Colors Gallery, meet Millie_Strawb!
@Millie_Strawb is an up & coming artist here on the Colors Gallery known for their many detailed studies, portraits, and their complex relationship with frogs(or more specifically a certain skinny green frog with weird eyes)! They joined our humble gallery last year back in late December 2022 so they are still relatively new and now is the time to get to know them as our 2nd Artist of the week. Let's learn all about who Millie_Strawb is!
What’s your story? What type of artist do you consider yourself to be?
“I guess I don’t really know what sort of artist I am. I guess I’ve never really classified myself as an artist, I guess I don’t redeem my artwork good enough for me to be classified as any sort of artist.”
How long have you been drawing? What’s the earliest artwork you can remember? What initially inspired you to begin making art?
“I say I’ve been drawing for about 7 years, but I’d have to say I’ve been doing it properly and working on getting better for the past 3-4 years when I’ve been really focused on my art work to get better with my proportions.”
What’s the deal with Kermit? Is he your favorite muppet or do you have Love/Hate relationship with the frog?
“For Kermit it’s very much a hate relationship with him, as a kid I was terrified by him, I still very much am. It’s his eyes that I hate, I hate puppets too, he’s the reason why I hate frogs. However, the community seems to like frogs and I do like cute cartoon frogs too.”
Kermit by Millie_Strawb
What’s your typical painting or drawing process? How long does it usually take you on average?
“I’d say every single drawing or painting that I do, something is different every time like I might do my sketch a different way or color it in a different way. However for my more realistic paintings I like to color over the line work, and change the later opacity to like 94% so I can still see the original sketch underneath. Most of theses take me about 1hr 40 minutes, however my more simple ones can take up to an hour, but it honestly just depends.”
What’s the origin of your Colors name? Are strawberries your favorite berry ? If not, what other fruits are you fond of? Or snacks/ food in general?
“The origin of my name, isn’t as interesting as some may like. The Millie part is my nick name, and then the strawb comes from my minecraft username Strawberry’s but one of my good friends calls me strawb on there so that’s where I get it from. So I pretty much just combined the two together
I guess strawberry’s are one of my favorite fruits but I guess I also like mangos and blueberries as well. But I think strawberry’s are more aesthetically pleasing.”
Outside of arting, what are your hobbies? Any interest you’d like to share?
“Outside of art I’d say I really like playing games, I always have done. As well as games I’m also learning Japanese, so that’s why some of my paintings contain Japanese.”
stuffed animals by Millie_Strawb
What’s your biggest struggle when it comes to art? What’s your biggest strength?
“Some of my biggest struggles are perception and creativity I’d say, but they are something that I definitely want to get better at.”
Any advice for beginner artist just starting out or art advice for artist at all levels?
“My advice for beginners is that, your early art probably isn't going to look good but that’s okay because you will get better naturally. As well, use a real reference if you want to improve, you don’t have to draw realistic all the time but it will help you get better at anime/cartoon drawings. One last advice that I would give is do lots of quick sketches, as this will help you to draw a lot more that will help you improve quicker.”
Is Colors Live your primary way of making art? Outside of Colors Live what is your preferred medium/art program? Do you prefer digital or traditional art? How does Colors Live assist your workflow?
“ Colors Live is my main digital art medium, as I don’t have an iPad or drawing tablet, but I have a switch, so I was so excited to find that it was coming to the switch! Before Color’s I had never really used digital art before, so a lot of my art at the beginning wasn’t the best as I was still trying to get used to the medium. However traditionally I use pretty much anything, from acrylic paint to alcohol markers so I’m a lot more confident in a traditional medium.”
What’s your biggest source of inspiration?
“For what inspired me I’d definitely say the Anime/Manga style, I was immediately drawn to it, the way the eyes were drawn, I don’t know what it is about it I just really liked the anime style. However now looking back, I’m glad I drew from Anime, however I wish I did more realism as it helped me become better at art. It teaches you more than what anime could.”
I see you have been doing a lot of lovely portraits and studies on Colors, are they your favorite things to draw? What else do you like?
