Interview With Philip Straub

Philip Straub seems to be able to catch light and colors to play tricks with them and reapply them on his screen and canvas. Interview with one of the genre’s masters.

IT’S ART - From child books to illustrations and concepts, your artwork always (IMO) seems to get its strength from color choices and tones. Do you agree with this or is it just one of the keys to achieve an image?

Philip Straub - Excellent observation, I most definitely would agree with this statement. I use color, like value structure, positive/negative shapes and line, as a compositional tool. Bold color is just something I’m drawn to – it’s important to me that my images have a wow factor drawing the viewer to look even further.

I.A. - When I talk about colors, I also think about light. How do you manage to implement it during the creating process? Do you have some 'rules of creation' or is it each time a different process depending on the kind of work you must do?

P.S. - I tend to approach my paintings focusing on the following elements, in this order: composition, perspective, value structure, color composition, depth, atmosphere, and scale. While there aren’t any hard and fast rules during my creative process, I’ve found out that solving one or two fundamental illustration issues at a time works well for me. More specifically, I usually begin an illustration with a grayscale gestural drawing that focuses primarily on interesting abstract shapes. Then, I refine this basic drawing.

P.S. - I speak of this regularly in the Workshop I teach and before during the Concept classes I’ve taught over at EA University. One of the most important aspects of any successful image is a well defined and interesting focal point. ../..