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Her style is Modern Art Nouveau, which is characterized by organic elements in the design, such as leaves, clouds and feathers. Although her work is sometimes a little dark, very dark, or even a little sexy, it is always organic and detailed oriented. Among her influences: Alphonse Mucha, Alberto Vargas, and JW Waterhouse. Trained at Pratt institute, where she graduated summa cum laude, Chernik worked in oils, acrylics and watercolor before settling on digital as her final medium. She works in pencil on Mylar or vellum before painting the drawings in Photoshop. "This allows for great versatility in color shifts and changes, and a quick turnaround of final files to the client," she says. "Lately, in addition to my Raster work, I've been working more and more in Vector, and have a growing selection of highly organic, ornate decorative borders." Evolutionarily speaking, Chernik's come a long ways. The first few years of her career were spent working in black and white, pen and ink, and zip tone on watercolor paper. With more than 500 pieces to her name, Chernik enjoyed a successful run as a well-known black and white illustrator in the RPG market. "I've had different phases of my career," she says. "I learned how to be a traditional artist and now I'm thoroughly enjoying success in the more mainstream market with my color work." Chernik's style has crossed over to various design mediums, including product packaging, merchandising, posters, holiday greetings, fine art, and even book covers. Chernik spoke to altpick.com by phone from her studio in Boca Raton, Florida, where she works and lives with her husband and two daughters.
I am working on a 'color your own tarot deck' for Chamberlain Brothers, which is an imprint of Penguin. I am working on a logo - it's finished, actually - but it is a confidentially thing so I can't disclose it. I am working on a poster for Acme Rocket Bikes. It's the third poster in a series of Art Nouveau product posters. And a poster for the 40th Anniversary of Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant Massacree.' I'm also working for Red Wheel/Weiser, an imprint of Conari Press, on book cover art for Kickstart - A Cosmic Biker Babe's Guide to Life and Changing the Planet, by Carol Setters. I think that is it and, oh, a CD cover. How do you juggle so many projects simultaneously? Do you work strictly by deadline? Usually, unless something inspires me like the tarot cards. I am trying to do at least one a day because there are 78 of them plus the cover. So I've got it mapped out that if I do one a day I shouldn't have to rush too much at the end. So something large like that I try to map out. Then the Arlo Guthrie poster - they need it quickly, so that needs to be out the door as soon as possible. I was waiting to get the contract from them so I've been working on tarot cards all morning. So while I'm waiting I spread it out with the projects that are a little bigger. And since I've been doing this for about 10 years, I pretty much know how long everything takes. That is a personal rule: not to miss deadline. Are there standard images for a tarot deck or were you able to come up with your own? This deck is a spin-off of the Rider Waite deck because that is the most popular and instructional tarot book. We chose to do simple line drawings. I worked with models on these so the images are more realistic than the R.W. deck. And I zoomed in on the figures so they are easier to color. That allowed me to put more details in like buttons and things so they would be more fun to color. The poses are similar but slightly different. The woman with the two swords, for example, on the actual R.W. card - she's smaller, she's sitting on a chair; there's that double line there where it separates gray from water - that's the line directly behind her that's mountains and water; that all has to do with the symbolism of the card. She's sitting on a chair with the two swords and she's blind folded. She has a different style dress on, and I put the moon on the other side, that's about how different they are. The hands are different in the R.W. deck; they're coming out of clouds like the 'hands of God,' but that didn't have anything to do with the symbolism so I changed that.
I try to work from models as much as possible. If I'm on a short deadline then I'm the model and I get my husband (who also went to art school) to photograph me. How does working with models affect a client's budget? It depends. I try to work within almost any budget. I try to be flexible and find out what their needs are. It doesn't make a difference so much if I need models, so much as what their deadline and their usage is. The models aren't that expensive a lot of times. If I have to use a model and the budget is too low, I'll use myself as a model. Do you miss NYC? I miss the snow. I love New York so sometimes I miss it. We moved down here so the kids could be near their grandparents. How would you describe your philosophy towards the work? Although I love what I do, and get personally excited about the possibility of every new piece, I treat what I do as a business. It is important as a professional commercial artist to be reliable. My work is always completed in a timely manner, and each piece is created lovingly and to the best of my ability. I am in constant communication with the client, ensuring that the work is on track. Yet I offer my expertise to guide the piece into being the strongest that it can be. My work is never late, even though this means many late nights. So I have gained a reputation as a professional in my field. What do you consider to be your big break? During my senior year at Pratt, I became a regular illustrator for White Wolf Game Studios' World of Darkness series. I completed hundreds of interior book illustrations for their line of books, which helped me really mature my style and learn to determine my speed before heading into the world of posters, book cover art and advertising. What do you do to keep yourself inspired? I look at a lot of other artists' works. I enjoy browsing through my collection of Spectrum books, and occasionally picking an artist out of there to research on line. I also find inspiration in movies and television. Where do you see yourself in five years? My goal is to continue on my current course, and to become a well-known poster and book cover artist. Eventually, I would also like to publish a collection of my work and offer merchandise such as posters. However, I've been too busy creating lately to market. - Contributed by Mary-Beth Holland >> See more work from Echo >> See other member spotlights on the member spotlight index >> Find out more on how to become an altpick.com member |
