Welcome to my new site & a bit about my art style

I’ve always loved blogs. There’s something about them that I think social media will never be better at. I like the idea of having my own space to share personal (but still professional-related) things that won’t disappear as fast as an Instagram post. And that’s also a space where I can digress a bit about the creative process without ruining my portfolio entries.

So here it is, my brand new blog to share art, creative process, inspiration and thoughts. Some of you might be an old reader – so welcome back! It’s been a while, a lot has changed around here, and that’s what I’d like to talk about!

Finding my art style

In the past few years, I’ve been working hard on something that might be the drama of every artist at some point: style. I have drawn professionally for maybe 10 years (of course at the beginning there were much fewer jobs and much more doubt about every step of the process). In the meantime, I have studied many different techniques — watercolor, pastels, ink, colored pencil and a lot of fundamentals of drawing (I guess this is a never-ending one actually).

Although I loved experimenting with different supplies, I thought it was time to settle on my main media. And work hard to improve it as much as possible.

The process

It was already a fact that pencils were what I was good at, and I just loved to combine the loose washes and transparency from watercolor with very well-controlled painting with graphite and colored pencils. I had a real journey through dozens of types of paper to find the perfect one that would handle watercolor and layers of colored pencil at the same time.

Then, I got to know things that I truly appreciate visually, to polish my style. From the themes depicted to the color palette, I understood the “ingredients” of style and how they may change according to the need of the job. Therefore, I can adapt myself a lot, without losing my essence and either needing to be a generalist, as I was in the past.

I work mostly on realism, adding my own touches to some elements (like the movement of clothes and hair), and sometimes changing them completely to my taste (like the bats John and Sharon). From many people, I hear these main words about my work: delicate and detailed, and I feel very happy because that’s what I aim for!

Last but not least, I have customized a color pencil palette with my main Derwent favorites (I have to share that sometime)! So even in commercial works when I’m not selling the originals, they can be as close as possible to the final outcome, needing only small adjustments in the Photoshop phase.

To wrap things up

I thought this accomplished milestone on my illustrator journey deserved a new visual identity around here. I had just redesigned my logo by the end of last November, but with all the new things I have learned in the last few months, I had to make this adjustment.

You can see I am “not” Emmy Dala Senta anymore. My legal surname was too confusing even for my local clients! So it’s settled I am Emmy Dalas everywhere now. And I would add more pictures of my visual identity elements, but they are all around here on the site!

And the “self-discovery” thing went far from only art style; I am also studying personal image, a bit of fashion, David Kibbe’s theory and I even know my personal color palette now (yes, my visual identity has some of those colors)! That opened to me a whole new world that’s already reflecting in my art! But that’s the subject of another post.

Best wishes,
Emmy