We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kestrel Hendrickson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kestrel below.
Kestrel, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
Being confident in my art practice comes from the fact that I know I have put the time in. What I mean by that is when you really spend the time and care for something, others will notice and see that it was created with love.
Developing my confidence was a slow process but it has always been helpful to have encouraging peers. I started making art from a very young age and I had family members that were highly supportive of the act of creation; the kind who would just set down paints in front of you and let you go wild. In elementary school we read a lot and I would create custom-drawn bookmarks for my classmates. Middle school I would ask my peers for ideas to draw and subsequently drew lots of pandas hugging giraffes, dinosaurs, and steampunk octopi. I think it was great that at first I was always making art for others. Getting feedback and encouragement from people helped me a lot and I developed a passion.
It was later in high school and college that I truly began to treat art as a discipline, and learned of so many tools and resources I can use to create. I know from making art for a long time that creative motivation comes and goes, but there are times when you are making a lot of art, enjoying it, and you notice even your random doodles are looking really good. I find those flow-state occurrences always happen when you are just doing a lot of art anyway. For me confidence comes from quality time that I know was well spent.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I am an Illustrator, Painter, Designer, and 2D Generalist. I studied Illustration at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, studied Game Art and Painting for one semester at Laguna College, and graduated with my BFA from MCAD in 2018. I am currently working on some personal projects but I am always available for commissions or paid work. I sell paintings, art prints, stickers, and T-shirts. I always have something on my plate yet there is always room for more.
It is a dream of mine to work for a dedicated game studio or animation studio, so I am looking into studying Animation or Game Art for my possible Master’s Degree. Since graduating I occasionally take online classes to learn new skills and improve on art fundamentals. Post-graduation has been a nice time to get back into painting. Especially when the world was shut down, it was cool to be able to work at my own pace on things that simultaneously excited me and relaxed me. I’ve been gearing up to apply for more work, but am currently happy doing commissions and working on my own IPs.
In the near future I will be included in a large zine/coffee-table-sized book by Jason Hernandez and Vivian Lu (@jase_ink and @weivivianim) alongside some other artists. The book will contain six of us total, each sharing a different story with the connecting theme of growth. This Summer I will also be selling works at Underground Music Venue’s “Crop Top Party” in Minneapolis on May 30th and Loring Park Art Festival in Minneapolis July 26th-27th.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The first thing that helped set me apart early on was developing my personal style. Fortunately, by the time everyone wanted to start comparing themselves and each other (maybe high school, haha), I had been drawing with friends and doodling in the margins incessantly, and my hand had kind of developed a way that it felt comfortable and liked to draw things. My teachers used me as an example for how to put your own style into your artwork. I’d say the best advice I can give for finding your own style is that it’s ok to copy others in order to learn. I used to do my best copies of Yu-gi-oh cards or characters from video games that I liked. When I was a little older I took a lot of inspiration from Adventure Time and even did some fanart. It isn’t best to copy directly or just trace things, but taking inspiration from other artists can help you get closer to a style you want. Over time as you experiment you will inevitably develop a personal style with some element that no one else can duplicate.
The second thing that I’d say has been most impactful for me is being able to create from imagination. Some people really struggle with this, but one way to do it easily is taking something you really enjoy and trying to do your own spin on it. For example: you have a favorite TV show or book, now imagine a new character or setting within that world and try to sketch it out. When drawing from imagination at first, your artwork may lack realism. To me this is not a problem, but if you want it to appear more realistic, drawing from observation and working with references can lend a lot of realism to your work and increase your visual vocabulary.
Lastly, constantly learning and re-learning the fundamentals has had quite an impact on my art career and still is. If we want to improve we can never stop practicing and learning. It won’t happen overnight, but learning art fundamentals such as how to depict form, how to shade objects, composition, and an endless litany of other concepts is what makes art seem more valuable to a buyer or possible client. The nice thing is that art being basically unlimited, you can choose a few of these concepts to focus on and you don’t have to explore everything all at once. The most important thing is to have fun with what you’re doing.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
In the near future I would absolutely love to collaborate with screen printers and/or animators/game designers. With screen printing, I really want to explore the possibilities of apparel design. I would want to work with someone to do designs on sleeves and other experimental things with clothing. With animation and game design I would like to do more concept art as well as create actual animatics or assets for games or animation, 2D, 3D, doesn’t matter.
So far I feel I have just scratched the surface of what I can do in those areas and I would love to learn more. That said, I’ve mainly shared paintings here, so if you are interested in seeing more drawing and concept-art related works check out my instagram @kestreltb. That is also the perfect place to contact me if you are interested in collaborating!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://kestrelhendrickson.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kestreltb/?hl=en
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kestrel-hendrickson-005871a3/
Image Credits
All artworks are copyrighted and personally documented.
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
