Appreciating the person behind the art.

Welcome to UP-CLOSE, a small series of interviews offering an inside look at the life and the creative forces driving some of the world’s shining and rising stars in the field of illustration.

No matter what you do or what stage of your life you’re at, these interviews with creators, doers and rebels from all over the world are raw, emotional and full of truth.?

Hopefully they will spark you to create something new. We invite you come along and enjoy the ride with us. Let’s get UP-CLOSE!

Episode 2.

– ALEX FINE: United States / Baltimore, MD / B: July 8

Alex Fine is a freelance illustrator who spends his days and nights drawing in front of a TV with his cat Bean. His work can bee seen in several reputed magazines and newspapers such as Newsweek, TIME Magazine, The Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly. When one sees his work, it’s inevitable to picture him drawing with a big smile on his face and having feelings of happiness and nostalgia by looking at his fun, imaginative and colourful illustrations. In his free time, he plays guitar in a garage punk band, plays lovely acoustic guitar tunes with Bean next to him and eats an unhealthy amount of donuts and pizza.

Alex was very kind and more than willing to get?UP-CLOSE in this colourful and insightful conversation at the end of July. I hope you enjoy it and take a moment to know more about the person behind the art.

UP-CLOSE: Good Morning Alex, thank you for having us and sharing about your life and your career. Please tell us more about yourself, where you grew up and what was that like.

Alex Fine: I grew up in Gaithersburg, MD, a suburb in the DC/Metropolitan area. It was kind of a quiet town, but close to the Metro (subway) and a short trip to DC. I had fun working at Tower Records in my teens and playing in bands.

UC: How did you got started in the industry?

AF: I first attended Maryland College of Art and Design, a small 2 year art school outside of DC. It was there that I took my first illustration course with Carla Golembe. I then transferred to Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore where I pursued a BFA in illustration. I was very fortunate to be hired by Joe Macleod to work steadily with Baltimore City Paper while I was still a student at MICA. From there, local jobs turned into national jobs and I soon started working for a number of publications around the country.?

UC: How would you describe the type of illustration work you do??

AF: I like to consider my work to be fairy versatile among different areas such as editorial, advertising, and book publishing. The work itself merges comic style line work with graphic, textured coloring. I love drawing narrative scenes as well as conceptual images to tell stories.

UC: How do you think your upbringing and life experiences helped develop your personal tastes and love for illustration, as well as your professional career?

AF: My parents have always been supportive of my art, even from a very young age. Additionally, I had a wonderful art teacher throughout elementary school. Ruth Gainer was not just encouraging at all times, she taught in a way that showed faith in us as students to comprehend more advanced lessons. I credit her with giving me the confidence to seriously pursue a future in art. In regard to life experiences, I can say with certainty that my family inspired my work ethic and general views on how to treat people. My personal taste in art was heavily influenced by comic books, film/tv, and punk rock posters.

UC: Who and what where your biggest influences in your life, and how did they shape your art?

AF: Aside from my parents being a huge influence on me growing up, artistically I have many influences. Early on, I loved the works of Marc Chagall, Norman Rockwell, Mary Cassatt, and Boris Artzybasheff. In high school, I got really into illustrators such as Charles Burns, Frank Kozik, and Daniel Clowes. It was in college that I really started learning about all of the illustrators working in the fields that I find myself in today. Illustrators like Yuko Shimizu, Nathan Fox, Marcos Chin, and Tomer Hanuka really showed me what can be done stylistically as well as conceptually. Now, there are far too many amazing illustrators to list, who I’m inspired by on a daily basis.

UC: Do you consider to have an established ‘style’ or a set of influences that molds your sense of style depending on the piece you’re working on?

AF: At this point in my career, I believe I have an established style that continues to evolve and adapt to a changing industry. I feel that my work has a constant style that changes very slightly depending on when I feel that newer elements or techniques can be added to help better connect with the audience.

UC: How important is the use of vibrant colours and communicative background scenes or secondary subjects in your work?

AF: The vibrancy of the colors that I use largely depends on the tone of the message being communicated. I’ve never been one to focus too much attention to background scenes. While many of my favorite artists create beautiful environments in their work, I tend to focus on foreground figures with more minimal backgrounds. That being said, I sometimes find myself creating intricate backgrounds if the narrative calls for it.

UC: Do you remember your first ever drawing or illustration when you where a child or growing up?

AF: I remember drawing spiders when I was very young. Like 3 or 4 years old. My first illustrations were done when I was 10. This will definitely show my age, but I remember drawing political illustrations of the presidential candidates in the 1988 campaign. I thought Michael Dukakis had a very interesting face!

UC: Do you have formal training in art or design?

AF: I did attend two art colleges and before that, would attend summer art classes in Glen Echo, Maryland at a place called the Yellow Barn. There, I learned how to paint with oils. I’ve always thought that a foundation in fundamental art skills will help every artist become more versatile in style as well as help the artist create work with more intentionality.

UC: Can you tell us why you feel it is important for illustrators and artists to be well versed in elements of culture, current events, technology and design?

AF: Simply put, for an artist to communicate a specific idea, they need to understand the context around that idea. To understand the culture and events happening today, you can better analyze and tell the stories of today. A strong knowledge of technology and design will give an artist more tools to communicate their ideas. I see it as speaking additional languages to reach a wider audience.

UC: Did you have an ‘aha!’ moment during your life or career where you felt you had arrived as an illustrator/artist?

