Today we’d like to introduce you to Maegan Brown.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
It’s hard to say when it all began for me since art and a creative mind have always played a major role in my life. I grew up with an insatiable fascination with ancient mythology and folklore, as well as a deep appreciation for renaissance period art.
I went to my first art gallery when I was six and it was then I began my fascination with fantasy art and the female figures often portrayed in it. In school, I was always excited when any projects included drawing a picture. I was often asked by my classmates to draw things for their projects and I never minded, any opportunity to draw something, especially when given a subject to base them on, was a welcome one to me, sometimes I would even draw pictures to go along with my book reports just to make the task more enjoyable. I loved drawing and I loved even more being asked to draw things for others. I never received a formal art education, so I learned everything I could from books or staring at paintings trying to understand their techniques. I loved looking at books and covers with compelling artwork, I was drawn to them solely by the image and often checked out multiple ones just to study the illustrations (and surprise surprise, most of these books would be based on Greek mythology or folklore).
I loved the idea of creating a complete story with an image that held so many elements your imagination could hardly contain them all. I grew up around musicians and other artist, so creating art to the content of music came early on for me, and my love of mythology portrayed in art played a large role in that for me. Once I realized that I had a passion and talent towards expressing my feminine mythical imagination through painting and art it soon became apparent to others as well and flourished in a way that felt natural. For a brief period in the beginning part of my artistic career I found myself experimenting with body painting. Often in the attempt of bringing my paintings to life with real models, this part of my career is what I started to be noticed for. Almost overnight, I found myself booked several live painting shows a week, often collaborating with musician and bands to create a fusion between the music and the art it inspired. I would often create my own flyers or promo posters for these events and found that I was really enjoying working with themes and placement to make a really interesting poster. Half of the time, the posters I created made the events seem much cooler than they ended up being.
So slowly moved away from the body painting and began to focus more seriously on my art and what I wanted to do with it. I would always create my fine art paintings but had always loved the hand-drawn approach to poster art and began to consider a career in graphic art. I had always been in love with the beautiful hand-drawn film posters of Struzan and the fantasy ink figure drawings of Frank Frazetta, as well as the beautifully drawn album covers and music posters of the 60’s and 70’s. So in 2017, I got the IPad Pro and entered the world of digital art. Since then I’ve created several album covers for a number of local bands and musicians, as well as promotional poster art and a number of designs for a series of T-shirt’s and patches I’ll be launching towards the end of the year.
Has it been a smooth road?
My main struggle has always been the fact that I never went to art school, or had a formal education in art. I was able to learn technique from observation, trial and error, but the business side of the art world was a part I was completely clueless about. That doubled when I decided to enter the digital art world, which I had even less of an understanding when I first started. I’ve made many mistakes, and will probably continue to, but I’ve also learned a great deal more than I had when I first started, and although it has been a difficult road it feels all the more rewarding when you finally get something right.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Velvastein – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of and what sets you apart from others.
In short, the most precise and effective way to describe what I do is that I am a freelance artist on a mostly digital level. I create custom artworks, mostly in digital format but sometimes in fine art paintings, for artists, musicians bands and local businesses/ other creatives. My commission work has been mostly geared towards creating logos and album cover art for local musicians. I did a promotional poster illustration in the style of hand-drawn movie posters of the 60s and 70s for a music video back in June. So one of my big plans is to create a new platform for promo art for musicians when promoting an upcoming music video. I am also in the process of illustrating a children’s book at the moment and will be launching a collection of T-shirt’s and patches with new artwork towards the later part of this year. My driving force is creating a truly compelling image for whatever content I’m given. We’ all picked up a book or saw a film we know nothing about, entirely compelled by the image on the cover, so that’s basically my standard in anything I do.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Inspiration is the main driving force in what I love about this city. You can’t not feel inspired here, and with everything moving as quickly as it does it helps keep you focused on moving forward and staying relevant. Though the things I love about this place could easily be the things I dislike about it, the beauty and inspiration you find can also feel daunting at times, battling the NEED to remain a relevant artist and the WANT to create on a purely genuine level. The art world can be very political, sometimes you can be looked over if you don’t know the right people, or don’t have an impressive following. In a city full of creatives, the inspiration is as bountiful as the competition. It can be both a good thing and a bad thing depending on the person.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.velvastein.com
- Phone: 9095614636
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: Instagram.com/theartofvelvastein
Image Credit:
Photograph by Natalie Ladines
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