Liz Rowland

Johan Bergelin

Liz Rowland is one of the young promises of illustration. We interviewed Liz during her holidays, we wanted to know more about what she is interested in, what her future projects are and about her goals and dreams to achieve. A multidisciplinary artist who manages to build true landscapes in each work. She tells us how she has been able to carve out her own future by pursuing a dream.

For starters, How are you? All good, how are you? Can you hear me well?

I can hear you perfectly. I am going to start asking you about your background, a little bit about the past to get to know you better and learn how that affects your work and then we will move into current goals and future projects. So let’s start with where this passion for illustration was born? Well, it’s something I always had. My mother is very creative so my siblings and I grew up in this very crafty upbringing and I guess there was always a big emphasis on us doing our craft projects, school projects, and that was what was most celebrated in our house. So that led to doing an art foundation course, when I was sixteen because I was very clear on what I wanted to do, I then went on to Falmouth University in Cornwall, a university specialising in creative courses. I graduated in 2011. I loved studying at Falmouth, I had the time of my life there.. It was the time when I had the chance to explore illustration and, I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. I was surrounded by the tutors and all the possible tools to fully explore illustration and that was pretty special.

And after uni, what did you do? When I first graduated I had a bit of a crisis about what I should be doing next. Because I think when you have been surrounded by those amazing artists, you sort of question yourself on whether you can compete, and everyone is graduating on time and they go for the same jobs you want. So it went from being very enjoyable and relaxed to being quite competitive and I sort of lost my way and my confidence, I suppose. I went travelling for a while with some friends. We travelled around Australia and South East Asia. When I returned to London I interned for a while at an illustration agency. I found my way into project management and worked for a few years in a print company. After I had found my feet and had a stable income, I started to question if I was on the right path or whether missed illustrating. So in 2015 I left my job and travelled again. I travelled through South America and ended up back in Australia for a couple of years. Whilst I was there I found casual work and began painting again in my free time. I started posting my work online and work started to come in. I painted every day and posted consistently. Commissions started to come in slowly, and then I found an agent and things picked up.

What would you say is your current inspiration? What inspires your designs and commissioned works? Mmmm…In the past most of my inspiration has come from travel. I love handmade objects and crafts, hand painted signs etc. I take photos of everything and make sketches, then when a project comes up I refer back to Let’s talk now about materials, which ones do you use and like? Mostly oil paint and gouache. Sometimes acrylic and oil pastel.

What has been your biggest project so far? Last year at the start of lockdown I illustrated my first two children’s books back to back. Both books were sixty page non-fiction books, so required lots of detailed illustrations. Alongside those I was also doing my monthly editorial works and a language book. It was the most work I had ever had and the most pressure I had been under as an illustrator so far.

And how does that work with clients? How long it takes you and how many projects can you handle at the same time? I work quickly I would say. Because my works are quite small, I can create them fairly quickly. I would usually have, If I am doing an editorial piece, say for a magazine or newspaper, I usually have around a week from them getting in touch with the brief to delivering the final piece. I usually spend a full day working on the final painting. I usually have three to four projects going on at the same time. But maybe a book is also happening in the background, maybe some ceramic work, etc. But I guess it’s all the same with freelancing work, sometimes you have a very quiet month and then all of the sudden you have a very busy one. You never seem to figure it out.

I wanted to talk about pandemics and how the lockdown affected your work and you personally? So when it comes to work, I was very busy last year and then this year has been much quieter, and I think it worked well at the beginning because I was full of inspiration but, this past six months, it was definitely harder, because my inspiration comes from travelling and I had to figure out how to get inspired without that. I was also in a point of searching for more sustainable ways of inspiration (lifewise) and the pandemic made me face that. Also. I think before the pandemic I used to put more pressure on myself to make everything more perfect and something about the pandemic made that pressure go away and has made me come back to my work to less of an ego, and I appreciate it more, I don’t put that much pressure on. I am grateful that this is my job. I realized that not everything that you do is going to be this incredible masterpiece but is more about making the client happy and being happy yourself, balancing all out. Before the pandemic I was travelling and trying to do as much work possible and it made me stop and think about everything. I moved to Wales just before the pandemic hit, and I was still working from home because I couldn’t find a studio and I was hoping to, but when the lockdown came, I carried on working from home, and I still do.

I have seen you work on ceramics, how did that start? So a few years ago, when I first graduated, in London, I took a ceramics course. And I did ceramics for maybe two years and then I took a break from it and when the pandemic hit, I had a lot of time at home so I started to play around and make it again. I was a lot more comfortable with my illustration so I started to illustrate the pieces too and that got people interested again. I started to receive commissions too, as well as I did when I started with illustration. And now at the moment it is like fifty fifty of my time. Ceramics has become a very big part of my life, it really helped me throughout the pandemic and I am very excited to see how it grows.

And to finish, we want to know a little bit more about your goals, your short and long term projects. The short term, I would like to keep this

ceramics and illustration work equal parts of my time and life. I would like to find a way to make ceramics more sustainable, because it’s something that I make from home right now but maybe I would like to upscale that. In the longer term, I would like to move away. I also did a mural last year and that is something that I would love to do more of.

Illustrating books is also something that I want to keep doing. I would eventually like to write my own book and illustrate it, till today all the books that I have done are from other authors and that is something that is on my mind.