Laura, better known as Cyarine, is a digital artist and illustrator from the Netherlands who enjoys all pretty things. She says: ” …which is no joke, my first word ever spoken was “mooi” which means pretty or beautiful in Dutch.” Every day, she inspires her astonishing Instagram community. As she likes blue color she combined aquamarine and cyan color into her nickname Cyarin/Cyarine.
As she says in her posts and videos her favorite part about art is creating something from absolutely nothing like a blank piece of paper and the fact that you can communicate emotions through art. The main motivation for Laura to create art is to be part of the artistic community and to see her own improvement over time.
Featured course
Knowing how to use Color and Light in your artworks is one of the best skills to learn as an artist because it will help you take your artworks from good to great.
Every day she inspires her impressive Instagram community of +1.3m followers with her newest amazing artwork!
Get in touch with Laura
Key Takeaways
“Transparency and sharing is very important and I hope that other artists do it as well. If we share our experiences as freelancers and working for clients, everybody is going to grow from it, becoming one big family. There is room for everybody in the industry. Don’t worry about competing and tearing each other down. If we raise each other up, the industry will be healthier and we get paid better and everybody will be happier.”
- You have to be an entrepreneur if you want to start a business and do art professionally
- Lately, Laura found inspiration from talking with other artists, talking to them about everyday, normal things. It puts your own experiences in perspective, what is normal, what is not normal. It’s all abstract before you start talking about it.
- Cheeks Galloway shared advice to his following: “In the industry, fear that you have to fit in a certain stereotypical way … Don’t forget you are the industry … We are the industry, the consumers, we are the people consuming the content so our personal tastes are valid as much as others.”
- Laura’s philosophy is that she tries to surround herself with as many talented people as possible. She tries to be the ‘dumbest’ person in the room because she wants to learn from them … it’s easy to surround yourself with people who look up to you, but it’s not challenging … it doesn’t help you to learn. With the most talented people, you become a student and gain the confidence to improve
- Her No. 1 Instagram tip. It’s important to stay flexible and experiment a little bit – see what changes and adapt
- Laura has a responsibility to her following. She has a role in the community to represent artists because clients will hold working with her as a certain standard. For example, by charging more, other artists will be able to charge more. She got criticized for asking more for prints, but they don’t realize she is helping them to ask more as well. The art community is already underpaid so she is heightening up the standard … She is just representing community and doing what is fair
Featured Resource
Skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes for creative and curious people, on topics including illustration, design, photography, video, freelancing, and more.
Resources mentioned
- Artists mentioned: Cheeks Galloway
- Books
- Artemis Fowl series
- Harry Potter series
- Inkheart series – encapsulates her childhood – big impact – escaping from the real world
- Traditional Art tools
- Basic Kit
- HB, B, 4B pencils
- Color pencils – Faber Castell pencils
- Ballpoint pens – BIC Ballpoint pens
- Sketchbook
- Basic set – watercolors – basic colors
- Faber Castell pitt pens
- Pentel ink brushes
- Basic Kit
- Digital Art tools
- Wacom Intuos Pro
- Cintiq Pro 16 – stationary workspace
- Cintiq Companion 2 – on the go workspace
- Microsoft Surface Pro / HP Elite X2 tablet / iNOVA tablets – Windows alternative with PaintTool SAI
- TV Shows
- Stranger Things
- Vlogs – Julien Solomita – laid-back lifestyle and different from artist – youtube over TV
- Video games
- Don’t Starve Together
- Overwatch
- Strategy games – e.g. Age of Mythology
- Tools
- Discord – free all-in-one voice and text chat for gamers
- Conventions where you can meet with Laura
- Small Dutch convention – Abunai – she goes every year
- Japan weekend in Madrid – you can meet her there this year
- Other conventions we mentioned
- VidCon in Amsterdam – She probably will not be here this time
- She hopes to go the US – CTN Expo and San Diego Comic-Con someday in the future
Special thanks to Laura for joining me today. See you next time!
All artworks by Laura Brouwers, used with permission
