Wk 11 — Artist OTW — Student Choice
Artist: Janice Sung
Media: digital, gouache, oil
Website: janicesung.com
Instagram: janicesung
Janice Sung is an independent illustrator and designer whose work is often inspired by fashion and beauty. I discovered her on instagram through my art account and have since then grown to love her style of art. Her artwork often incorporated organic forms like foliage with inorganic geometric forms like abstract shapes.
The artwork that she produces is typically drawn on procreated but mimics pencil like strokes. For traditional pieces she likes to use gouache and oil paints. Most of the line work that can be seen is very smooth, yet clear and easy to see. She features muted pastel colors in most of her work, as it oftentimes showcases flora and a diverse group of characters drawn in her style.
When it came to the journey to finding her style, she states that, “If you look through my past work, it was clear that it lacked consistency and direction. There was one point where I thought the more realistic the drawing the better, then I strayed completely away from that and started doing more simplified drawings heavily inspired by graphic design… and it goes on. I would get so frustrated with every piece I was creating because I didn’t resonate with any of it. Then it hit me, I was wasting all my time trying to make my art look a certain way or fit a certain niche when I should’ve been focusing on just becoming a better artist. When I finally let go of the notion of needing my own style, that’s when I truly let myself explore and more importantly, LEARN. I stopped worrying so much about developing a style and more on improving my anatomy, painting techniques, color theory etc.”
I’ve come to genuinely admire her artwork and the success that she has as a freelance artist. She has completely created a brand for herself which even larger companies see and reach out to use. I think her blog is very personable as well, as you are able to follow her entire journey to finding the way that she is now recognized for drawing with. It was nice to see that there are other artist that also struggle to find their own style.
