Caitlin Shearer

To my knowledge, there isn't some sort of international championship for the illustration of dreamy ladies (and why not? that would be awesome!), but if there were, I would not want to be up against Australian artist Caitlin Shearer, although.  Not only does she come up with some of the most stylin' ladies I've seen, but she also has an impressively large body of work - just check out her Flickr and her blog.  There's no way I could keep up!


Caitlin was nice enough to answer a few questions for us about her creative process, developing your own artistic style, and people she wishes would move in next door to her.  

Can you elaborate at all on your creative process? (from the idea of a project to the final piece)  Do you have a narrative in mind when you create a piece? Or do you draw what comes to mind? 

The way a painting starts and continues usually varies - it's usually a mish-mash of what I'm feeling or obsessed with that week, (kind of like a diary - gotta let these emotions out of my brain) but that being said, sometimes I will leave a painting for months and change it dramatically when the right thing pops into mind. I do all the outlines in lead pencil first, which allows for spontaneous change.

We always love to here about people’s creative spaces – do you have a studio or office that you work out of, and if so, what’s it like?  Do you have a favorite time of day to work?

Well, I moved house exactly one week ago, so I'm currently living and working in Sydney in a sharehouse. I'm minding a friend's room for six months, so am using her furniture. I've got a dark brown desk under the window and out of it I can see lots of rooftops. I wish I had a spacious white studio filled with fresh flowers, but that might take another five years. My favourite time of day to work is after lunchtime, all afternoon till it get's dark - and perhaps far into the night if I pick up momentum and there are no friends knocking at the door.

What are your favorite tools? Is there a medium you haven’t explored yet that you would like to get into?

I'd love to try oil paints - I imagine they would add a completely different dimension to the work. I'm a bit intimidated by them at the moment though! I just started working in an art supply store and it's all too tempting - now I want to spent all my pay on marbling kits and fabric mediums and huge sketchbooks and fancy papercutting scissors.At the moment my favourite tools are masking fluid, smooth cotton paper, watercolour paints, waterproof black paint and teeny tiny paintbrushes.

Caitlin's collaboration with fashion designer Karla Špetić.

What are your dream collaborations or projects, however ridiculous or unlikely they may be? 

All unlikely- but here we go...I wish I could be an in-house illustrator for Lula mag - and also chat about clothes and fancy things with Leith Clark. I wish Vivienne Westwood was my patron/teacher/wise owl.I wish the Rodarte sisters would have me over for tea.I wish David Lynch and I were neighbours so we could have pie baking competitions every weekend.oh and add Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola, James Mercer to that list.More to do with fun than work... but good work comes from loving the people you work with, right?

Any advice to anyone just getting into illustration and drawing on how to develop their own personal style?

Speaking personally,  I found it took a long, long time to be entirely pleased and entirely comfortable with my own work. It's not something you can rush - it just takes a lot of practice, experimentation and commitment. I guess, the more honest you can be, the better. That goes for everything in life.

If you could have any fictional character or historical figure as a client, whom would you choose?  What would they commission?

I'd squeal if Bettie Page commissioned a life size boudoir portrait to hang above her bed.

Thanks, Caitlin!