28 Days of the Web: An interview with Elton Leonard, Art Director at Honey River Design Group
We’re sponsors of 28 Days of the Web, a project that recognizes black designers, developers and creatives in celebration of Black History Month. In this interview we meet honoree, Elton Leonard.
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Transcript:
Jenn: Hi, I’m Jenn Schiffer. I’m the community engineer at Glitch.com. Glitch is a friendly community where you’ll build the app of your dreams and part of our mission is enabling creators. So this month, we’re sponsoring 28 Days of the Web, which in conjunction with Black History Month is showcasing a different black designer or developer every day in the month of February. And today we have one of those designers or artists, Elton Leonard. Hi Elton.
Elton: Pleasure meeting you. How you doing today?
Jenn: I’m good. Tell me about what you do.
Elton: I am an artist of different disciplines. I am a graphic designer. I have done some web design in the past. I am an illustrator and that’s pretty much what I do. I’m an all around artist. I also have knowledge when it comes to photography. Now, as far as my medium I work is mostly acrylic and Prismacolor pencils, but also I do digital design and digital paintings as well.
Jenn: Cool, so you work with mediums both digital and non digital, right?
Elton: Yes.
Jenn: But I see in a lot of your work you will start with sketches on like paper and scan and color it digitally. When did you start using technology to create your art?
Elton: I would say it started with my experiences in learning graphic design. You know, using software such as Adobe Photoshop Illustrator. Back then it was Quark, you know before InDesign came in. And so combining my hand drawn sketches along with what I was learning in Photoshop and in what I picked up in the comic book industry at that time, they were using Photoshop to alter and render the colors and the color separations and the color cuts.
And so I picked up that trade by a great artist by the name of Derek Santiago and he’s been a veteran in doing color for comic books for many years, you know in the comic book industry and doing freelance work for other famous comic book publishers.
So, I picked up that trade and I applied it into my art where, okay, I can become a digital artist by going in and painting and so on and so forth. Now the drawbacks with that is, there has been some criticism at that time with a lot of artists who were more traditional and more organic because, okay you’re kinda cheating or you know, okay, where are the strokes of your work. You know you have to show the work, you have to show the feelings. Not just, you know, creating pictures. And so that brings to this day still an issue within the art industry when it comes to digital art. And when it comes to digital painting. However, there has been some evolutions with that technology in the art world and it’s been very quite impressive.
“I would just sit home in my house and just draw and just draw and just draw”
Jenn: Yeah, I see a lot of parallels between art and tech. I mean, Glitch.com is a product that makes it easier to deploy web applications. So, it can be seen as kind of like cheating as opposed to doing it your own, you know, yourself manually and stuff like that. And I see that a lot in art.
Your artwork is very obviously inspired by comic characters and so it’s interesting to hear that the process of drawing comics inspires you. When did you start getting into comics and when did you start getting into actually making art?
Elton: I would have to say it just started when I was young. You know, being a typical nerd like anybody else I remember times, you know in the 80’s I would just sit home in my house and just draw and just draw and just draw. And my cousin used to tell me, “Why you ain’t coming outside to play?” You know. Some of my friends was, “Why you ain’t coming outside to play?” You know, I’m like, I’m in my house. I’m in my room. I have to have my privacy and just draw and draw.
Sometimes I would just sit by a television, I would watch Master’s Of The Universe and I would watch GI Joe, or Thundercats. And I would try to trace and try to find my own style within seeing what I was looking at. Because I was trying to compete against my elementary school classmates. You know, it was all these situations where we were always seeing who was the best sketch artist. Who can draw Optimus Prime better. And I used to… That used to effect me and I used to be like a crazy mad scientist and say, “You know, I’m going to be the greatest of all the great.” Then everybody’s like “whoa”, you know.
So that kind of pushed me and pushed my edge into always trying to feel that I had to be the greatest. That I had to be brilliant in what I do in my talent and I just never stopped.
Jenn: You use a lot of different kinds of mediums. I’ve seen things on Bristol Board. I’ve seen digital. I’ve seen even like, you have a denim jacket that you had painted with art inspired by Vaughn Bodē, I think.
Elton: Vaughn Bodē, yeah.
Jenn: Yeah, what is your favorite medium?
Elton: I would say if I had a choice just a pencil. All I need is a pencil and eraser. That’s my medium, you know.
Jenn: Yeah.
Elton: Now because I’ve always been a sketch artist. That’s always been my passion so it bred and it went into different directions as far as me exploring different mediums and applying what I, my competent ability with drawing to painting to different mediums and so on and so forth, so this allows me to be a bit versatile. But I would say, my comfort has always been a pencil and that’s it.
“I am an artist for my community. I am an artist for my family. I am an artist for myself”
Jenn: So the phrase, the people’s artist has been used to describe you. If you want to speak more to what being the people’s artist is.
Elton: The people’s artist, I am an artist for the people. I am an artist for my community. I am an artist for my family. I am an artist for myself because what I personally feel about this world is that we all reflection of each other. We all are. And while it is easy to say, “Don’t worry about each other. Worry about yourself.” I guess my personality has been, you know, I always try to care. I always try to care and of course I do have my ways. Everybody has their ways. But I care about giving a message to my people and I can only relate to as an African American.
We’ve been through a lot of struggles. We’ve been through a lot of pain, oppression and we still are. And my artwork is to speak to that element by ways of really reminding them, really showing to them that there’s some sense of beauty of who were are. That there’s a sense of hope of who we are. That there’s a sense of expression that you can convey for yourself and your creative process or whatever you do and that you can be admired and inspired by.
I learned that throughout the years from being an artist coming up to now. Being an art teacher. Being a professional. And my duty and what I have to show in terms of examples towards the youth and I’m speaking specifically about the African American youth. You know, they need a voice. They need to be heard. They need to find things that they can grasp to that gives them a sense of grounded-ness, a sense of love, a sense of support, you know.
Jenn: Yeah, that takes me back to you’re very inspired by black contemporary musicians and comics. And Black Panther has been sort of the first time that you’ve had that kind of representation at such, like a large scale on the big screen. So, your art around that is really awesome and I also wanted to point out particularly your portrait of Bob Marley, ’cause I saw it and I like audibly gasped because it was sort of like, it looks like an unfinished sketch but at the same time photorealistic. It was like, very good.
Elton: Right, right. That’s pretty much the style that I just been experimenting with where I try to work between being photorealistic and even though commonly it looks to the audience that the portrait is not finished. But, the whole idea is just give it certain hints into a portrait that is … that gives it its feeling. That gives it its flare. That gives it aesthetic. And sometimes it just takes simple things that gives the message. So, and that’s what I have been experimenting with. And plus, it also gives, deals in my comfort of blending Prismacolor pencils with acrylic. That’s what I was … That was the style that I was primarily been focusing on.
But also, you know my only drawback is that sometimes I get a little bit too trapped or pigeon-holed into one comfort in one medium. So, you know, I just have to learn how to just always just expand myself. You know, because again with art there’s so much versatility. There’s so many different ways of process to deal with your craft and deal with the problem.
Jenn: Thank you for coming by and chatting.
Elton: Yes. Any time.
Jenn: Yeah, Elton Leanord.
Elton: Yes.
