Last night I had tons of fun sipping hard cider and drawing at Proper & Prim for Fargo’s first annual Art & Ale Walk. Lots of people came through to try out the hard cider, it was the perfect drink for a fall evening. Nearly everyone who saw my work had something really nice to say about it. It was fun to see people light up as they enjoyed not only my art but the cute clothes and accessories throughout the store. Proper & Prim was a great location to draw as it was well lit, and I was always surrounded with the warm smiles of good company. Many people were surprised when I explained that most of my work is digital fine art. They were able to see how my drawings usually start out as line work in pen or pencil with more or less shading depending on the piece. I explained how the next step is scanning them into my computer where I add paper and photo textures and apply many layers of color. To me there’s really no limit to the tools that could be used to create art, I’ve done plenty of napkin sketches. But I love the ability to work with many layers, and sometimes I spend hours tweaking colors and rearranging visual effects to achieve the specific look I want digitally. The question that people always ask is wether my pieces are portraits of someone specific. The answer is usually, no they’re not. I spend a lot of time people watching. And, funny as it may sound, I collect features and proportions from the people that I see and keep them in my memory. So, any given drawing might be loosely based on a pose from a photo, with the haircut of someone I saw at the cafe, with the nose of someone who used to babysit me, and the eyes of the stranger who held the door open a few minutes ago. As I said all that out loud, I’m sure someone was envisioning frankenstein, but everyone smiled and nodded politely. My sweet heart of a sister stopped by later in the evening, and brought me something to keep my hands warm. A yummy coffee from, my home away from home, the Red Raven Espresso Parlor. She always knows how to make me smile. My wonderful hubby took some photos so you all can pretend like you were there. Enjoy & thanks for reading!
-Bree
Bree Reetz 