Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ana Latese. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Ana, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I believe I have always known since I was a young child that I wanted to pursue art professionally. I went from drawing on the walls in elementary school to drawing DC comic characters for my English teacher’s classroom in high school. Art has always impacted my life positively and I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. However, I always heard the term, “starving artist”. This pushed me into pursuing film at university, which backfired.
My digital art teacher during freshman year saw my sketchbook and told me about the illustration program at my university and the many ways you could make a living with art. I was intrigued and decided to go for it. If I didn’t like it, I could always change majors, right? At that point. I still didn’t think of pursuing it professionally.
Before my Junior year began, my art went viral during the Black Lives Matter movement, I was approached to do my first art commission for The Washington Post Real Estate section. I couldn’t believe I was getting paid by a BIG company for my art. Once that was published, many other huge companies were commissioning me. At that point, I truly realized the dream that I had as a child could actually become real and decided to go for it.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
Hello! I’m a freelance editorial and narrative illustrator that has worked with clients such as The Washington Post, Hulu, Scholastic, and Penguin Random House. My passion is to produce beautiful imagery inspired by vibrant colors, magical elements, and nature. I will typically use different lighting situations to help enhance my storytelling and give a warm feeling to my illustrations. I graduated from Jacksonville University with a BFA in Illustration. When I’m not illustrating, I enjoy playing video games, drinking a nice cup of tea at a cafe, or watching Criminal Minds!
As a black artist, illustrating children’s books is my attempt to promote a world where black and brown children are seen, heard, valued, and validated. Quoted from one of my favorite artists, Faith Ringgold, “You can’t sit around and wait for somebody to say who you are. You need to write it and paint it and do it.”
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
It’s honestly just consistency and being lucky enough to have a few pieces going viral. I created at least one piece of art a week and posted it. I did tons of portraits of black women at the time, so it was fairly easy to create and post. Everyone loved them and shared them on Instagram and Twitter. During the Black Lives Matter movement, I went viral around 2 to 3 times and my art account on Instagram grew like crazy!
My advice to those starting out is to just post. You never know who is going to see your work and think, “WOW!”. Posting on social media changed my life and the same could happen to you.
: Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
When I was younger, I didn’t see any kids in children’s books that looked like me. There weren’t a lot of black or brown kids with natural hair. I actually still have the first book that I ever found that had a black girl with straight hair.
My goal is to change that for the children and teens growing up now. As a black artist, illustrating books is my attempt to promote a world where black and brown children are seen, heard, valued, and validated.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.AnaLatese.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anacandraw/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/analatese
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/analatese
Image Credits
Elena Cobas