We recently connected with Toonky Berry and have shared our conversation below.
Toonky, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.
I have many ways to keep my creativity alive. I’m a visual artist, my creativity comes from what I expose myself too. Exposure to anime, cartoons, music, even just going outside and enjoying nature and architecture. Anything that can stimulate my mind. Since everything around us is art, that means I have endless things to spark my creativity.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
My name is Quantavious Worship also known as Toonky Berry. Im a visual artist, who does murals, illustrations, portraits, and more. Im from Ms but i’m based in Memphis Tn. My brand is Toonkification or for short Toonkified, That name/term was given to me by a college professor who would say that whenever he seen my work he knew it was mine. When my style really started to bloom it was only right to call it that. My style is on the surreal cartoon side of art. I create heavy eyelid characters who I tend to add and subtract features from, my favorite version of this is to do cyclopses. I also love putting features were they dont belong: like putting eyes on earlobes. I tend to focus on features in my work due to past experiences that made me hate my own, As I look back at my past commissioned portraits I realized my younger self had subconsciously exaggerated peoples features in portrait’s to the point of them looking like mine, I actually was Toonkifying them lol. Fast forward, I’ve learned to love my features and now I want to help people embrace their features by highlighting them in my style. I also apply that style too my murals that help bring attention to small businesses.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Persistence – staying with the arts! Not giving up on my favorite hobby lead to me being a full time artist. I did that by making it fun.
Patience- when we all start to draw it’s never great at the start. So it takes patients and practice. Practice makes improvements not perfect. If you stop early on and when u pick it back up,years later, just remember that you are starting where you left off, so if you stopped in middle school then you’re at that level . You have to stay consistent and patient cause the longer you work on it the better you will get.
Discontentment- not being content with were I am. Meaning I try not to get comfortable with my level of art, cause I know I can get even better. Being stagnant will get you no where. Strive for discontentment.
How would you describe your ideal client?
An ideal client is someone who knows what they want and also comes to me for my art style. A lot of clients won’t even look at ur work and tell you to do a portrait. Thenyou give them your style and they want you to do a totally different style. Many artist and I’m included can still give the the style they want but it just harder to do a style that’s not yours. Plus as an artist we don’t want to copy someone else’s art style. We spend years perfecting our styles. So if you are a client and u reaching out to an artist, look at there work first. Also Artist make sure u clarify to the client that this is your style and ask do they want that. So you don’t do a full peice, that they don’t even want.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @toonky_berry
- Twitter: @toonkification
