Subsign: First, can you tell us a few things about yourself?
Greta: Hello, I’m Greta, 31 years old, big fan of delicious colors and imperfect shapes, an illustrator with a big passion for cooking. Mom of a yummylicios baby girl, 2 adopted cats, a puppy, and almost 100 plants. I was born in Iasi-Romania, but now I live in the countryside, in a small village near Bucharest, discovering a new world every day with baby Otilia.
Subsign: What was your childhood like? Do you think your experiences from childhood have influenced your present creative endeavors?
Greta: I had the classic “90’s in Romania” kind of childhood, trying to make the best out of nothing. So dreaming was a big part of my life back in those years. I was a pretty lonely & shy kid, and sketching or coloring were my favorite things to do. I was drawing lots of square flowers on the walls. Until my kindergarten teacher told me that the way I was drawing houses was not the “correct” way (they were flying houses). It made me stop drawing for many years. But thankfully I started again in high school once I got accepted to Art School.
Subsign: What did you want to be as a grown up?
Greta: I first wanted to be a painter, next to a fashion designer, an archeologist, a vet, an art teacher, but to be honest, even now, I’m not 100% sure of what I want to be as a grown-up.
Subsign: How does your workstation look like?
Greta: Juicy Shapes & Yummy colors <3
Subsign: Can you share with us how your creative process works?
Greta: I usually think a looot before starting to sketch, I imagine almost completely how my work will look in the end. I use the Procreate app for my digital work, so I start the linework, filling in with color and texture, exaggerated adding details, then removing all the useless details I added before. In the end, it looks completely different from the starting point I had in my mind. But I love it even more like this.<3
Subsign: What is your favorite work you have done so far?
Greta: “Equality” is my favorite now, I feel it’s the closest to the reality we are living right now.
Subsign: Who do you follow for inspiration?
Greta: Greg Craola Simkins is my favorite artist for so many years now, I love the storytelling and the complexity of his work.
Subsign: What advice could you give to someone starting out in the creative field of work?
Greta: Be brave enough to fail, so you can become better at what you are doing. To grow, you always have to start small. So please, don’t give up, each idea you don’t like is just a step closer to a masterpiece.
Subsign: If you would have a super power, what would it be?
Greta: Stopping time, at least from time to time.
Subsign: Can you recommend for our readers a book, a song and a movie?
Greta: Book: “The story of the panda bears told by a saxophonist who has a girlfriend in Frankfurt” by Matei Visniec.
Song: Maria Tanase “Până când nu te iubeam”.
Movie: Big Eyes
Subsign: If you could throw any kind of party, what would it be like and what would it be for?
Greta: I’d have a color tasting, because I always imagined colors having a taste of their own, like yellow: omelet, red: strawberry or green: freshly picked basil.
Subsign: What famous people would you invite to the party and why?
Greta: The Pope: He’s super cool, I bet he’d sing one of his rock songs.
Karim Rashid: Because…colors.
Martha Stewart: She bakes great cookies and she’s been in prison and I bet she has some great stories too.
If you know an artist that should be in the spotlight, contact us at jojo@subsign.co.
Thank you Greta for being a part of our Spotlight!
For more of Greta‘s work, you can follow her work on the links: Greta on Instagram, Greta on Behance, Greta on Facebook.
