I love it when I’m browsing the internet and stumble across someone’s work with such distinctive visual style that it stops me in my tracks. This is exactly how I felt when I discovered the illustrations of Kate Philipson. Her bold lines, beautiful colour pallets and fierce, female subjects aren’t quite like anything else I’ve seen in a while. So it was a pleasure to catch up with Kate in person and chat about her style, practice and goals for the future…
I love getting a raw emotion and beauty into a face using as few lines as possible.
Kate produces work of a tough feminine style, that lends itself well to fashion, beauty and portraiture. She loves drawing faces, and takes particular delight in drawing ladies with killer hair and tattoos. In terms of process, Kate’s is an interesting one. She starts all of her work by hand and takes it as far as she can with pencil and ink on paper, then photographs the piece, imports that into Illustrator, and begins a vector piece based on her original drawing.
Kate tells me that she constantly battles with trying not to make her work too perfect, as naturally she is a real perfectionist and could work on a piece forever if given the opportunity. I’m sure many artists can relate (especially those who work with vectors), as it’s easy to make things flawless that way, but Kate works hard to retain a hand drawn feel to her work. Another dimension of this comes through in her prints, which are often embellished with hand painted metallic gold details.
There is a kind of battle that I have, because I studied Fine Art and did Oils, that working on a computer can feel like a little bit of a cop-out. But you should she what people are achieving with computers! It’s mind blowing and it still is art. It’s still done by hand, you just have help.
Kate’s journey to becoming a professional illustrator is every bit as unconventional as her art is. From studying Fine Art as a teen, to a degree in Zoology, a stint working in PR (“what do you do when you leave university with a zoology degree?!”), and then on to some more courses, reducing her PR work to part time, and finally leaping into full time illustration. Kate’s been doing that for nearly two years now, and is being careful to ensure she’s commercially savvy as well as staying true to her style.
A key thing that struck me when chatting to Kate was the balance in her focus between being creative, but also business minded. Kate clearly recognises the issue in business not being something you’re taught at art school, but it being required when trying to make a living from your creative work. It’s something I completely agree with, and think is a massively undervalued topic when undertaking a course in a creative discipline.
In order to make it as an illustrator in London you need to have a specific style, so that was something I wanted to take the time to really hone. I needed something that I felt comfortable with as a style that could lend itself to many things, like brands or fashion or whatever - all the things that I am interested in.
Structure and self-awareness are other traits that strike me about Kate. She tells me she used to have a space in a shared studio, but decided she’d be better off working in a dedicated space at home after realising how much she talks to herself when she works! She also recognises the value in having support as a creative professional, making time each month to meet with a friend in a similar situation to exchange advice and information. It’s something that Kate would highly recommended to others too, as it builds confidence, perspective and drive for each of them (they set targets for one another to be completed before the next time they meet). For practical advice and support on making a living from her art, Kate is also a member of the AOI.
I work better when I have a proper deadline, as I get to a point and then I have to stop. I don’t think any artist is ever 100% happy with their work, if you’re 85-90% happy with it then that’s good!
Citing artists such as photographer Miles Aldridge, film maker Wes Anderson and Pop Artist Lichtenstein as key influences on her style, you start to get a feel for the origins of the controlled pieces containing both boldness and depth that Kate produces. She also often works around themes to introduce parameters within which to think - “I get brain freeze when I have to sit down and draw something without a theme in mind”.
Kate’s current Zodiac series is a great example of this and contains one of her favourite pieces - the Pisces girl. For me it was the Feathers, Flowers and Folklore series that had initially caught my eye and to my mind really personifies the fierce, feminine energy that Kate strives for in her work.
I try to get something behind the eyes.
From here, Kate’s mission is just to get herself and her work out there even more, taking on new freelance jobs, building her portfolio, and pushing her boundaries into new subject matter and mediums, such as screen printing and mural painting. With such a strong style, high standards, smartness about her approach and ambition to forge her career in the creative industries, I can’t see there’s anything that will stand in her way.
Look out for more from Kate next week as she takes on a brand new Gather.ly Interpret/Inspire challenge from our ever expanding series. It's going to be a good'un, so keep your eyes peeled.
Also check out more of Kate's work on her site Leopards Lunch, Twitter and Instagram.
