Podcast: Talking with Colin Foran

This week we were lucky enough to have a wonderful conversation with Colin Foran, who did an out-of-this-world piece for the Station Zero show (pun completely intended), and also has work in the upcoming Rolemodels show. Colin has spent the last 5 years at Microsoft Game Studios as a concept artist and associate art director. Working on the publishing side, Colin gets to help shape the look and feel of countless video game projects on a daily basis.


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Talking with Colin Foran
Length: 01:23:23
Synopsis: On this week's podcast we talk to Colin Foran, a concept artist and art director on the publishing side of Microsoft Game Studios. Colin helps shape the look and feel of countless video game projects on a daily basis, and we talk to him about the culture of work, the importance of practice and self reflection, how he continues to grow as an artist, and dealing with the balance of personal art and a demanding creative career. After the interview, Lindsay, Jenny, Francesa, and Chris talk about managing creative energy, work-life balance, and taking things one step at a time.

Notes:
You can see Colin Foran's art and follow what he's up to next on his Tumblr, CG Hub, Deviant Art, or on twitter @colin_foran.

Artist Interview: Brock Davis

Brock Davis is an award-winning and internationally acclaimed designer, creative director, and artist. He is known for his clever advertising campaigns, Threadless T-shirt designs, banana peel trucker hats, and  projects such as Make Something Cool Everyday and his iPhone photo series. His work showcases his incredible talent for creating hilarious, beautiful, and unexpected images out of what is most familiar to us.  We are honored to exhibit a selection of his 2012 iPhone Photos in our current show, SMART.


    


Where are you from, and where do you currently live?
I grew up in Marietta, Georgia. I moved to Minneapolis in 1995, and I currently I live in Saint Louis Park.

How would you describe yourself? (or how might someone else describe you?)
Curious, focused, spontaneous. I used to be more intense, especially when working, but over the years I've become much more relaxed. I'm an introvert. I think that would surprise people who know me. I feel more comfortable creatively when I am working by myself.

How would you describe your work?
Spontaneous and simple.

Clean Shaven

Tell is about your work life. What are the best/most challenging aspects of your job?
Currently, I work as a freelance creative director and art director. I worked at Carmichael Lynch for about 9 years before deciding to work independently. Creative Directing is fun and challenging. It's a good opportunity to motivate and inspire up-and-coming creatives. I'm pretty hands-off, and I like to give creatives as much freedom as possible to make the work their own. As far as challenges go, there is a lot of fear in advertising when it comes to ideas. Ideas get killed all the time. As an art director, you learn how to go back and try again without being discouraged. As a Creative Director, you learn how to motivate your creative team to do the same. Selling ideas can be harder than conceiving them. When you have an idea, you have to believe in it and present it with unwavering confidence.

Can you tell us about one of your most successful campaigns?
One of my more successful campaigns was the 'Messin' With Sasquatch' campaign for Jack Link's Beef Jerky. When we first presented the idea internally, people were afraid even though it was apparent that it could be great. It took some pushing just to get the idea in front of the client, and once the client saw the idea, they were afraid as well. Thankfully, risks were taken, and it ended up being very successful (and still is today). Whenever I see a great advertising or design idea, I'm often more impressed with the agency's ability to have pushed that idea through, since it probably had to survive layers and layers of fear and doubt. That's more impressive than the concept.

Build

What other jobs have you held? What was the best? The worst?
I grew up doing a lot of things that kids do to make money. Lemonade stands, cutting grass, shoveling snow. My mother would sell art at craft shows. Sometimes I would go with her and draw caricatures of people. My favorite job was working as a sign maker at Publix, a grocery store chain in Atlanta. My least favorite was working as a busboy at Old Country Buffet.

What are your ideal working conditions?
I love my home studio. It isn't much, but it's comfortable. When I'm thinking, I like to have a changing view. Looking out a window, watching things change and move relaxes my brain and is good for generating ideas. I also tend to do a lot of conceptual thinking while doing mundane tasks like cutting the grass or washing dishes. Some of my best ideas often hit during these moments.

At Ease, Soldiers

Where do you turn for inspiration?
Over the last few years, I've drawn most of my inspiration from ordinary things that people don't think too much about, like a door knob, or a toothbrush -everyday objects that have become ordinary and uninteresting. I like the challenge of trying to make them interesting again. I think every object has creative potential. It's just a matter of finding it.

