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InPrint:: Hello Colin. First of all we would like to thank you for taking the time to provide InPrint Magazine com with this interview. Your work was selected for the 3th issue of the magazine. Please tell us more about your art and design background and what made you become an Illustrator and designer?
Its my pleasure. I have always been in love with drawing. it was my thing. Luckily, my awesome parents noticed this, and nurtured it. I think for most kids, drawing is cool, but that usually starts to fade away at some point. It never really did for me. Once I got to college, I continued this trend by loading up on all kinds of art classes, and as it came time to declare a major, I settled with graphic design. This was a bit of a hard choice. I think I would have liked to take a more fine art rout, but realistically I wanted to make a living doing something creative, so graphic design seemed to be a good choice for me (not to discourage people from majoring in fine art, it kicks ass too).
InPrint: Your work is pretty unique and full of creativity. Where does your inspiration come from?
Well thanks! It hard to say where my inspiration comes from. I would like to say the typical "it comes from everywhere!", but I'm not totally sure that's true. when I sit down to do a drawing or painting, I often don't have a plan. I just let it go where it wants to go. I think its much more interesting that way.
InPrint: Could you describe for us your typical 'start to finish' workflow when working on a illustration?
Starts with a fresh piece of illustration board, and a beer. Sometimes I will rough in an idea with a pencil sketch, other times I splash some water color on the board. next, I usually start with a ballpoint pen, and let it go to work. Drawing with a ballpoint pen is an awesome thing. Then i zone in, and it becomes a blur. I wake up from the trance, and there is a drawing/painting there. I normally go back into it with a fresh set of eyes, and fix stuff, change stuff, sometimes screw it up, then fix it again.
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InPrint: What are your tools of the trade, both hardware and software?
The whole damn Adobe CS suite. The main weapons of choice are photoshop, illustrator, and InDesign, but it is important to be somewhat familiar with all aspects of design, including motion. I work on both Macs and PCs, have 2 big badass monitors, and an Intous Wacom tablet. On the illustration side, I love using illustration board. It has a great drawing surface, and pens glide on it.
InPrint: How does your job as an artist and designer influence your life? Do you feel that you see things around you differently for example?
I see things so differently, its probably not healthy. As a designer, its impossible to not look at everything around you and not vomit a little in your mouth. The world is filled with shitty design. Filled. But i guess that makes the rest of us look better. As an artist, I look at things, and try to figure out how to translate it onto paper. I look at people, and wonder what they would look like with a tree branch coming out of their head.
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InPrint: What are your coming projects?
I have recently been toying with screen printing and selling shirts. Its a learning process. I have taken a brief hiatus from drawing (i know, shame on me), but I will be back damnit, I will be back.
InPrint: What are your favorite 5 websites, and why?
Great question. I get that a lot. Any self respecting designer better say their own website. But I cant, because I'm in the process of re-designing it because it needs it. Having worked in the "real world" as a designer, I realize that it is a huge challenge to pack a ton of info into an attractive website. So when I see this done successfully, I have to give it props. A couple of awesome microsites / landing pages.
This one is just kicks asshttp://www.soleilnoir.net/believein/#/start
Gotta give mad props to the man himself!
http://www.elodesigns.com/
http://thepenthouseproject.com/#/thephpis
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InPrint: Once again , thank you very much for the interview. As a final word, do you have any tips for upcoming artists and designers?
Stick with it. put yourself out there. Don't be afraid of criticism.
InPrint: Where to find Colin on the web?
http://www.facebook.com/colin.maisonpierre
http://www.colinmaisonpierre.com/
http://colinmaisonpierredoesart.blogspot.com/
http://www.zazzle.com/skunkapeclothing