Fabiana Trere is an Italian artist and professional illustrator of children's books, comics and DVD and book covers. Using traditional techniques - ink, watercolour, pencil and pen, as well as digital, Fabiana Trere loves to create fantasy and horror illustrations as well as the art you see in this issue.
How long have you been illustrating and what made you start?
I started to draw very young because my mom was a drawing teacher and she taught to me the basics of the drawing before I started the school.
Where do you get your inspiration?
For this set of line art, I drew inspiration from my second passion (beyond drawing), the history of the ethnic and ancient jewels of all peoples, because many of them are real pieces of art and can tell to us so much of the traditions and costume. Some of them are closely related to magic and religion, and I think they are so interesting and fascinating. The people’s history is a very beautiful place for inspiration.
Where is your favourite place to illustrate?
Usually I’m drawing in my studio because I use my Wacom, and I like to listen to music or movies when I draw (usually funny movies, I like the combination of laughing and drawing), but I love also sketching in the garden.
What are your illustrating/colouring material essentials?
When I don't colour digitally (in these times it is very required for work, because it is more fast and you can make changes without the problems of the traditional arts) I use mixed media, watercolours, Ecoline (for the bases) and Copic (looks great with watercolours), after watercolour- crayons and watercolour- markers (water based, you can use also markers for children, usually are water base) or you can find markers with two or three brushes.
What’s the piece of work that you’re most proud of or enjoyed doing the most?
I’m proud of all of my works because they are all the result of commitment also the first works, maybe they where not perfect like the last works, but it is because of them that I've improved my art.
My tip is to try various techniques before starting to colour the drawing, maybe you can try on a white page a different media with the same colours, or you can try to mixed them. Or, you can draw a simple square and trying to colour from light to dark and trying to fade the colour without weighing it down too much on one side or the other, it's a great exercise for learning to blend properly (great also for studying hatching technique)
