Swing into Creativity with Artist, Ester Roi

Artist, Ester Roi, is known for her whimsical, ethereal work as well as the  inventor behind the Icarus Drawing Board^®, a portable drawing board featuring two working zones, a warm zone and a cool zone designed specifically for wax-based work. Not only is she busy developing new artist tools, widening her ever-impressive portfolio and exhibiting her work across the country, Ester is responsible for the beautiful packaging for the newest edition to the Prismacolor portfolio, the 150-count Colored Pencil set!

Much to our delight, Ester agreed to take a moment out of her impressive and busy schedule to talk with us a bit about what inspires her and tricks on perfecting her amazing technique! Check out the complete interview now!

Ester Roi: Prismacolor Artist Interview

What is inspiration to you?
I’m inspired when I’m fearless, when I put on my child-like glasses and look at the world as if I’d never seen it before. In that state of mind I find inspiration everywhere.

How do you get the creative juices flowing?
I love to spend time at the ocean and at the river and watch how water transforms everything it touches. At home
I have a fish tank in my backyard that I use to experiment with natural objects immersed in water. Nature, time alone, and time to play are my favorite ingredients that stir up my imagination.

Another way to get my creative juices flowing is to take a five minute break on my studio swing every few hours. Not only do I get re-energized but my concentration level increases. The motion of swinging is very relaxing and soothing and fosters creativity and right brain thinking.

What inspires you to create?
In the last several years I have been painting flowers and rocks and their interaction with water. I study them above water, below, and in-between, and observe how their visual characteristics change and relate to each other. I relish the contrast between a solid rock above the surface and its restless reflection below; the realistic depiction of a floating daisy versus its abstract, refracted counterpart. I marvel at how a flower can take on a new identity when floating below the surface and I strive to capture its ever-changing shape.

What’s your favorite “effect” you create in your work? Or best art tip you ever got?
One of my favorite effects is to create the illusion of transparency, especially with flowers. When I’m drawing transparencies I don’t think about the subject, I just render the color and value changes. Perhaps that is one of the best art tips I ever got, how important it is to learn to “see” without letting your mind cloud your vision.

What inspired you to create the Icarus board?
In early 2006 my interest was focused on a technique called “colored pencil painting” which aims to achieve the same level of color saturation and density that is characteristic of acrylic or oil. While searching for ways to facilitate blending and burnishing my wax-based colored pencils, I decided to experiment with heat. I put a metal pan on the stove, turned it upside down, placed a piece of paper on top and began drawing. I soon discovered how remarkable the effect of heat was on my colored pencils and crayons and decided to build a home-made “heated drawing board” from scratch. With my husband’s help, and my fellow artists’ encouragement, I was eventually able to produce a professional quality artist tool.

What Prismacolor products do you use and do you have any tricks for that particular medium?
I use Premier Verithin for the initial line drawing. Their points hold extremely well even on the warm zone of the Icarus board so that I can draw the finest details. Premier Soft Core Colored Pencils are the workhorse of my art, I couldn’t do without them. I love how I can easily blend them and burnish them on the warm zone. I especially like their extensive color selection – 150 now!  Prismacolor Art Stix are great for covering large areas and very malleable with heat.

One of the most popular applications of the Icarus board is the “speckling technique.” It is an amazing shortcut for textures that are characterized by small speckles of colors, like a starry sky or a sanded beach.

Here are the main steps:
-  layer the background color needed for the project (e.g., blue for a sky)
-  grate a colored pencil or an art stix on a sandpaper block and let the speckles fall onto the paper
-  move the artwork to the warm zone of the Icarus board and cover the artwork with a sheet of tracing paper
-  press down with a brayer until all speckles are melted and embedded into the background

Do you ever show your work to others before it is finished? Are you ever self-conscious about your work?
I usually show my work at different stages if it was originally planned as a step-by-step or as a blog post demonstration. There’s a difference between art that I create for teaching and art that I create for my own self-expression; I’ve learned to be protective toward the last one and show it only when it’s finished.

What does it feel like to have your work on packaging all over the country? It’s a real honor to have my artwork displayed on the latest and largest set of Prismacolor Premier Colored Pencils!

I hope that my colored pencil painting, The Three Graces, known in Greek mythology as Charm, Beauty, and Creativity, will inspire and encourage artists everywhere to strive to achieve their best with this incredibly versatile medium.