“I don’t really have a favorite thing to draw, but if I have to say it would probably be people. It also depends on my mood, sometimes I’d rather not draw people and I’d rather draw animals or flowers, it honestly just depends on my mood.”
How do you overcome art block?
“I guess I don’t really do much as I should to overcome an art block, most of the time I just wait it out, look for something that I really want to draw, and starting drawing until I draw something that I like. “
Any features you would really like to see in Colors Live in the future? What do you like about Colors, what changes would you like to see and how do you feel about our humble gallery?
“I would love to see a dark mode on colours, god my eyes hurt sometimes with the colourful backgrounds at night. As well I guess a collab feature would be nice, and so would a blur brush, I think many would benefit from a blur brush.”
Who or what inspires you the most?
“I guess firstly one of my biggest inspiration is people, such as my favourite actor Pedro Pascal , I like drawing him a lot. Secondly I like drawings from games/Anime, such as Attack on Titan and animal crossing. I love their character designs and the cute art style that comes with animal crossing.”
Eren yeager by Millie_Strawb
Animal Crossing by Millie_Strawb
Any artistic goals/plans in the near or far future?
“Yes I definitely do have artist plans in the future! I’m likely to be going to university for art! So hopefully my skills will develop a lot then! So I can get a career in the art field.”
What Colors art of yours are you the most proud of?
"The painting that I was first super proud of was my Max from stranger things drawings, then probably my still life of Avocados, and then finally I’d have to say my newest Pedro Pascal painting that I did."
Still life Avcardo by Millie_Strawb
Pedro Pascal by Millie_Strawb
Discord question from @Lilyofthe328Valley: What inspired you to make the drawing “Kermit” (the one where Kermit has a gun)?
"One of my favourite YouTubers/streamer CDawgVA had painted the picture on his stream where he was painting Kermit. So the inspiration definitely came from there, I guess it helped me a little bit with my fear of Kermit because of how much he liked Kermit, but I still definitely find him creepy."
Discord question from @Ri: How did you get into drawing/how did you discover that you had a passion for it?
"I got into drawing by just drawing anime, I liked copying it form the internet. I discovered that I had a passion for it when I realised that I really enjoyed doing it in my spare time."
Discord question from @tall73: Do you prefer to learn about art techniques from
a. live instructors
b. videos
c. books/print resources?
"Probably videos the most but I learn form all of them as well. Don’t limit yourself to just one if you can."
Any Colors artist you would like to shoutout? It doesn’t have to be a friend or a favorite artist.
"There are so many amazing artist in the gallery but if I had to pick my most favourite artists that I want to give a shout-out to are @hiwwawy, @Hailsss and @cutepup. I’m in complete awe of their works.”
Melanie Martinez - Portals by cutepup
Over The Garden Wall by Hailsss
4ctjvtjvkv^|"^|ìdž by hiwwawy
That concludes our interview with the berry awesome @Millie_Strawb ! It was a pleasure having you as our second artist of the week and I'm sure the whole gallery appreciates that too! We at The Colors Team would like to thank you for the the interview and incredible artworks. Looking forward to seeing more from you in future. Everyone be sure to check them out!
Check out the interview with our very first artist of the week @BiniBean here http://colorslive.com/page/Meet-BiniBean
For those who may need a reminder
The Artist of the week will be posted every Friday so be sure to tune in! Prior to that, the artist may be contacted via email or other means at least a week or more in advance so be sure to check your emails( and spam) so you don't miss out on a chance to be featured. If you don't reply within 48 hours another artist may be chosen to be featured for that week instead and you will be in a future artist of the week update.
The announcement of who is the upcoming featured artist will be announced at least 2-3 days in advance or eariler so look out for that too! If you would like for any of your questions or comments to be featured in an upcoming interview please check out colorslive.com/discord and visit the official artist of the week channel to submit questions/commentary for a chance for those to be answered before Friday.
Before I forget, here's another reminder: The "aprilfools" prank war is ongoing so don't be foolish and miss out on #wc496 ! The war ends Sunday April 2nd, 2023
Stay creative!
Zyik & The Colors Team