AF: As artists, we often learn from observation. I would read comics and go to art museums and try to figure out how the art was created. One of my favorite artists, Franklin Booth, was inspired at a young age by wood engravings that he thought were done in pen and ink. So he replicated the style with a pen and his work ultimately looked like engravings. Like Booth but not as successfully, I would see the work of Charles Burns and believed his tapered lines were created by drawing two lines for every one, and filled in by hand. It wasn’t until art school that I realized artists like Burns were using brushes to create their tapered lines. That was a huge turning point in my work and I started creating less static drawings that had more natural brush strokes.

UC: What about some low points or negative periods where you questioned your abilities and worth? Did you have any of those during your career?

AF: I went through a difficultly period from 2008-2010 where I wasn’t getting very much work and believed I had no place in the illustration industry. The country was in a recession and I hadn’t yet established myself as a reliable illustrator. My style was still a bit underdeveloped and my work showed that I wasn’t yet comfortable pushing outside of my comfort zone. At this point, I started assigning myself projects and used that time to find efficient ways of working that resulted in work I could be proud of. There will always be times I see an artist’s work and feel like I could never reach that level of technique or cleverness, but I think those moments push me to take more risks.

UC: Putting aside work for a moment, tell me how has art impacted your life?

AF: All art, whether it’s visual, music, film, etc. has always made me feel connected to the world. Whether it’s in the form of a relatable song, a comic that tells the story of the writer or a book that removes me from my own reality, art has always had a way of making me feel less isolated. As a natural introvert, through art I feel like I can connect with total strangers and hopefully add something extra to their lives in the same way that other artists have added to mine.

UC: What do you usually enjoy doing when you're not working on professional or personal projects? Any hobbies, activities or people you enjoy spending time with??

AF: My favorite thing to do, when not drawing, is playing guitar in various bands. The pandemic has made playing shows difficult, but I can not wait to play in front of live audiences again!

UC: Besides digital, what other mediums do you love to work or experiment on?

AF: Though digital is my primary medium these days, I still enjoy drawing in graphite on paper. Every so often, I get an assignment that calls for a realistically rendered graphite drawing. It takes a bit longer to complete, but well worth the time.UC: How did you decide on what types of illustration where you most interested in working on?

UC: How did you decide on what types of illustration where you most interested in working on?

AF: Throughout my career, I’ve worked on so many different types of illustrations. After a while, I think you develop a good sense of what you enjoy and what you do not. What interests you and what feels tedious. That being said, sometimes the assignments that are unlike those you are typically drawn to, end up being surprisingly fulfilling. They might be challenging in a way that helps you see new ways of working.

UC: What’s your favourite thing about the pieces you make?

AF: My favorite part of an illustration is adding texture. I love line work and color, but for me, the textures are where I get to push the work from one level to the next. From two dimensional to something with more life. I understand that textures are not for everyone, but for me, it’s my favorite finishing touch.?

UC: How long do you spend developing an illustration on average?

AF: The time it takes to complete and illustration depends mostly on how long it takes me to come up with the idea. I think a lot of us can stare at a blank canvas for hours at times, while sometimes finding inspiration immediately. Once I know the plan, the rest is more predictable based on knowledge of how I work. Most single illustrations can be completed within one work day. Sometimes multiple illustrations can be done in a day….. but it’s a very long day.

UC: What is the difference between the finished illustration and the first thoughts you have in mind?

AF: This can change depending on my own evolution from sketch to final, as well as the collaboration between me and the art director. I typically provide three sketch ideas and the art director will select the one that they feel is strongest. Sometimes they will ask me to expand on one of the ideas. My sketches, however, usually look close to finished, so there isn’t a huge leap from the selected sketch to the final art.

UC: After all of the time you have spent in the illustration industry, which period in time do you consider has been the best for your career and illustrators in general?

AF: It is hard to say what period is best for other illustrators, considering we all have our own personal journeys, but for me, it has to be around the time I was first hired for an assignment at TIME Magazine. One of my favorite art directors, Martin Gee reached out to me to work on a quarter page illustration for the magazine. I was a lifetime reader and always wanted to appear in TIME. I felt like a personal goal had been reached and I believe it lead to more work with magazines like Newsweek and Politico and pushed me to up my game, so to speak. There’s something to be said about momentum in this industry. When jobs start coming in at a faster rate, I feel like there’s a higher sense of excitement and I think it might be noticeable in the age of social media. On the flip side, when jobs are slowing, it can seem to get exponentially slower.

I also love the period I’m in at the moment. For the last few years, I’ve had the pressure of working on two regular gigs. I work with Michael Goesele at Newsweek and Christian Font, Gene Weingarten, and Tom Shroder at Washington Post for Gene’s weekly humor column. Having these weekly collaborations has been one of the biggest joys of my life. It feels like being on a team, even when working from home. Michael and I are both fans of long phone calls to discuss ideas and it pays off big time in the final work.

UC: What’s does your next professional or personal challenge looks like in the near future?

AF: I used to teach before the pandemic and would love to return in the near future. I also have always considered art direction and maybe becoming a rep for other illustrators at some point. My reps at Snyder New York have shown me how great if feels to be supported and backed up by people who sincerely care about not just your career, but your general well being.

UC: To wrap things up, what do you consider to be the most important thing in life?

AF: I can only speak for myself, but I have to say that a strong community of supportive people in my life will always mean more than any personal success or material thing. As good as it feels when people are there to give me opportunities, it’s the people who are there for me in crisis’ that keep me going when I question my value to the world.

For more on Alex, make sure to follow his work at:

https://alexfine.com

https://www.instagram.com/alexfineillos/