Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Francheska Acevedo. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Francheska, appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
I got into painting when I started college in 2013. I wasn’t the best at it starting out, thankfully I’m a little better at it now. Something that would have helped me improve faster was if I painted more often! I would get frustrated because the work did not look the way I wanted it to when I was still new with at medium. So, instead of practicing more, I would go periods of time without painting at all. Wanting to be a perfectionist did more harm than good. Practice makes perfect! I got into digital art around November of 2017. I had just bought my iPad and immediately downloaded procreate! I was so excited to finally to be able to make digitally! I drew a lot growing a lot so I used this skill to my advantage when making learning how to use Procreate. It’s my favorite software til this day! Knowing what I do now, I feel what could have helped with my learning process with digital art was learning other programs too! Procreate is amazing but it does have its limitations. I have tried to get better with photoshop but sometimes I get still discouraged when learning this program because it’s different from procreate and I find procreate much easier to use. Personally the fear of failure is my biggest obstacle, but this issue is nowhere near as bad as it was before. In regard to the most essential skill you need, I would say drawing!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Francheska, I am from Providence, Rhode Island and I am the youngest of four. When I was much younger, my mom, three older brothers and I did not live in the best neighborhood so my mom would keep me inside while my brothers were allowed to go out and play. Since I wasn’t able to go outside much, I spent most of time watching CartoonNetwork and scribbling on any pieces of paper I could find. I had gotten in trouble with my brothers plenty of time for drawing in their school notebooks. When my brothers weren’t outside, they would be playing video games inside and I loved to watch them play! We loved the Resident Evils. My two oldest brothers would take turns playing while the rest of the household watched in fear and excitement, it was like our family bonding time. We were poor but, my mom always made sure to all the game systems and video games we wanted in the house so that we never felt the need to want to go someone else’s house to play. With all of the cartoons and video games that I consumed, naturally I wanted to draw it all! I liked being creative and I wanted to keep doing just that.
Growing up, I had always made drawing for other people. But my first ever commissioned project was this selfie that an an old friend of mine has commissioned for their best friend’s birthday. I used pencil, micron pens and watercolor on bristol board. I was so proud of it! IBut I did not get serious about making artwork for people until my last year of college wen I was finally able to create digital artwork. On instagram I had followed many artists and I noticed how they were all using this program called Procreate to make amazing pieces and it could all be done from an iPad. One day I went to T-Mobile to finance my iPad, I downloaded Procreate after and it all went from there. I made people cover art, logos, flyer art, t-shirt designs and printed and painted pieces to gift to others. I loved what I was doing, not only was I able to make commissioned projects but I was also able to use these projects to submit as work for some classes. Fast forward some years, I still make digital pieces, I just paint more now.
What I want people to know about me is that I am open to all types of ideas for projects. As long as it is not hateful, discriminatory or too lewd, I open to working it! I take pride in making the client feel comfortable with expressing what they want done for their project regardless of how ‘weird’ or ‘silly’ they may think it is. I myself have a wild imagination, so no project is ever really too out there for me. I think this is what makes me stand out from others.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
When I was younger wish i would have known more after school programs for aspiring artists. There is this nonprofit community arts organization called AS220 in Providence, Rhode Island that is amazing. They provide a safe space for the cities youth to express themselves creatively whether it’s through dance, music production, videography, print making ect. I feel like I could have benefited from this because I would have exposed to all different mediums of art from a young age and I would have learned about creative career paths. I also feel that I would gave more confidence
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
For me the most rewarding thing about being an artist is to be able to even create anything at all! Having an idea in your head and you can just make it? Even if it does come out exactly as you imagined you can recreate it as many ties as you want again until it’s the way you want it. I think that is amazing.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: hell0cakes__
