Q & A with Sian Roper

Busy, bold and bright! I love drawing women and celebrating themes of female empowerment, self love and self expression through fashion and style.

Can you give us some insight into your process for creating your artworks?

I create drawings in Procreate on my iPad. My work includes lots of texture created by mixing many different brushes, strokes and painting techniques in one piece. I use layers and apply blending effects to those layers, which means I never quite know how the whole illustration will come together until the very end of the process.

Is there a typical day in the studio or is every day different?

Every day is different since I'm a creative freelancer working with a number of different clients. Some days include print design and illustration, other days include photography and some days I'm designing animations, gifs and other social content for clients. There's lots of variety. But whenever I find spare time in amongst all that - I love nothing more than a cup of tea, on my sofa, drawing on my iPad.

What inspires you when you are creating your artworks?

I'm obsessed with bold and unexpected colour combinations so I try to experiment with that as much as possible in my work. I love messy, hand-drawn, painterly techniques that are perfectly imperfect. I embrace the smudges, splotches and the rough edges avoiding anything that feels too neatly finished. That being said, I also love slick, graphic, clean lines and shapes that contrast beautifully with the messier elements.

What would your dream project/collaboration be (apart from working with Consequence of Change!?

I've always loved the idea of collaborating with a beauty/cosmetics brand and seeing my illustrations as part of their marketing campaign or even on their products and packaging. Seeing my artwork on the front cover of a book would also be pretty cool!

Who are your favourite artists and why?

I have a real love for fashion illustrators and I've got some favourites that I've followed for years. David Downton, Sara Singh, Jason Brooks, Jasper Goodall, Stina Persson, Autumn Whitehurst and Julie Verhoeven to name a few.