Interview for Illustration Rally

The following appeared in Illustration Rally blog three days ago.

Who are you:

Hi! My name is Carmen Ortiz, I´m a self-taught artist born in Bilbao.

What do you do:

I do freelance work as illustrator for some magazines. I specialize in portraits drawn by hand, using graphite pencils. I'm skilled at drawing realistic, almost picture like portraits. I’m quite old fashioned in my process; everything starts with a pencil and a good photo. I like to capture features, expressions, personalities and light. Sometimes my illustrations are digitally enriched with a littletouch of color

I took some courses in web and graphic design and occasionally do commissioned works. At the moment I am focusing on selling my artwork, preparing some exhibitions and post on my blog every day.

How did you start:

I love to draw since as long as I can remember. I have always known that it was all I wanted to do. I used to spend my spare time drawing with my sisters. I began drawing portraits at the age of 14 trying to draw people pictured on magazines. I have always found people features fascinating.

Devendra Banhart by Carmen Ortiz

A Personal statement about you or your work:

The road to becoming a freelance illustrator is a difficult one, but you don’t need permission or approval to be you and do what you do. My goal is to create images straight from the heart and improve day by day.

I'm used to working listening good music. Photographers such as Richard Avedon, David Bailey, Hedi Slimane, Rankin and Tom Hoops are a big influence on my work. I also take a lot of inspiration from art, classic films, book and fashion.