Interview with Miami Artist Jeff Dekal

Submitted by Ivette Cabrera on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 10:40

Jeff Dekal is a freelance illustrator whose style is mix of merged inspiration from comic books to high fashion. Influenced early in his life by the Graffiti culture, Dekal used Graffiti as a platform for self expression and motivator to advance his skill as an artist. Dekal works in many mediums ranging from graphite to his current favorite digital painting. Check out his artwork for sale here.

Where are you from, what medium do you use, what did you study in school?

I was born and have lived in south Florida for my whole life. I use a lot of different mediums depending on the particular piece, but my main mediums are digital painting and pencil. If I use traditional brushes its usually oil paint. I studied painting in school but I went to a university with an art program, not an art school. There is a difference.

How long have you been creating art for?

I’ve been drawing since kindergarten.

Tell us a little about how you started creating art?

I’ve always loved to draw. I would copy the characters out of my comic books and out of the illustrated instruction manuals that came with all of my video games. Anatomy, character, and realism are the things that have always grabbed my attention. I just drew as a hobby until I got into high school. That’s when I started doing graffiti and that’s where ‘Dekal’ comes from. Graffiti really got me going. I loved what you could do with the letter forms, but the twisted characters were what really got me hooked. The fame, people telling me they saw my tag in the streets, the rebellious nature of it being illegal, and the allure of the hip hop lifestyle really appealed to me as a teenager. The finer more figurative work I do now came about after learning art history in college. I credit those classes more than any of my drawing or painting classes. The inspiration I got from seeing the old masters’ work was worth more than anything else I received from school.

So Graffiti was a good influence for you, how did you come up with the name/tag Dekal?

Graffiti was an influence that fueled my art for the time being. I would not take back any of the experiences I had growing up and doing graffiti, but I do wish that I started drawing figures and the kind of art I do now at an earlier time. What I do now is more of my calling and finding ones calling as early as possible is ideal.

We don’t live in an ideal world though, so I’m just thankful that I am doing what I love now. The name Dekal came around when I was about 15 listening to Method Man say “Tical” in his raps. I thought it sounded dope the way he said it. I liked the letter D at the time so I just formulated the name around that.

I noticed that you have created album art for musical groups and bands. What was it like working with these other artists and how did you come up with the concepts for the album art for groups like MayDay and Lai-Si?

I really enjoy working with musical artists. Especially when there is a mutual respect and admiration for each others work. Its very inspiring. Mayday already had a pretty solid concept for the album and I just did my thing with it. Their title, “Stuck on an Island” is a metaphor for their music. The music is like an island, being that there is no one around with their kind of sound. It's a futuristic kind of sound hence the glasses and vibe. Lai-Si on the other hand didn’t have a solid concept for her cover. She left it up to me to come up with something. The title of the album is “2 worlds 1 sound”, incorporating her Cuban heritage with an American flavor. Her music is very beautiful so I just decided to have a really beautiful image of her in mid song. The two orbs represent the two worlds.

Interview with Miami Artist Jeff Dekal
Describe your creative process when you are creating artwork.

Well it depends on the purpose of the piece. Sometimes the piece has absolutely no purpose in the beginning. I might start by drawing a face and then the piece tells me what’s next. Sometimes I put drawings away for months before picking them up again and being inspired to continue. But for commercial stuff I always need to hear about the client’s concept or whatever they have to say abut the job, and know what the piece will be used for first. I usually get a vague, sometimes crisp, vision in my head after the first conversation I have with the person. Then I start fleshing it out by doing some sketching. I grab some reference for the given subject and combine what’s in my head with what I want to get out of the reference. Sometimes I find photos on the internet and sometimes I shoot my own. Then I send the sketch to the client for approval and continue on from there.

I’ve noticed a lot of wild cats (like tigers) in your pieces, is there any particular reason why you like to incorporate these in your work?

Well besides being awesome and expressive subjects, their lifestyles really interest me. People complain about life being hard, but a lion on the African plains has one of the hardest existences on the planet. I also love the abstract possibilities of the tiger’s stripes.

You work in a couple of mediums, explain which is your favorite one to use and why?

Digital painting is my favorite. It is like every medium in one. I have a brush set in Photoshop that I have made from years of collecting, creating, and modifying different brushes. I have airbrushes, I have ones that mimic a wet smeary oil brush, rough pastel-like brushes. And I can easily switch and combine different brushes to acquire the look of different mediums within the same painting. There is no set up or clean up. I can instantaneously switch between projects. I can work on different paintings without having to move around easels or mix new paint. A major draw back though is that there is no actual original. It’s definitely fulfilling to have a finished oil painting to hold in your hands, but I get a similar high when I pick up the giclee from my printer. Seeing the piece I had been looking at for so long on my computer monitor come to life at four feet tall is enough for me. Then I stretch it and hang it and most people don’t even know the difference. I usually only print one at a large scale so it is exclusive.

What are your inspirations for your art?

I get inspiration from comic book and video game characters, high fashion, and probably most importantly, nature. Also sci-fi and fantasy movies. Seeing a character do something completely impossible in a movie is such a high for me. The emotional inspiration that is attached to the impossible task facing the character is always at the core of the action. Anger, hatred, love, etc. Expressing emotion with my figures is important to me. Lately, fleeting moments and dreams have been inspiring me. Not necessarily what happened in a dream, but how a dream visually looks. Blurred, tough to focus, colors not true to life.

There are many people who discredit digital art, what are your thoughts on this and how would you defend the art form?

What people get confused is classification. What I do is digital PAINTING. A distinct class of digital art. Think about how many art forms fall into the category of traditional art. People don’t walk around saying, “I’m a traditional artist”. They state their class. Sculptor, painter, etc. Just because someone knows how to put a filter on a photo they didn’t even take, does that make them an artist and is what they create art? Just because someone smears paint on a canvas with a brush, does that make them an artist and is what they are creating art? I bring all of my traditional painting disciplines into the computer. I use a Wacom tablet which is an electronic canvas that connects to the computer via USB and comes with an electronic pen that acts as the brush.

Medium and tools aren’t what matters, principals are what matter. I don’t paint over photos or manipulate photos in any way. It’s all hand drawn. Digital painting is still an embryo when compared to how long traditional paint has been around and most people are just ignorant to it. When people don’t understand something they usually discredit it. But this is natural human tendency. One day digital painting will be more common and hopefully then it will be given the respect it deserves with the masses and not just inside the industries where they are a standard. Like the movie industry, animation, illustration, and graphic design. If you’re not familiar with it, Google image search “Wacom tablet” or YouTube “digital painting” and you will get a better idea of what is going on.

Do you feel that there is a strong difference in the way that various digital painters carry out their digital paintings, how do you specifically differ in the way you use composition, color, etc etc?

I don’t think it really matters if a painter is digital or traditional. Its about principals. Working digitally doesn’t influence any of the decisions I make as a painter. Working digitally offers quicker and more efficient ways to explore ideas, but the way I use composition and color come from intuition and the years of experience I have creating art. It’s really all about experience and just doing it. Weeding out what doesn’t work to find out what does and then concentrating and working to constantly better oneself.

http://www.jeffdekal.com/