Connecting through art

• Samantha Weerawardane on creativity, storytelling, and visual communication

Samantha Weerawardane is an illustrator with years of experience in various creative fields. When asked about her work, she said: “I wish I could say I’m a full-time illustrator, but it would be a lie. At the moment, I work as a tutor of visual communication at Academy of Design (AOD), whereas previously I was working as a creative consultant in copywriting.”

Weerawardane started out in advertising and spent most of her time at what was known at the time as Leo Burnett. “The agency was quite focused on training and ideation, so I learnt quite a lot about creativity and craft while I was there,” she said, adding that she also hosted a radio show for 13 years, which aired on Sunday nights and played nothing but rock, alternative, and indie. “My interests include (apart from the obvious art and design), comics, music, cooking, house plants and dogs,” Weerawardane shared.

Speaking to Brunch, Weerawardane went into detail about her work as an illustrator, and where her love for experimentation and creativity comes from.

Do you come from a family of artists, or is this a skill and passion you picked up later on in life?

My dad was surprisingly good at drawing, but his work as a banker meant that he didn’t really spend much time exploring it, though he loved conducting one-off experiments. I remember he once assembled some kind of spinning table to paint with, and ended up getting more paint on the walls than the canvas. 

My mum’s creativity has always come through in her amazing cooking. I think that love for experimentation and creativity in both of them is a lot more valuable than artistic skills per se. I think I picked it up through incessant doodling in class.

What media do you use the most? Any preferences?

Black ball-points or gel pens were my previous weapons of choice. I’ve been fiercely analogous with my artwork for a long time, and saw digital art as “cheating” for some reason. It’s probably because you can always hit undo and save various versions to come back to later. But I’m learning that digital painting is just as valid, and helps artists/illustrators develop new skills that we would never have considered with art that was solely hand-rendered. 

About a year ago, I invested in an iPad (which I recently paid the final instalment on – yay!) and have had a lot of fun rendering images digitally while working to maintain that hand-drawn feel. So I would say Procreate is my medium of choice right now. If we want to get specific, the 6B Pencil and Bonobo Chalk brushes are my current go-to.

What are some of your favourite things about being an illustrator?

I recently began my MA in Illustration, and through it, I’m finally figuring out what I want to do with this skill. So far, it’s been an effective way for me to connect with others. I’m more comfortable with someone judging me on my illustration work than on the way I look or sound. I’m hoping to expand this into proper forays into narrative and sequential art as the course continues.

Anything you find particularly challenging?

Time management and prioritising. I tend to want to get less enjoyable work out of the way so that I can sit and “savour” doing my illustration work, but often the former piles on quite a bit, and I don’t get to spend as much time as I’d like on the art. Having a mentor would also be cool.

What goes into creating not just art, but also unique characters?

What you see on my IG are just “brain-farts” – it takes quite a lot of dedication to stick to a full project and develop characters to that extent. I make sure to focus on representation, especially in a South Asian context, because I didn’t see a lot of it when I was growing up. There’s a lot to celebrate about South Asian cultures, so as a Sri Lankan illustrator it’s my duty to engage with it through my work as much as I can.

Browsing your social media, we see different types of styles of art. How have you developed or found an identity as an artist over time?

I’m still working on an identity, and my further studies are helping a lot with this. At the moment, I’m still experimenting to see what I’m most comfortable with, and where my personal brand of illustration could lie.

You tell various stories through your illustrations, whether in the form of a comic or in the caption. How important is the storytelling quality of art to you?

It’s quite important to me because writing is another one of my areas of specialisation. I worked as a copywriter for a long time, crafting narratives and brand stories, and before that I was an avid creative writer with many cringe-worthy short stories under my belt. I’ve recently learned that illustration and writing are quite interconnected. In his book Illustration: A Theoretical and Contextual Perspective, Alan Male likens writing and illustration as “one and the same”, since we “inform, narrate and comment” in similar ways, and gain knowledge in specific areas regarding the subject matter that our work needs to be applied to.

Are you working on anything at the moment? And is there anything you’d like to or plan on exploring as an artist?

I’m not working on anything specific, apart from studying it and finding a clear path. I’ve always been quite unfocused with my illustration work, doing odd projects here and there, but never taking it seriously. Now, post-Covid-19, my perspective on illustration has changed completely. I took on further study, a decision that I will never regret, and my aim is to become a lot more active as an illustrator of picture books and comics.