Introducing Dutch Rebelle Featured Artist, Carla Post, whose main focus has been on watercolor and pastel chalk portraits. Read the interview to learn about her journey to digital painting, the challenges of exhibiting her work in galleries, and more.
Carla Post has been passionate about drawing from an early age, with a particular fascination for faces. Her preferred medium has always been pastels, especially for creating portraits. Throughout her life, she has been deeply interested in various forms of design and creation. Whether working with clothing, wool, silk, or crafting lamps and bags, she thrives on bringing something to life from nothing.
In addition to her love for art, Carla also enjoys photography, with a special focus on animals and nature. In 2017, she purchased her first Wacom tablet, initially for designing logos, creative artwork for web design, and creating brochures, e-books, banners, flags, and business cards. As she delved deeper into the world of digital art, she began drawing digitally and eventually found her way to using Rebelle software.
Hello Carla, let´s start from the beginning of your art journey. What inspired you to become a portrait painter? Do you remember the first portrait you ever painted?
I never really thought about it. I was always attracted to faces, and especially faces that went with colorful clothing. Not sure exactly how this attraction came about… My first portrait was a small dog portrait of one of our hunting dogs at the time, made with colored pencils. Then it started with faces, especially children. One of those first portraits was of a young native American at a powwow.
"It took a lot of time to gain technical skills to be able to paint digitally. When I think about how many hours it all cost, it is a lot, but I now have a lot of convenience resulting from it."
How do you combine technical skills with personal expression in your work?
For me, it took a lot of time to gain technical skills, especially when it came to programs in the Adobe package and later Rebelle. When I think about how many hours it all cost, it is a lot, but I now have a lot of convenience resulting from it. That does not mean that I am ever done learning new things, of course, it is the actual “doing” and working with the tools and repetition of different steps, which ultimately meets my taste.
Perhaps it was an advantage that I first worked with pastels, colored pencils, and pastel chalk for many years. They are impossible to use over and over again; in that respect, the rise of digital drawing is an enormous advance. When it comes to digital drawing, people often think the computer will do it for you. Of course, even though the tools are different, the manual work remains. I still have to do all the hand moves myself, and it took a lot of time to overcome the learning curve, which is often overlooked.
"I like to capture images of people in their natural poses, not staged, often not knowing they are being photographed. My husband makes beautiful wildlife shots from nature here in the area, so I like to use those as a reference as well."
Have you ever experienced trouble capturing the likeness of a subject?
Oh yes, to great annoyance! Fortunately, I am someone who keeps going until I have hit it. Usually, I ask my husband for his direct opinion. What also often helps is placing the portrait in mirror image or upside down, so that all the fixed guidelines for the view of the subject change, and the mistakes can be seen very quickly.
What is your source of reference for the artwork?
I search through old magazines, of which I use the face, but change the eye colour, hair, and clothing, and then add caps, headscarves, and hats, so it becomes a completely different portrait. That is what I use in my graphic work to, change it to something completely different.
How do you determine the size and scale of a portrait?
I often determine the size by looking at the subject beforehand and immediately taking into account that it can be printed to that particular size.
What medium do you prefer to work with and why?
Before I started to work with Rebelle, I mainly worked with pastel chalk. Since I picked up digital drawing, I like to work with watercolor supplemented with colored pencils and pastel chalk.
Do you think portraits should look realistic, or can they also be abstract?
I like both. The difficulty for me is to move from realistic to abstract, but one should never avoid challenges. Right?
Your art is exhibited often, and thousands of people visit the exhibitions. What reactions do you encounter when they learn these are digital paintings?
Oh, it varies. Anything from disbelief, “How did you do this?”, and people never hearing of digital drawing before, to very positive reactions and admiration.
Once, I received a negative comment that my computer did that for me...and that I ordered the computer to draw this, and then it rolled off the printing belt.
What do you hope viewers take away from your portraits?
I hope they enjoy the subject and the colors, for some the subject may evoke the beauty of nature, for others the radiance of certain faces.
Thank you, Carla, for sharing your thoughts on digital portraiture, examples of your work, and hopes for the future. May your art be seen and appreciated by many.
Happy Painting,
Escape Motions Team
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Learn more about Carla Post: www.escapemotions.com/featured-artists/carla-post