Is there a trend in art/culture that is particularly interesting you right now? If so, is it influencing the work you create?
Recently, I've been interested in using social apps as creative outlets. I particularly love Instagram and Vine. Both are incredibly simple to use and come with some wonderful constraints. Parameters and limitations can be great for creativity.

Is there a work you’ve made that you’re particularly proud of? 
I tend to be drawn to the pieces that are the most simple. Sometimes these pieces can be created within a few minutes, from concept to execution. One of my favorite recent pieces is a little film I made on Vine. I was slicing an onion and was curious to see if I could arrange the onion rings, so as to resemble raindrops as they hit a puddle, rippling upon impact. I spent a few minutes filming this with my phone, and I was pleasantly surprised by the results.

What’s the most interesting feedback you’ve ever gotten about your work?
A creative director once told me that my portfolio looked like it was made by multiple designers. Looking back, I was adjusting my art direction with each piece so that every idea would fully resonate; I just didn't realize I was doing this at the time. This feedback helped me understand how execution and ideas relate. I try to let the idea drive the execution. One method of execution doesn't work for every idea. Some ideas resonate better through illustration, others through photography or another medium. I've never been hindered by whether or not an idea requires me to work in a medium I'm not as familiar with. For example, if an idea requires that I learn how to sculpt, then I learn how to sculpt.

Cauliflower Space Shuttle, 1986

You're married.  Can you tell us about your wife?  Is she an artist as well? 
Alyn is awesome. We met many years ago while playing ultimate frisbee at Kenwood Park. She's from Grand Rapids, MN. I grew up in a small town in North Georgia, so we both have small town sensibilities. Most of her creativity comes out through cooking, and she is a great writer as well. She helps me out on projects all the time.  I'm always texting her, asking her to pick up various odd things for me. 

You also have children.  Has being a father changed you creatively? 
I'm inspired by my kids. Everything is new and spontaneous and interesting to them. There are no rules to their creativity; they just create. I apply this approach when working on my own projects. It's inspiring to watch my kids use their imaginations. Lately, my son Ames has been into severe weather, specifically tornadoes and thunderstorms. He makes radar weather patterns with play-doh. He flattens various pieces down on paper and waits for them to dry. Then he peels them off and arranges them in weather patterns. My daughter June does a lot of drawing. She creates her own made-up letters and weaves them in her pictures.

How do you spend your time when you’re not making art?
I love being outside with my kids and hanging out with my family around the house. We ride bikes, play sports and games. I help my son catch dragonflies and butterflies. We play music and watch a good share of tv. Recently, I've been into watching documentaries on Netflix. They don't have a great movie selection, but the documentaries are awesome.


Can you share with us a future goal of yours, professional or otherwise? Also, what would be your ideal collaboration/commission? 
I just want to always be able to make something interesting. It doesn't matter if it's professional or personal. I look forward to doing more collaborations with my kids.

Are there any artists you think Light Grey and its blog readers should check out?
Rich Barlow, Stephen Shaskan, Justin Newhall

What’s the best advice on being an artist you’ve been given? 
Ever since I was a kid, my mom always told me to have fun when making art. I still do that today, and I think it resonates in the work.



Check out Brock's work at: www.itistheworldthatmadeyousmall.com‎

Find Brock's prints in our online shop here

Artist Interview: Richie Pope

Richie Pope is another artist participating in our SMART show, and one of our most frequent contributors.  His work has been in six of our previous shows: Pokemon Battle Royale, Tarot, Mystics, and the Occult, Girls: Fact + Fiction, Macro + Micro, Beautiful Forever, and Night of the Exquisite Corpse. He will also be showing in our upcoming sci-fi show, Station Zero, and our RPG self-portrait show, Role Models.  Needless to say, we are very big fans of his work.

Where are you from, and where do you currently live?
I'm originally from Newport News, VA, but I've been living in Richmond for 9 years now. 

How would you describe your art? 

My work combines my sketchbook observational drawings with more imaginative concepts, resulting in very dreamlike images. 

Many of your illustrations are surreal.  Where do your ideas come from?
My ideas really just float around in my head until I can reach up and grab hold of one. Fireflies is based off a childhood memory of catching fireflies with my older sister outside our family's apartment.  I depicted the kid (myself) as a cartoon character. With Adapting to Extreme Conditions, I wanted to play with the idea of someone being out of place, yet finding a way to exist. The result was a man in a deep-sea diver suit waiting for the bus in an underwater neighborhood.  How Cats Find Their Way Home is about the mystery of how lost cats return to their owners from as far as hundreds of miles away. I imagined that cats might have some sort of inner compass.  I also made a visual connection between the shape of a cat's eye and the shape of a compass, so that became the driving idea. 

