Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel White.
Daniel, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
Growing up, I loved to draw, as I’m sure many kids do. I had a vivid imagination that was fueled by the toys and friends I played with. I remember when my friends had birthdays I would draw characters from our favorite video games or shows on their birthday cards. This continued all through my childhood up until about middle school. At that point, I didn’t draw as much but I was always fascinated by art and people that had the skills to draw what they wanted. Instead of drawing, I started taking classes that where STEM-focused, and slowly started leaning into a more engineering-based path. Before the end of middle school. I found out there was an honors art program that I could try out for, so I applied and managed to get in. It was in those four years that I really started learning how to draw and paint, and seeing the progression of my work getting better every year really excited me.
When it came time to apply to college, I was a little torn about where I should apply. Many of my classmates were wanting to go into engineering and for a long time, I thought I would do the same. But I ended up just deciding that I wanted to study art and continue to get better at what I had enjoyed for so long. So in 2016, I started my degree in Illustration at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, GA.
Today, three years later, I am going into my senior year and couldn’t be happier with my decision. I feel like if I had done anything else, there would have been nagging thought of “what if?” in the back of my mind for the rest of my life.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I am a student and work as a freelance illustrator at the moment. I have the goal of working as a visual development artist in video games or animation one day.
In my personal work, or at least pieces I feel more connected to, I like for the work to tell a story and have an emotional quality to them. I really enjoy depicting the simple, quiet or sadder moments because I think a lot of people, myself included, can relate to it some aspect. There is just something about it that resonates with everyone.
In all my work, I strive for believability. Whether I am designing an environment, characters or creatures, I like to convey the idea that it could exist in the real world. This is just a personal preference, but there are certain abstractions in art that I really love like seeing brushstroke in a piece and using certain textures of a brush to convey information about the subject.
As far as mediums go, I use both traditional and digital tools. I will usually start in my sketchbook or any piece of paper for the initial brainstorming and thumbnail stage. Lately, if I decide to paint traditionally, I’ve been using gouache (which is just an opaque watercolor). It dries matte and is a pretty forgiving medium. If I decide to paint digitally, I use the exact same process as I would traditionally but just with the convenience of having digital tools.
Artists face many challenges, but what do you feel is the most pressing among them?
For me, the biggest challenge I have faced is putting myself into my work. I look at and am inspired by so many amazing artists, and it is so easy to want to do exactly what they are doing, but I need to remember to be myself. It is also challenging to get noticed, there is a lot of content being post daily by amazing artist, so it can be hard to stand out. But, I feel if I stay true to my work, other people will slowly begin to notice.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
My work is located on Instagram (thehandofdan), my website (thehandofdan.myportfolio.com), and on ArtStation (Daniel White).
Recently, I’ve had work get into 3×3 Magazine and American Illustration 38. I also had a piece exhibited at the Society of Illustrators Museum in New York as part of their Student Scholarship Competition.
People can support me by just checking out my work. I hope they find my work enjoyable to look at.
Contact Info:
- Website: thehandofdan.myportfolio.com
- Email: thehandofdan@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/thehandofdan/
Image Credit:
Daniel White
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