Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Alex P. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alex, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
There was no big moment I can remember where it hit me like lightening that I wanted to be an artist, It was more that I loved creativity. I wanted to draw and paint but I also wanted to write and tell stories and joke and think of ways to make things happen that were unique, I wanted to do it all. As a kid playing restaurant I wanted the menu to be made of foods that could be made to look like other foods (that’s right I was an early adopter of the is it cake trend) and I wanted to design the menu and understand how the space would work. I wanted the entire process of whatever it was to come from earnest creativity.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Fresh out of college with a degree in Illustration/Graphic Design naturally I worked for a few months making giant window display props and laying out large print files. Mostly origami but also giant bows and other props. Then I turned to IT to pay back the student loans.
While IT was my main gig I was still doing what I really wanted on the side which was watercolour and gouache paintings. Mostly of birds, and I was able to join a few Audubon festivals where I sold them. One of them was to support the mission of the Whooping Crane, a highly endangered bird that they taught to migrate using ultralight aircraft.
This still wasn’t enough creativity for me so I began podcasting and audio media where I was able to bring some of that forward with music and SFX we use for out Tabletop Role Playing Games. This introduced me to so many new people and more importantly- new artists! Now I get to do things like Art Corner (on the SeezyDrop network) where every month we get artists together to work on a prompt live and create amazing work while also giving tips and tricks!
And probably my biggest creative work, I co own an escape room! Seven Keys to Escape is where I really get to try all sorts of things. This includes everything from plotting how we want to make a puzzle work and then figuring out the electronics and mechanics, but also I get to paint and do graphic design. Say we need a newspaper? We make that! Do we need to cover an entire wall in glow in the dark symbols from some local demons? We do that. Do we need to make a sand table where people can excavate dinosaur teeth? We sculpt the teeth, cast them in resin, build the table, create the images of the teeth for the guidebook, design the guide- you get the idea. There’s so many different skillsets to it!
I will still throw down a bird painting to this day but I love finding ways to use all these creative skillsets to make things that are bigger than the sum of their parts.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: AlexAndBirds
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alexplattillustration
- Twitter: AlexAndBirds
- Other: linktr.ee/AlexAndBirds
