Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason Seiler.
Jason, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
My father is an artist, so I grew up around art my whole life and began drawing around 2 or 3. By the age of 6 it was all I wanted to do. I spent years as a kid filling up sketchbooks with anything from birds, deer, and sharks, to comic book characters and more. When I was around 10 years old I began to draw caricatures, and at the time I thought I had invented the art form as it came very naturally to me. I later found out of course that I did not invent the art form, which was at first disappointing. In high school, I was sent to the principal’s office for drawing a caricature of my History teacher. The principle actually laughed when she saw the drawing and then hired me to draw portraits of 9 retiring teachers. She asked me my price and I said $20 a person, and that was my first portrait commission. When I was 20 I began working professionally as an illustrator. It took a few years to get established or noticed. In 2004 I enrolled in art school, at The American Academy of Art. After a couple years there, I went to New York and had the opportunity to share my work with many art directors and made the decision to quit school and focus full time on my art. Not long after, I signed with an agent, and shortly thereafter, I began working for clients such as Time magazine, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Weekly Standard, Disney, Mad magazine, The New York Observer, and much more.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I mostly specialize in caricature, realistic portrait work, and character design. I have also been an instructor for 11 years for the online art school, Schoolism. I started off doing mostly caricature work, which I really enjoy doing. Caricature can be a great way to tell a story while adding some humor to the article or magazine cover. I enjoy it because it allows me to be more creative. When I illustrate caricature work, I prefer to exaggerate as much as I can get away with, while rendering in a hyper realistic style.
Drawing portraits is great too, but it is more precise and calculated, a bit like math because it is a lot of measuring, and basically drawing exactly what you see, whereas caricature is understanding what you are seeing and feeling, but then taking it to a whole other level creatively. These days I mostly do caricature for political publications.
I also love doing portraits as well. For my portrait work I prefer to be more painterly and expressive if the client allows it. It depends on the client, for Time magazine for example, they usually want me to paint in a more realistic style, whereas Rolling Stone and the New Yorker, enjoy a mixture of the two.
My goal with my work is to capture the essence and feeling of my subject, hoping that my skill with likeness will move the viewer. Because I work for many different publications and clients, there isn’t a specific message. It depends on who I am working for and what they are trying to communicate. For my own personal work which I don’t get to do as often as I would like, I prefer painting pop culture but how I see them. I am in the middle of a painting of Johnny Cash for example, that I hope will move people to remember him for the powerful man and influence that he was.
For my editorial/illustration work as well as character design work, I prefer to work digitally because I can work much faster and can also make changes and adjustments quicker. Most deadlines for magazines are quite short and you have to work very fast. For my digital work, I work on a Wacom Cintiq, which is a 27” LCD screen that is pressure sensitive. I use a stylus and draw and paint directly on the screen.
For my traditional work, I prefer watercolor or oil painting. I usually only work traditionally for private commissions, or for my own work, and prefer painting traditionally over digital painting.
In your view, what is the biggest issue artists have to deal with?
I believe the biggest challenge facing artists today is probably the internet. It’s become a very fast paced world and if you can’t figure out how to keep up you may get lost or left behind. For my line of work, there is less publications, but magazines and papers are still using work online. I personally prefer an actual book or magazine rather than a digital version, and I believe a lot of people feel the same way. Hopefully it will all swing around?
Another challenge I think is that because of the internet and the ease of uploading whatever you like online, there is almost an over saturation of artists and art to choose from so it can be harder to really stand out. In a way though, I feel this is also a good thing because it forces us as artists to push harder to have a more unique voice.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
I would love to have a one man show some day, but that won’t be for a while as I don’t have much time for my own work. Occasionally I show in group shows here in Chicago, New York, or L.A. Most of my traditional work has been sold, although I do have a few pieces hanging here in my studio and apartment.
As for my other work, it can be seen online on my website which is www.jasonseiler.com or my agents website which is www.richardsolomon.com It can also be seen at https://www.theispot.com/artist/jseiler
From week to week, I am not sure who I will be illustrating or painting for, but my work can also be seen in publications such as:
Time magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Mad magazine, The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, among many others.
I was a character designer on Tim Burtons Alice In Wonderland, working on characters such as The Red Queen, The Tweedles, The Bandersnatch, and the March Hare. I also did four paintings for the animated movie, “Escape from Planet Earth”, the movie poster and DVD cover for the documentary about George Lucas called, “The People VS George Lucas.” And most recently, I painted five paintings for advertisement purposes for the hit Canadian TV Show, “Schitts Creek.”
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jasonseiler.com https://richardsolomon.com/artists/jason-seiler/
- Instagram: Seilerpaints
- Facebook: Jason Seiler Illustration
- Twitter: @jasonseiler77
Image Credit:
All artwork created by Jason Seiler
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