice I’d give to my younger self: I spent a long time framing the idea of a successful artist as one who makes completely new things that no one has ever thought of before. I thus spent a long time trying to come up with unorthodox ways to paint, mixed media pieces, and complicated metaphors and symbolisms to achieve this, without actually putting much thought into the simpler things that I enjoyed doing whenever I made art.
It wasn’t until my senior year in college, when I was trying to justify the art I wanted to make with a difficult, intangible metaphor, that I understood trying to keep it under this lens only hurt the work. It revealed the ego that I had developed about my art.
After a long trip, looking at myself and my favorite works, and looking at a bunch of art, I was able to see this, and reframe how I approached things.
How do you maintain your art career? Either in terms of marketing yourself, or developing multiple income streams?
In all honesty, I haven’t quite figured that out yet. I’m still getting the majority of my income from non-art-related work, but I try to maintain social media presence within reason. My focus in terms of the work I make and the things I post has been on authenticity, being more genuine about what my work is about, and trying to create for an audience of people that are truly interested in what I make and why I make it.
This question is difficult to answer mostly due to the pandemic, but usually, I try to build my presence by traveling to conventions and sharing my work at in-person events; I find this to work better than any attempts I’ve made at marketing myself purely through social media.
What are you working on now?
I’m working with a therapist to illustrate a children’s book about tolerance, as well as a new line of merchandise for my online store. And I have a large 9’ oil painting that I’ve been slowly making progress on, although I may be pausing it to focus on the book and merchandise.
I am also trying to start up more quick painting studies to do in between working on all of these things, to satisfy my painting itches.
In broader terms, I’m also working towards unifying what has always felt like 2 distinctive streams of thought in my body of work into something that’s perhaps multi-faceted, but also consistent.
Connect with Serena Phu:
See more art by Serena Phu!
Interview with Andi Watson
Tell me a bit about yourself. Where are you from? How did you decide to become an artist?
I’m from Kippax, a small town near Leeds in the north of England. I grew up close to streams and a wood and split my time between being active and ‘laking out’ (playing with friends) and staying indoors drawing. I enjoyed the company of my friends but also loved being engrossed in my own private world of drawing TIE fighters and other imaginative stuff. I would go through periods of being a ‘hermit’ and wanting to be left alone to draw and eventually that side of me won out.
Perhaps I answered the call of the Dark Side, to overextend this metaphor, but I find I work best when left to my own devices.
I became an artist because I enjoy writing, drawing and making stuff up. I still get a kick out of a good drawing or gesture, a line of dialogue or plot progression. There’s a lot of talk about the dopamine hit of social media, that little bit of pleasure from positive or reinforcing feedback. I think my brain is wired, or has been trained through obsessive practice, to get a little dopamine hit, or equivalent, from creating. Also, drawing and reading was all I really was interested in or any good at.
How do you start your day?
Make breakfast in bed for my wife. She works a 9-5, although it’s rarely that short a day. So I make breakfast and would normally have made a packed lunch for my daughter during school term. She’s just graduated school so I won’t have that as a pillar of my routine anymore. In fact my life will be quite different when she goes to college. I’ve been a stay-at-home-dad throughout so it’s going to be weird.
What does your workspace/studio look like? What aspects of it are most important to you?
It’s the front room of our Edwardian terrace house. It has a handsome period fireplace. I have a writing desk as well as a standing desk I cobbled together from an Ikea bookcase. I have an uncomfortable wooden chair for when I’m drawing and a comfortable chair for when I’m writing. I try and keep the clutter under control but as it’s a workspace, I accept it’s not going to feature in a photoshoot in Elle Decor. I’m surrounded by books which makes me happy.
I have tried working away from home in the past but I find it more convenient to have everything close by. Like a couple of footsteps close by. I have often wrestled with separating work and home life but eventually accepted defeat. To some extent I’m always at work. My brain is whirring away in the background on whatever problem that day’s work has presented, regardless of whether I’m at home or in a studio. I am better at letting it go and taking the evening off now, though.
I like that I can shut the door. I’ve worked in a variety of spaces over the years, kitchen tables, a cupboard, I even had my own building for a while. It wasn’t part of our country estate but a small attached laundry room that was just big enough for me and a drawing board once we’d taken the washing machine out. It’s always nice to be able to close the door and not be interrupted, even if it’s only for fifteen minutes. Especially if you have small children.
What’s your favorite medium, and why do you love it?
I guess my first love will always be prose. That’s where I first fell in love with stories. I admire writers and their mastery of language. I have always found writing difficult so am in awe of anyone who can work the magic with words that really talented writers do.
As far as my own favourite medium to work in, obviously it’s comics. The alchemy of words and pictures. It has its own magic in combining the two. I have hopefully created something greater than the words and images separately. It is also really really hard to master. If it was easy I would have gotten bored and done something else years ago.
What tool has improved your workflow or creative process recently?
For my most recent book, Kerry and the Knight of the Forest (out now from all good bookshops), I added the use of a chinagraph pencil to my familiar pens in order to develop more texture to the art.
As I’m struggling with writing a new graphic novel for grown ups right now, I’m not using anything more complex than a pencil and scrap paper. I’m wrestling with plot and character rather than mastering a new tool.
As far as software goes, Janna has introduced me to the full range of teleconferencing software out there to conduct meetings. Before that I’d avoided Skype and the like. I sometimes even manage to appear on screen at the right time.
