We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Luke Grenier a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Luke, 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?

For me, learning art has always been about repetition. Since I was in middle school, I have been looking at other people’s art and studying it; studying the ways fabric folds, how expressions morph the human face, and how to make someone look as if they are in motion. When I found out that I could mimic good art at a young age, it inspired me to continue getting better. As a college student, my skills have grown drastically, not only due to the constant need to draw for assignments but also because it’s much easier to draw daily when you are given prompts all the time. Even if I only draw for 20 minutes I can fill up a sketchbook page with wild characters and creatures. Every drawing I make is a step forward in skill, and with that in mind, I have gotten pretty good at spitting out drawings very quickly. I have somewhat given up on perfection and instead try to draw a high volume of artwork/ sketches. I can then, reapproach my work to find hidden gems or fun characters/shapes I want to play with. I have found this way of making art much more productive and fun for me. Learning and studying in general have always been a little bit of a drag personally. I’m an avid procrastinator and my procrastinating tendencies tend to get the best of me, however, when it comes to art I feel completely different. Nothing in life has given me this much joy and motivation to learn on my own accord. I have learned to see bad drawings as learning moments instead of failures, which has helped increase the amount of work I produce.

Luke, 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 name is Luke Grenier, I am an animation student who is currently attending the Laguna Center of Art and Design. I first went to Riverside City College, where I discovered art as a career option. My skills are primarily in Storyboarding, Animation, and Illustration, focusing on cartoon and comic styles. I am quite quick when it comes to drawing, so I pride myself on being able to come up with fun stories, fluid animated sequences, and/or interesting concepts promptly. I feel as though my skills are very translatable to the creative industry and I am eager to get my foot in the door and prove myself as an artist in the coming years.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I have multiple goals with varying difficulties/ levels of feasiblilty. As a broad goal, I want to work on a show/movie where I can identify my work in the final product. That concept is so increadibly motivating for me. I would love to be able to point at a character or scene and be able to say “I did that.” Another goal would be to work for an art studio with my own desk, whether it be in animation, storyboard, illustration, or really any character driven field. I think it would be amazing to have my own creative space that is seperate from my home, where I could work with other creatives to make a cool peice of media. If I’m being less realistic with my goals, Skybound Entertainment’s Invincible, or Adult Swim’s Smiling Friends, are two shows I would kill to be on, for very different reasons. With Invincible, I love the story and concept, plus its a dream of mine to work on action scenes and bring superheros to life. However when it comes to my portfolio and works I have done in the past, specifically when it comes to animation, my skills in bizarre comedic animation and weird little characters would really shine on a show like Smiling Friends. Plus in my expirence, comedy is by far the most fun genre to work on. Of course, I would not limit myself to these shows or studios, but they are the carrot on the end of the stick for me.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I think one thing that non-creatives tend to get wrong about art, is that it isn’t all talent, it is a skill. I would look at it like working out. Some people may have a knack for it in the beginning but the real masters of their craft have put the most time in. They work out daily and don’t just work on their arms, they have legs days and ab days too. It isn’t as simple as drawing one thing over and over, It’s important to spend time on skills you may not be great at. For me, recently I have been working on backgrounds and layouts. This has helped me, not only to grow my knowledge of background drawing, but I can also apply the perspective and spatial awareness I learned from backgrounds and apply it to my characters to make sure they don’t look out of place. Rounding out your skills and continuing to practice what you have already learned is incredibly important if you want to grow as an artist. My art didn’t start to truly advance until I went from drawing something every month to almost daily. So draw. Draw pretty things, draw ugly things, draw boring things, draw natural things, just draw.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @lucdrawsstuff
• Youtube: @lucdrawsstuff