Huma Restelli | Illustration, Painting + Mixed Media

Huma Restelli

Huma Restelli explores many themes and mediums for her projects, and we are here for it!  Ranging from cartooning to intricate portraits, and watercolour to collage, Restelli pushes the boundaries and limits of her work, whilst staying true to her process and inner world. She invites us into a labyrinth of creative possibility. Huma resides in Guadalajara, Mexico. 

GM: Tell us about your creative expressions.

HR: I paint, mostly, and I do some graphic illustration as well. I paint with different techniques. Mostly watercolours, but i have just jumped into bigger formats using acrylics. I also have been doing a lot of collages-- I paint the paper and tear it apart to create texture and make them look more interesting. I have been sculpting as well with clay and sometimes with a paper base that hardens and then I paint it. 

GM: Do you have a favourite medium for your art?

HR: Watercolour. But now that I have found collage, and working with bigger formats, it would be watercolour which I am most comfortable using. 

GM: What inspires you?

HR: It could be anything. Lately, I’ve been inspired by my students a lot. Most of them are children, so it helps a lot to work with them. It helps my creative process because they are very creative themselves. They have the biggest imaginations and they mix colours in different ways, create different things, and so that helps me in my own creative progress. 

Lately, for my bigger formats, there is a writer that inspires me a lot called Julio Cortázar. He wrote ‘Hopscotch.’ There is a wizard sort of character, not in a fantasy way, but her character emulates many things. She likes to hang out with the intellectuals, but she’s not an intellectual herself-- she is more free. I relate to this character a lot because she is childish and always being herself even though others don’t understand why she acts the way she does. I’ve been trying to connect with that side of myself as I relate to her. It helps me connect with dualism, the belief of good and evil, body and soul, things that exist independently but work together, needing the other to exist. With my bigger formats I have been expressing that. So in self portraits, sometimes it’s not me. 

GM: You mentioned being inspired by your students. What do you focus on in your workshops and art lessons? What is the goal?

HR: Normally, I do prepare my lessons. Sometimes it has to do with a certain artist’s style or medium. I explain a little bit of art history, and then I let them experiment with the technique. I help them analyze different pieces from the artists to see what they see as well because they understand and perceive things differently. Normally it flows after that. I already have something for them to paint, but they are free to do what they want. I don’t like children to make copies, but rather experiment with their own thing. 

GM: What is the number one thing you have learned from working with children?

HR: Definitely not patience (laughs.) I’ve learned to let go and still love what you are doing. Enjoy what you are doing-- even if you don’t know what you’re doing! Be satisfied with that. 

GM: Watching your art change and progress over the years has been amazing. Your art is so detailed and personal, how did you find your style?

HR: This is a difficult one. It’s been hard for me because there has been a lot of gallerists and people who help artists who normally ask you about your style. For me, I cannot just commit to one technique or one style because that’s not me. I am constantly changing. I tend to change moods very often, so I cannot stay on one thing for a long time. Everything in constantly changing, so art needs to be constantly changing. 

Still, people who see most of my work see something that relates to me. They tell me they can tell that the work is mine-- even if it’s a portrait of a dog, they say that it has my style. Maybe my technique, the way I see things, I don’t know- it’s represented in the way that some people can relate it back to me. 

One time, a gallarist told me my work was conservative, and I thought, wow, you only took a brief look at my work and you already gave me a tag. I don’t think my art should be tagged.

GM: I love how your illustrations often tell a story, or express an emotion. Would you say that your art speaks to your specific seasons?

HR: I think I am always expressing something. Normally it is something I already went through- like I kept the feeling in order to express it. I like writing and writing poetry about feelings and things that happened to me. Normally I go back to those in order to recreate. Sometimes I plan bigger things- putting many pieces together. But often when I’m feeling something in the moment - breakups and stuff - if I’m having a bad time with someone I’m going out with, then I express everything though illustrations, and I make them funny somehow. I find the funny part of it and transform them from something uncomfortable to something to laugh about. 

GM: Does this changing of your perspective through illustration help with letting go and processing pain?

HR: Yes, it does. It really does. It makes the other guys angry, but it helps me (laughs.) 

