Featured Artist: Saskia de Korte

We found Saskia’s work on Deviant Art. We were initially drawn to her self-portrait because it seemed to speak so much for the artist. As it turns out, our assumptions were correct. After asking Saskia a couple of questions, we realized that she was indeed as introspective and reflective as her self-portrait made us feel.

Saskia made this piece based on her own photographs, beginning with tracing key lines of the face, and experimented with colors before she started painting. She notes the difference between digital art over traditional art in that digital art “allows you to endlessly tweak your colours without making a huge mess of your painting and palette. When I’ve got all the features, shadows and highlights in the right place I put away the reference image and work on the painting some more to prevent it from becoming an exact copy of the photograph. I want my paintings to be personal and unique, not a reproduction of something else.”

A portrait of the folk singer Sam Beam of Iron & Wine

Saskia’s use of colors is unique in that it appears to mimic the effect of light on the subject as a tool to magnify the smallest details.

Portrait of Eirik G. Bøe and Erlend Øye (Kings of Conveniece),

She also enjoys capturing images of her favorite musical icons in her paintings.

Portrait of Georg Holm, bassist of Sigur Ros

“Raven of the Slain” (Portrait of Søren Hammerlund of Valravn)

“Olafur” (Portrait of Olafur Arnalds)

Obviously a lover of music, her pieces are her way of saying thank you to her fellow artists for their music and inspiration.

Saskia also answered the following questions for us below.

Tell me a little bit about yourself. Are you in school in Holland?
When did you start drawing/painting? If you are/were in art school,
can you describe to our readers what its contributions are to your
work? Why does your website say you’ve changed your mind about
becoming a professional artist?

I am 24 and no longer in school. I studied English Language and Culture at Leiden University, and never really wanted to go to art school. I took an introductory course at the Royal Academy of Arts in Den Haag after high school and felt right away that this wasn’t the place for me. Art school puts so much pressure on you; you have to be unique, you have to stand out, you have to have a message you want the entire world to know about. I’m not like that at all, I just want to doodle pretty things that make me happy. And I really believe you don’t need to go to art school to become a successful artist.

I’ve been drawing on paper for as long as I can remember, but started making digital art about seven years ago. My parents gave me a drawing tablet for my birthday, and I absolutely love the limitlessness of the digital medium.

I didn’t so much as change my mind about becoming a professional artist as
realise I could actually make money with drawing. Turning your hobby into your job must be truly wonderful, and it is my dream to someday illustrate a book.

What is your process in creating art? Do you start with an idea, or
a fixed image in your head? Do you find sometimes that the finished
product is completely different from your original idea?

I always start out with an idea. Very occasionally I just start sketching and it turns into something really good, but that rarely happens. My imagination is limitless and my drawings skills are not, so my drawings almost never turn out the way I envisioned. Sometimes that annoys me, but most of the time I can accept that ‘different’ does not necessarily mean ‘bad’. More often than not my process of creating a picture is very experimental, especially when I’m painting in Photoshop. You can fiddle around endlessly with the composition, contrast and colours. When working with graphite on paper I usually set up a more careful plan first (and subsequently get very frustrated when I can’t get it exactly right).

Your work is dynamic and diverse. Any tips for our readers on how
to remain creatively inspired?

What works for me is to keep challenging myself, set goals and work towards them, and to not lose track of why you are drawing in the first place: because you enjoy it.

Below are some pieces Saskia submitted to Creativation Space along with her words on the subject.

Sherlock
A digital portrait of Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock. He has such a striking face and it was a real challenge to capture it. His Sherlock is not a very nice man, and can be really unnerving at times. I tried to capture that.

Cellist
A perfect example of an experiment that turned out really well. I don’t often work with ink or pastels because they are so uncontrollable compared to graphite, but this just goes to show all you need is a bit of courage sometimes. I drew this on a particular difficult piece of cello music that I was trying to master at the time, and I became so frustrated with it I put aside my cello and started drawing instead, because I knew that, at least, I could do without failing miserably.

Fågel i fjarran
I am very interested in myths, legends and folk tales, and I once read that back in the old days girls would ask the cuckoo how many more years they would have to wait for their true love, and old women would ask how many more years of life they would get. Each ‘cuc-koo’ meant one year. I thought that was lovely, and I made this illustration to go with a Swedish song that tells the tale of a young woman waiting for her true love, asking a cuckoo why he will not come.

Mr Robin
Just a fun little painting that I had printed on postcards and sent to my friends and family at Christmastime.

Saskia Dekorte’s art may be found on Deviant Art and on her website.

“Problem?” (Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock)