Meet Maren Lawrence

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Maren Lawrence. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Maren below.

Maren, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?

It comes from many parts of my life! From my family, my friends, my experiences… But mostly from my love of creation. I love to create, therefore one day it will pay off. The worst that could happen in my area of art is someone says no. Which can be a bummer! However, life moves on and more opportunities arise. Nothing is really stuck anywhere, in my experience so far.

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 Maren Lawrence and I’m a freelance illustrator whose art focuses on line work and organic shapes, with a touch of “cute” mixed in!

I specialize in digital work from my iPad and am currently doing commissions at the moment. The commissions that I have experience in so far are character commissions — something found common among online social media artists. These type of commissions are where the artist lets someone request a character of any kind (original or from a fandom), how much of them to draw (head, torso, full body), and at what quality (sketch, outline, flat, rendered, etc). Each of these sets determine the price of the work.

It’s an interesting experience! Mainly because your common client is a common person, someone who doesn’t have a lot of money to their name (most of the time) and doesn’t have experience professionally hiring an artist (again, most of the time). So, artists doing characters commissions often undersell themselves, unfortunately. It’s just how the market is in that area. That is the only downside, however!! I love doing character commissions, otherwise. Most of the kind of work I get is original characters, and there’s something so pure and loving about it. I’m honored to take someone’s creation that they personally made and give it a different breath of air.

While this is my main area of experience, I’ve also had some experiences in professional illustration commissions from businesses. These are handled differently and with more delicacy. I’ve only had a few, but I wish to expand! As much as I love character commissions, they are only for a character or two. Professional illustration commissions are for a whole illustration. It’s a lot of fun to solve a problem via imagery! Almost addicting… Like a little puzzle!

My future goals at the moment art to get more illustration commissions and to attend more art festivals. In fact, I might have some festivals and conventions in the future!

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?

Figure drawing is the first thing that comes to mind. My art improved ten-fold and I gained a beautiful appreciation of the human body. You can reference a character or figure from a magazine or an anime as much as you want. It’ll look good, sure. But you won’t get soul and character into your work until you have studied a human body. Natural, with folds, dents, fat, and all. Figuring out how the muscles in our bodies intertwine and where the fat lays and forms is super helpful to any artist’s work. I really can’t recommend it enough. Especially if you plan to draw women! Please see what a natural female body looks like. Don’t take everything you know from magazines and media.

Something that often keeps new artists away from attending a figure drawing class is they’re afraid of nudity. As someone with experience, you get over that fast! For the first few seconds, sure, you’re surprised a naked body is in front of you. But you know what else is in front of you? Your drawing board. You have to draw that person. Your whole focus shifts from “omg nudity” to “damn it I can’t draw this shoulder quite right.” I promise, you’ll be fine! It’s healthy, even.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

Currently, I’ve hit a standstill in terms of what I can do professionally. I graduated from university about a year ago, and I’m just now finding my style! Crazy, you would think I would have found it while I was in school. That’s an odd thing about art, most of the progress throughout your education you’re just playing around.

So, what I’m doing is building my portfolio and trying to create more professional work. I’ve done a lot of fanart in my day, and while they’re still works of art, they don’t quite fit as editorial illustrations. It’s a fun ride! A welcomed challenge.

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