When you’re feeling “artist’s block,” what do you do to get “unblocked”?
Usually blame myself for being talentless and assume no one else goes through this. Truly talented people have no shortage of ideas, right?
Of course not. Being blocked can mean all kinds of things, from struggling with a story (me right now) to feeling some effects of burnout.
I think the important thing to remember is that you are a human and not a comic-making machine. I know that’s difficult to keep in mind when it’s your job — you’re freelance and you need to make rent. But no one is 100% creative every hour of the day. Do this long enough and you will realize there are ebbs and flows. Sometimes you are peaking, everything has come together and you are doing your best work and it feels effortless. Others you’ve hit a trough, you feel like you are struggling to do the very basics adequately despite working harder than ever. That is totally normal. Do not beat yourself up.
It’s nice, if I can, to do some personal stuff unrelated to what the market wants. A mini comic, or something on the web, a poster or just give myself time to doodle in a sketchbook. Take time to remind yourself art is fun and pleasurable, not just another grinding march towards a deadline or a way to make money.
Even if you’ve created a dozen books you’re still going to have to start again at the foot of the mountain and begin something new. The good and the bad news is it never gets easier. But anyone who wants an easy life would not choose comics.
What’s particularly inspiring to you right now? Where do you go when you need a dose of creative inspiration?
I have a bunch of prose books on the shelf facing my table, so if I’m feeling a bit flat I’ll pick up a volume of Pinter or Beckett and read a few lines. Or Evelyn Waugh or Lydia Davis or whoever. They are distant enough from comics I don’t have to worry about being overly influenced.
What’s a favorite project that you’ve worked on so far in your career? What did you love about it?
Often the project before last is my favourite. On a most recent project the wounds are still fresh. I see the flaws and I’m sick of looking at it after working so intensely on it.
So my book before last was The Book Tour which came out in France in 2019. It’s coming out in English from Top Shelf in November and it’s the book I’m most proud of at the moment.
It’s a book I did without telling anyone about it. I just decided to go ahead and make this one and didn’t really worry about publishers and whatnot until it was done. It came together really well, the art and story are in perfect sync. It was one of those rare occasions where I knew I was working on something good while I was working on it. Usually there’s lots of self doubt and second guessing myself, but this one I was happy with throughout. I managed to balance the dark and light, drama and humour and dialogue and action.
What is your dream project in the future?
No one single project, I just hope I get the opportunity to make more books, tell more stories and get better at it along the way.
What advice do you wish you could give your younger self?
Probably what I periodically remind myself: remember that it’s supposed to be fun. There are any number of other ways to earn a living, or half a living, so if you are gonna choose this one, enjoy it.
How do you balance work and art with personal life?
See above. Sometimes I feel I’ve got it right and others I know I’m out of whack but perhaps the circumstances, a tough deadline for instance, means there’s not much I can do right at that moment. It’s a constant struggle. The pressure to produce can be intense, externally and internally. The worst thing I’ve done in the past is stress out at stressing out about work/life balance.
I wrote and drew a monthly book by myself for a year when my daughter was a toddler so I’m probably not the best person to ask. In retrospect that was super dumb. But it did teach me that I had to put family first. I’ve done a fairly good job since then. Not always perfect but I haven’t felt that same intense mixture of frustration and guilt I did then when I was working harder than ever and still failing on the important stuff.
I try to take evenings and weekends off.
I just recently discussed some thoughts on this subject in my newsletter here: https://andiwatson.substack.com/p/the-real-thing
What’s an example of a past rejection or “failure” that ended up helping you? How did it help?
I’m not sure I subscribe to the idea that iron sharpens iron. I’ve never got a harsh crit or review and thought “I’ll show them”. My ego likes a good review as much as the next person and rejection still stings, but I’m not really the type who when they receive a critical kicking, shuts myself away, weeps tears of rage and produces my masterpiece. I just keep working away trying to get better.
To be honest, I have enough self-doubt of my own not to get overly concerned about external criticism. Of course, I’m also small enough of a person to wish painful gout on all my critics 🙂
The only thing I used to do in the days of rejection letters was keep them as scrap paper, flip them over and sketch or write new ideas on the back. That was my revenge, keep making new stuff.
How do you maintain your art career? Either in terms of marketing yourself, or developing multiple income streams?
I have maintained a, I hesitate to call it a “career” — a career assumes some sort of upward trajectory whereas mine resembles the flight path of a butterfly — through sheer stubbornness. Or lack of transferable life skills.
I have made it difficult for myself in switching genres, art styles and age groups. It might have been more sensible to find a niche and stick to it. Of course one person’s niche is another’s rut and I’m keen to avoid those.
I don’t have any specific practical advice, but broadly I would suggest the best way to maintain a career is to maintain enthusiasm. For some that might be drawing Batman everyday for the rest of their lives. For me I like to try new things.
Follow your passions, hunches and interests whenever possible. Returning to personal projects and putting aside commercial concerns can help refill my enthusiasm for the medium.
What are you working on now?
Right this minute I’m working on this script for a graphic novel for grown ups. And I also have a pitch out with publishers for a new middle-grade book. Whatever happens, I’ll keep on making comics.
Connect with Andi Watson:
Read Andi Watson:
Kerry and the Knight of the Forest
Princess Decomposia and Count Spatula
See more art by Andi Watson!