GM: You have been painting people’s pets recently. Is this your current focus, or simply the most requested?

HR: It is mostly requested. It brings food to my table. I really love animals, so it helps me see the colours- it’s like practise for when I want to do something for myself. I learn things while I am working through the process. I really enjoy painting pets and doing animal portraits. What I really don’t like is when people send me really bad quality pictures, and then they want changes, or want me to mix pictures with other pictures which makes it much more difficult. People think that things are done very quickly and very easily. They are not. So I don’t enjoy it when the client gets too picky. 

GM: What would you say about the importance of showing your work, and what has your experience been in selling your work?

HR: I think it is really important to show your work. You get nowhere being shy. Shyness will take you nowhere. If you want to find your market and the people who are going to be buying from you, you have to show what you do. Once someone finds you and they like your work and you sell your first piece, that person is going to bring two more clients. 

With selling your work, some days it’s hard, some days it’s easier- some months are better than others. It’s been difficult because I’ve been raising my prices every year, if I want a better market. People who cannot normally afford art want bargains, but I don’t want to have those types of clients who bargain for my work. It takes me hours. So I’ve been raising my prices and finding less clients, but I sell for a better price, so it compensates. And those clients who can’t afford this will bring me clients that can afford it. 

Also, social media helps. For animal portraits, it was just recently ‘dog day’ or something, and so I created a dynamic with instagram where I had people share pictures of their dogs and created a voting session and gave away three digital cartoons and that helped me raise my followers. Right after, I did a promotion and was selling those kind of portraits for a cheaper price. That has given me a lot of clients. Sometimes as an artist, I get overwhelmed and want to close up all social media, but I know I can’t afford to do that. Most of my clients come from Instagram. 

GM: Where have you grown the most as an artist? How do you challenge yourself to grow?

HR: School helped me a lot. I can tell the difference from my previous work. Especially in anatomy, and the colour decisions I make. I feel like in technique I’ve been growing a lot. Working as an artist has helped me practise everyday, and as a teacher I practise every single day. I can see the growth. I’ll put something in front of them and they say, wow, you did that so fast! I’m like, really? (laughs.) It used to take me longer and now I have studied things and I know how to do it faster, and I have simplified things. 

Even on the days where I am teaching, I will draw something. I challenge myself to draw something everyday. I also draw things that are difficult for me to draw in order to get better. 

GM: What do you find difficult to draw?

HR: Cars! And it used to be difficult for me to draw flowers, and now I think I’ve become pretty good at it through practise. Sometimes anatomy can still get in the way, depending on the position or the perspective. Sometimes people’s portraits can be difficult. Especially when they want me to make them look different- skinnier or want changes. I tell them it’s not going to look like them if I change all these things. I don’t know them- all I have is this picture. It’s very interesting when people want portraits of themselves or someone close to them, because normally, when you know someone, you can capture more of their essence, but otherwise you have to just take what you’ve got from a picture. Their expressions will change a lot. 

GM: What do you want others to know about the creative process?

HR: Just recently, I was teaching my older students about the creative process. It was to get loose- to just draw anything, any shapes, and you can turn them into things later. You can take objects, things that you’ve done throughout your day, what you had for breakfast, whatever it is that can be an excuse to illustrate. That is going to help you a lot with your creative process because you are going to start looking at things differently and start paying attention to other details.  

I want to inspire other artists out there to not be afraid to learn more from different perspectives, and through study, even if you are self-taught there is so much to learn from. There is so much out there online as well. Continue learning and stay away from your comfort zone. That is something I really like people to experience. A tag (or label on your work) can be a comfort zone. 

GM: Is there a type of creative work that you haven’t tried that you would like to?

HR: Normally, as soon as I feel like doing something, I go buy the materials. If I am curious about the technique, I just do it. I have to. There is one thing I haven’t done yet, only because my schedule hasn’t allowed me to. It’s a kind of printing called lino cut on linoleum and so many other types of printing styles. In the same place where I’ve been learning about monotypes and procedures, I have been looking at courses that do different kinds of prints and there are so many that I have no clue how to do, but I really want to try, so I’m trying to find time.

GM: How can we follow what you are doing?

HR: You can follow me @humarrestelli on Instagram.