Ep.56: Geneva Benton (GDBee) on colors inspiration, galleries and living from art full time

Geneva, currently residing in peaceful Western North Carolina, is a self-taught freelancing illustrator, who specializes in character art and portraits with a fondness for color mixing.

I love evoking a feeling with art!

She has been featured in ImagineFX, Advanced Photoshop Issue, Crossed Genres Magazine, Photoshop Creative, The Horror Zine, FIYAH Literary Magazine, ARTIFICIAL, and Dulce.

Art Side of Life Newsletter

Get in touch with Geneva

Website: https://www.genevab.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gdbee/
Patreon: http://patreon.com/gdbee

Key Takeaways

“Chill out, find out what works for you! You may feel you are not doing it at the moment, but you will, so just keep going!”

Geneva didn’t think she will do art for living, she actually thought she would play video games for living
She was inspired by a colorful art of Benjamin Zhang
Geneva found a gallery to display her art in by just walking in one of the ones in downtown. She asked them if they were looking for new artists and they added her to a list and later she was able to exhibit her artworks
Geneva is shy to talk to people in real life so it’s great for her to use Twitch and interact with her audience online
Before starting, Geneva wishes she knew to not try to be perfect and to get frustrated with it. You shouldn’t really stress out because it affects your health
Fav quote is from Neil Gaiman – “Do a good work and everything good will follow”

Resources mentioned

Note: some of the resources below may be affiliate links, meaning I get paid a commission (at no extra cost to you) if you use that link to make a purchase.

Geneva’s latest Kickstarter:
- Geneva’s Art Book Tournesol – thick book, couple of tutorials and sketches – Jul 2017
- 80 pages, soft cover, full color
Her inspiration are a lot of artists online she wishes she could meet sometime:
- Anna Dittmann
- Benjamin Zeng – colors and emotions
Events – Anime in Atlanta
Books
- Spectrum art books – yearly – digital and traditional art
- Andrew Loomis – Figure drawing
- Drawn to Life – both volumes
Fav movie: Ponyo – Studio Ghibli – visual a masterpiece – there are no straight lines in the movie
Business tool – Intuit Quickbooks – taxes – saves a lot of time!