We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Danielle Asfour. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Danielle below.

Danielle, appreciate you joining us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

I very much wish I started earlier! Did anyone invent a time machine yet? Just kidding. But yeah, I’ve always wanted to create art, and I wish I just went for it. I even applied and got into a specialized high school for visual arts. When I thought I could continue it beyond graduation, I was met without support and I didn’t feel I had the confidence to go it alone. So I went into the Graphic Design field instead, in hopes I could do both.

Even though I can’t go back in time and start earlier, I did acquire experience, and maybe it helped set me up for where I am artistically now.

Danielle, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My experience with digital design software was a great jumping-off point! There has been an explosion of more intuitive tools and programs affordably available now and I was able to transition easily from a desktop imac and wacom tablet to an ipad pro and apple pencil. Digital art is, in my opinion, a way to practice endlessly to bring my art to the standards I expect from myself.

Just last year I started to offer my services to the public. Prints and paintings of my works for sale as well as commissions of personal portraits. However, my personal portrait requests have slowed down with the Big AI boom – which is sad because that is the complete opposite of supporting the arts. However, I can honestly say that all my artworks are 100% hand-drawn/painted by me and completely original, which also means they take some time to create.

My artistic style is very whimsical and surreal, soft-edged or bold-lined, and I do draw mostly lady portraits – real or fictional, but not exclusively. My artwork relies heavily on intense color theory, utilizing bright vibrant colors as my inspiration is rooted in the aesthetics of graffiti art, portraiture. commercial art, and tattoo designs. I adore creating a mood in each piece.

I am most proud of my most recent body of work! I started working on a series of paintings I am currently calling “Agathokakological” meaning “good and evil” like yin-yang – or more or less the duality of both always being present. It was inspired by being invited to participate in an art show featuring all Gemini Artists. The piece I created for that show gave me such a burst of inspiration! I continued to create more.

In addition to my services, I hope to expand my paintings and transition into an even bigger format of Mural paintings within the next few years. Especially featuring my infinity/yin-yang concept designs as there are plenty of other artists offering more traditional bodies of work – I want to bring something different to the table, an aesthetic I’m very anxious and excited to create and that is very exclusively me.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Building an Audience on social media I can only really share from an Organic growth perspective. Buying ads is the fastest way to gain attention, but I wanted to reach people slowly and grow my following to those who really want to interact and see my artwork. Also, the power of QR codes is greatly underestimated. I had the opportunity to participate in a very large outdoor art show called Artigras in Palm Beach Gardens, FL and I added a fun feature to my display where art enthusiasts could scan a QR code next to each piece and see a process video of how it was drawn, this also brought them to my Instagram page and I was able to gain a good amount of very interested followers to my works directly. Most other means of organic growth have been suppressed, so marketing yourself on physical media, and participating in well-advertised art shows and exhibits seems to be the best way to grow on social media, organically speaking.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

Ha, well I have still very mixed views on them. When I first heard about them it was too abstract for me to grasp. Then I tried to jump on the bandwagon with no experience with crypto. When I realized how easy it was to be scammed, and art can be stolen and traded on the NFT market – I turned away from it. It really seemed like it had the potential to be something, but with no real rules, and the development of artificial intelligence, it just became something I decided not to participate in. It was also my driving force to start painting with paint and not pixels again, I felt like I had to defend and explain constantly that I’m a person drawing my artwork, not code. However, I still love the feeling and process of digital drawing. No setup, no mess, just take the ipad off the charger and GO!

Contact Info:

• Website: http://danielleas4.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielleas4/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danielle.asfour/
• Youtube: @danielleas4

Image Credits
Danielle Asfour