The Incredible Surreal Fantasy Art of Luz Tapia - (What Fun!)

Re-Post Of StudioVox Crew - September 21st, 2016

Because I love this site and love what they do and are doing with spreading the word around of amazing artist in so many forms I am glad to have the opportunity to be able to re-post there daily post that I get from them straight in to my gmail.  Lucky me and lucky you since now I am posting them here.

No this is not some lame way for me in skating by and taking it easy in creating new post just for my blog here................ or is it.........  OK, maybe a little but really, for at least a couple of weeks now I have been wanting to figure out how to save all the wonderful emails I do get from them on a daily basis and only wish I had been doing it sooner but glad I am doing it now.

So I will probably be posting these past paragraphs for a little bit until I feel it is necessary not to do so and a link to StudioVox's site as you see below.

The Incredible Surreal Fantasy Art of Luz Tapia

The StudioVox Crew

Surreal art disarms our sense of reality - creating sensations unbound by the rules and laws that keep us grounded. Visually freeing, it makes the impossible suddenly seem possible, as if walking through a dream.

Luz Tapia's digital art illustrates this and more. Her work sits on the border between dream and reality, portraying a combination of both fantasy and surrealism with a childish, emotional and dark touch.

A self-taught Digital Artist and Illustrator from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tapia is currently working for Random House and as a freelance book cover artist. She enjoys creating DVD movie posters as well as book covers for local authors in Argentina.

StudioVox had the opportunity to talk with Tapia about her incredible work and creative process. 

SV: How did your journey with art begin?

LT: I started like a lot of people at a very young age, since my fingers were able to grab a pencil basically. I always loved the classic masters of art and felt inspired by their experiences. I tried as much as I could and couldn't stop drawing and painting. It was and still is the thing I love the most. I'm self-taught so I learned by trial and error.

In 2010 I discovered the world of Digital Art and since then, it's become my favorite way to work.

SV: What do you love about digital art and illustration?

LT: What I love about digital art is definitively having the CTRL+Z button and all the possibilities that digital art can bring. I love creating brushes with Photoshop and experimenting with them to see what effect they can create.

Telling a story is what I like the most about illustration, it´s amazing how much you can tell by just adding some details and hints on an image. The possibilities are endless.

SV: Where do you find your inspiration and who are your influences?

LT: I get inspired by a lot of things. Animals, nature, vintage and fashion are the things I love the most. It may sound basic but movies, series, books and music are also the things that inspire me the most. Specially movies and series, I love watching movies and I do it the most in my free time.

Lately I'm trying to stay away a bit from artistic influences because they “cloud” my own ideas and I end up getting frustrated by comparing myself to what others do (A thing that most people do). But if I have to name artists that I love it would be Loish, Jana Brike, Nicoletta Ceccoli, Mark Ryden and Melanie Delon.

SV: What does your creative process look like?

LT: It depends on the image, but it can vary a lot. For example, sometimes I make some sketches on paper and then translate that drawing into a digital pieces. Other times I have a more spontaneous approach and I just scribble on Photoshop and see what I can get from that idea.

I like to have the most I can recorded on paper, because I know I can look back when I´m older on my sketchbooks and see if I truly made any progress.

SV: What advice do you have for the aspiring artist?

LT: It's been said for so long but I truly find it the best advice. Practice a lot and have patience. Progress won´t come in just a few days. And you have to have a lot of patience because you will fail (a lot) but if you keep pushing yourself it will come a day when you will be satisfied with what you do. Always aim for more!

SV: Any future projects/series in mind?

LT: Currently I have another series completely ready, one in progress. I just finished uploading all the pieces of my series Eat me and it feels so great to finally show all the works.

Of course, I have a lot of series in mind and commissioned work to show/finish.

And there will be news and projects related to the world of Gardeling.

SV: What is Gardeling? 

LT: Gardeling is a world I created with Ramiro Maldini and we are still developing a lot of things of it. In this world you can find creatures of a particular morphology (for example Half-human and half-animal characters, half-fruit and half-human, half-tree and half fruit, etc) on surreal environments. Here, nature invades and takes control of their environments and it´s not stopped by their inhabitants. They have a special bond with it, their lives are connected to nature.

They have their own history, legends, and native customs that we are planning to show through animated short films, illustrations and stories.

See more on Tapia's incredible work on her website, Facebook Page, Instagram and StudioVoxPortfolio.