Since I was a little toddler, I drew something on paper, desks, walls (you heard it) or anything I could put my hands on, really. So much that my mom had to cover all the walls up at home with thin sand paper, and I would draw on pretty much the entire house.
As I grew, I wanted to be a stereotypical french artist with a beret and striped tee, so I took preschool art classes way more seriously than I should. My dad was an architect with a sense of raw art, eye for beauty and talented as heck. Some hopefully rubbed on, and even though I had no degree or education of drawing of some sort, I had a grasp on basic design, typography and proportions of objects. Way to make a great use of weekend activities.
Jinxed by the old relatives, as “artists and painters don’t earn money!” I gave up on my dream -for a while!- and concentrated on something I do second best; communication. So I studied advertising and PR but still trusted that gut feeling inside me and took design and art courses as extra selective credits. (I never knew these would help a lot later on in my life!) After graduation, I worked in media for some time. One major job was being the costume director for a Turkish TV series. I had to analyze the characters, read the script and design the costumes for the cast- in advance! Not only the job was high-demanding and exhausting, it had been the experience of my life. After so many job experiences. I found myself crawling back to old habits, drawing and painting. And creating art from scratch.
Being a girl and having a sense of fashion sure helped a lot, but coming with the idea of expressive tshirts have been like a lightbulb lit in my head. So I began doodling in my moleskine with some markers and quotes that I thought was shocking, funny, sarcastic or creative.
Adding some cute and absurd creatures -such as owls- to my drawings made things more interesting. In this part of the story I should add a detail -a story- that is very essential regarding my love towards owls.
We always had owl figures at home, besides the bulk at my dad’s office. Little statues, stickers, cards, wood carvings, stationaries, ceramic figures, you name it, we had it. Whenever I asked; ” Daddy, why do you love owls so much? Aren’t they scary? Aren’t they supposed to bring bad fortune?” He always laughed and replied “Why, no, honey, despite the traditional Anatolian approach, owls are indeed lucky animals, they bring wisdom, wit and creativity to the community they belong”. Later as I grew, having the internet machine at my fingertips, I found out the owl symbol isn’t out of the blue favorite for my dad, it is in fact his school’s emblem, the school of architecture.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimar_Sinan_University_of_Fine_Arts) Having done my research, I had a firmer grasp and even grater reason to practice drawing owls, they made perfect gifts every Father’s Day. And New Year’s. And birthday. And anniversary. I went way too out of board with this.
The good news is, the more I made owls, the better I became at making them. Practice makes perfect, they say.
I was lucky, they went super “in” as of 2005ish, constantly on the rise from now onward.
Combining typography and cartoons don’t necessarily make me an illustrator, but I sure feel as one. I enjoy every second of every minute while i am creating something that aesthetically pleases me and beautifies every object when in it.
To sum it all, one can say the owls have more meaning to me, as well as a special place in my art, than anyone else.
Happy owl’ing!
equin-co designs 