Experiments in illustration
Yan and Marishka are passionate about art. “We are both students at the Academy of Design. We were studying at the same time so that’s how we met. We were always drawing, we have these skills. So we thought maybe we can use these skills and do something that we enjoy. And that is creating art for people,” says Yan.
Yan
Marishka, the bubblier of the two, chips in, “We work through emotions for most of our projects. So we decided to put our work online. That’s how we started.”
‘This is Noisy Lines’, is a sort of art-on-demand enterprise. “It’s been just over a year so far. We started on Facebook and Instagram with Instagram being more popular. Lots of people use it. We get most of our orders via Instagram. It’s a more suitable platform as it’s image-based and ours is all visual art,” explains Marishka.
With a small but loyal following Noisy Lines is mostly about illustrations, at the moment. Primarily using pen, but also some watercolour. “We gravitate towards stippling – using dots to create a picture. It gives texture and shading. This is preferred to shading it in,” says Yan, who is good at this particular method. “We started with Black and White illustrations and then moved to colour.”
What kind of art do people look for? Do they want portraits? “We do portraits, but lots of people prefer illustrations. Most of them want pictures for personal reasons. Like one of our customers could write: She did it just for her personal satisfaction, so she gave us what she wrote and we illustrated for her,” Yan explains. Marishka adds, “This was a person who was dealing with a personal loss and we illustrated what she wrote. She wanted something to show that time going by. She gave us a storyline as a guideline. We sent her sketches. We try to depict the user.”
“Then there is also the artwork that represents what we feel at the moment,” she clarifies.
Is there a preferred medium, a recurrent theme in their art? Not really. Yan and Marishka are still experimenting with various forms of art. “We tried recycle art.
We took articles, newsprint, and illustrated on it,” says Marishka adding “We draw on paper mostly, and we have tried canvass. That’s with resin.” Yan points out “The resin on canvass is very dynamic, we pour the colour on the canvass and move it around to guide it into the desired pattern. You can control the outcome to a certain extent. We haven’t tried selling this yet. It’s still an experiment.”
Marishka expresses their keenness to expand, “We would like to expand into other surfaces as well. We are trying stickers.” What about merchandise? “We are looking into going into merchandising mostly for ourselves but if other people like it we can do it,” says Marishka.
She feels the possibilities for art are endless, “We’ve also tried art on ceramic tiles. We use nail polish sometimes. Printing on the tile is rather costly so we do a sticker. People don’t buy art if it’s too expensive. We have to see if people would rather buy food or art. So we have to price it just right. Sometimes when we price it low, we realise that when you consider the hours we put into it, it’s not worth it. It’s a loss.”
They are held back at the moment by their studies. As it is the final year for both of them, they are hard pressed to commit to producing art commercially full time. “We’ll know if this is financially viable full time towards the end of this year,” Yan muses. Deadlines and submissions in class means Noisy Lines have had to turn down requests for illustrations. “We have had to turn down some work. One person wanted us to illustrate a children’s book, but we couldn’t. It takes hours and goes between both of us. We’ve got 3 projects due in class at the same time,” Yan says with some regret. Marishka adds, She goes on to explain, “Currently we are juggling uni and art. We sold about 40-50 pieces so far. We sell mostly through pop-up sales, so it depends on how many sales we go to.” Yan explains further, “After sales people get our cards and contact us, and they tell us what kind of images they want.”
Marishka. Pix by Sameera Weerasekera
Going through some of their art, which contain a fair number of Mandalas I am reminded of the popular adult colouring books. So I ask them if this is something they would consider doing? “A colouring book would take a lot of time. We don’t have the time,” Yan says ruefully. Marishka describes a ‘large-scale’ project they undertook recently, “We did christmas cards for a company. They were very impressed with our work, they really liked it. It was a bulk order so we did the drawings, then we scanned and printed it out. But we worked on top of each card again so it’s personalised.”
What’s with the name, I ask. “For branding and logo we wanted something that represents both of us,” explains Yan, adding “She is kind of a messy and noisy person, while I am more of a straight-lined, tidy person.” Marishka giggles and confirms this. “We are complete opposites, so we can come together to draw.”
They truly complement each other, “She will do the line work. And I will do the stippling and colouring,” says Yan, while Marishka points out, “He’s really good at watercolour. Yan is also really good at calligraphy, and we will incorporate that into our designs in future. ”
So are raw materials easily available? “We get most of our raw material here. In Pettah. Some are available through uni,” says Marishka. Yan adds, “Some stuff can be pricey but it’s better than taking a risk buying online. We’ve had some bad experiences.”
You can take a look at more of this dynamic duo’s work at noisylines.wordpress.com