Over Nine Thousand by Richie Pope
Featured in Macro + Micro Exhibition

How long does it take you to make an illustration? 

Depending on how complex it is, anywhere from 2 to 15 hours. I usually start and finish in one or two sittings. 

What materials/processes do you typically use? 
My illustrations usually start with a quick and loose graphite drawing. I like to use 2B-4B pencils because of their value range. Carpenter pencils are pretty much made of magic.  I sharpen them with a knife to get really irregular tips for a wider range of line width. I just started getting into gouache a couple of months ago. I paint on top of the drawing or on another sheet of paper that I scan in separately. Once I scan in everything, I just start collaging. The final becomes a mix of final drawing, drawings on different layers, stock textures that I made, scribbles and other things. In general, I know where the illustration is going, but there's a good chunk of spontaneity involved as well.  

As one of the artists in our upcoming SMART show, how are you interpreting the title? 
I want to communicate an idea, but how do I do it without spelling it out for the viewer? This question is what drives my illustration work, so I took the same approach with my piece 'Goodbye, Max' for the SMART show. 

Is there a trend in art/culture that is particularly interesting you right now? If so, is it influencing the work you create? 

It's really interesting to see my generation of illustrators and how big a role the internet is playing. It's easy to dismiss the number of ‘likes’ and ‘re-blogs’ as lacking any true value, but all of the recent opportunities that have come my way were because something I drew blew up on Tumblr, Facebook, or other social media. The internet is free promotion if your work is strong enough and seen by the right people. 

What are your main sources of inspiration?
Memories and dreams are a huge inspiration for my work. I like people and situations that are familiar but not quite 'right'. That ambiguity is really interesting to me. Anime (and manga), film, comics and video games find their way into my work. Street art is really beautiful to me as well. It's often so loose and full of energy, like giant sketchbook pages. I'm also a sucker for the composition kings of 60's and 70's illustration.



   The First Bionic Hand That Can Feel by Richie Pope

How do you spend your time when you’re not making art?

I like to make music, mostly EDM/hip-hop stuff. I'm a gamer for life, so video games are a nice interactive way to escape. I also practice scales on the harmonica. I can't play any songs (yet). 

Your lady, Nicole Hamilton, is also an artist.  How would you describe her work in comparison to yours? Do you collaborate often?

Nicole's animation and illustration work is really energetic and loose, which plays nicely with her clean line work and coloring techniques. I draw just as fast, but my line work is more raw and imperfect. We sometimes collaborate on some exquisite corpse drawings.  We had a blog with some of these drawings and actually thought about re-vamping it recently. There was the quintessential Adventure Time fan art that we worked on together. Nicole did the line work, and I did the coloring.  It turned out really creepy, bizarre, and beautiful. Our collaborations really just evolve into their own weird amalgamations of both our voices. Nicole draws a lot from her own imagination, which I had neglected in school in favor of a heavy reliance on reference.  Her work has definitely influenced me to trust my own imagination more, and it's given me more confidence in my work. In other words, she's pretty swell.

What are your artistic and career ambitions?

I want to build my illustration work and brand to the point where I can work on my own intellectual property, whether that be animations, comic work, street art, fine art or whatever. I want people to believe in the world that I'm building. I look to people like Mike Mignola, KAWS, Murakami, Aryz. People have complete faith in them as creatives and that's pretty amazing. It's a lofty goal, but I wouldn't mind being up there in that same league of creative freedom.

 What other artists should Light Grey and our blog followers check out?

Leslie Herman, Cathryn Hutton, Jeffrey Alan Love, Eric Pfeiffer, Dadu Shin, Julia Scott, Allison Smith, Chris Visions. They're all really talented, original and good people. 

We have an upcoming show about inspiration posters?  Do you have any inspirational words of wisdom you'd care to share? 
Take the advice that helps you. Throw out the advice that doesn't. This is how you'll carve your own lane. 

Goodbye, Max by Richie Pope
Featured in Smart Exhibition


Thank you for the wonderful interview, Richie!

You can see more of Richie's work and process  on his website here
And you can purchase the three piece print Goodbye, Max here