Hello! We're back again this week with an interview with Nadia Alam!
Nadia Alam
What do you notice a lot of in your life? How do those things make their way into your art, or how do you get rid of them while you're working so that you can bring what you want into your art?
My kids' messes. Shoes left in odd places, juice boxes that have been turned into cars, socks everywhere also somehow turned into cars, and never in pairs. It is all clutter and evidence. A sock on the stairs tells you someone was in a hurry, or someone got distracted, or someone took their socks off on purpose because socks are a little jail cell for little feet. There is a whole story in one object. It is fun, and I think it adds richness and warmth to work.
When you're feeling at your best or your worst—about your work or a specific project—what does that look like and how do your work habits help you?
At my best I'm drawing fast, I'm not precious about it, and I throw things away easily. The work feels like it's moving. At my worst I'm on my fourth version of the same hand. The habits that help are pretty simple. I'm not afraid to quit while the work is still going well, because coming back to something that's working is much easier than coming back to something I've overworked. I also try very hard not to judge a page on the day I made it.
How do you balance making work that is really fun and interesting to you with work that publishers can envision buying?
I don't really treat it as a balance. If I'm not enjoying it, an editor won't either, and a kid definitely won't. Boredom shows in a drawing!
What are the steps in your process of creating a full dummy, and which steps usually create the biggest improvements: from research, sketching, reference gathering, color studies, revisions, critiques, or other?
My order is research, then a loose text breakdown, then really messy thumbnails of the whole book, then rough sketches, a dummy, critique, and revision before any colour.
The research is half reference and half just living with the idea for a while. The text breakdown is where I decide what the words are doing and what the pictures are doing, so they aren't both saying the same thing.
The thumbnails make the biggest difference by far. I can't get attached to anything, and I can see the whole book at once. Pacing problems are obvious there. If I miss them at the thumbnail stage, they're much harder to fix later.
What are some things you used to believe about developing a style that you no longer believe?
That I had to pick a style at all. I thought it was a decision you made, like choosing a font.
What I've found is the opposite. The less I force my hand to do something, the happier I've been with the results. When I try to draw "in my style," the work looks stiff and self-conscious. When I just draw and pay attention to what I'm drawing, the style takes care of itself. What I kind of believe now is that style is whatever's left after you stop trying to have one.
How has your work changed in the last 5 years and what caused those changes?
It got looser in some ways and more precise in others, mostly because I stopped trying so hard to make it look a certain way and have become more certain in the way it looks.
I'd credit two things. The first is just doing it a lot. A lot of practice and a lot of drawing naturally leads to change, whether you plan it or not. Some of that change is skill.
The second is how I look at other people's work. I used to look at an illustrator and think, I want my work to look like that. Now I look at their work as inspiration for drive and quality. With some illustrators you can see the hours of practice in even their simplest lines. There's a confidence and an assuredness in them that you can't fake and can't copy. That's what I'm chasing now. I'm not trying to make my work look like theirs. I want it to feel that sure.
What is something you struggle with that you use to your advantage?
Impatience. I don't love rendering and revising. I want to get to the point. I think it can be useful. It forces me to be more sure of my hand, so that I'm not redrawing the same thing a million times. If I know I'm not going to want to go back in and fuss with a line, I have to decide what that line is before I put it down. That makes the drawing cleaner and more direct, and I think kids can feel that directness. It also keeps the work from getting overworked.
You can see Nadia's full portfolio at her website: https://www.nadiaalamillustration.com/
On Substack at BecomeingArt and @bearhoweart on IG
My website has my Portfolio
Teaching kids art classes at Young Illustrators Studio
