Emi Haze Interview

Tell us a little about yourself. When did you first begin to make art?

I live in the north-east of Italy. I began with painting and drawing when I attended the art high school. Then I discovered the digital art and I connected this great passion of mine with technology, taking a degree in graphic design and commercial art at the Design Institute Palladio in Verona. Now I’m a freelance digital artist and illustrator.

Photoshop gave me the chance to combine drawing, painting and photography together to make my dreams and ideas come true. Nowadays there are no limits to what we want to create…the only limit is our imagination.

The result is the vision of an imaginative ethereal world hanging between reality and fantasy, dream and utopia and in which color and sensitivity have the predominant role.

In my first works I focused on a graphic style based on construction and deconstruction of the human body using various tools and graphic effects that render it almost a sketch.

In my recent works I tried to merge the human body with nature or rather with the four elements of fire, air, water and earth, and even with a fifth esoteric element: the Aristotelian ether, that includes all the others, the essence of celestial bodies, eternal and unchangeable in comparison with the earth as a place of change.

Piles of tree branches, clouds forming hair, faces that melt with air and sky, human silhouettes that arise from expanses of earth and roots…

The result is the vision of an imaginative ethereal world hanging between reality and fantasy, dream and utopia and in which color and sensitivity have the predominant role.

What inspires you?

In my opinion everything in every moment has an artistic side, the aesthetics of things, people around me…

For me everything has its own importance, images, textures, sounds, fragrances, my creativity is constantly stimulated.

Who are some of your favorite artists?

I love Impressionism for the use of color and Surrealism for the subjects.

I could name many artists, painters and digital artists that have influenced me, at first in my painting and later in my digital art. Mentioning only few of them would be reductive, because all the art world is the fundamental source of inspiration in the creative process, and I’m referring not only to pictorial art but also to music, filmmaking, photography and fashion.

What is your typical process when creating a piece of art?

My work starts from a photo and the first phase is its retouching. Afterwards I digitally import various hand-made elements such as scratches, ink marks, acrylic or watercolor stains.

Before working into digital art and illustration I began with drawing, painting and later graphics. I always loved the gesture and the warmth of the sign in a sketch, in stroke with acrylic or oil color, in the splashes of watercolor or ink.

So today when I start developing an image I try to include my manual skill in the sign and in the use of color digitally importing it into my artwork.

I combine in a single image hundreds of Photoshop layers with many and many graphic elements and textures. All the Blend Modes, layer masks, Adjustments layers I use, make the starting image less digital and more similar to a painting or a drawing. This phase of manual elaboration is then merged with the strictly digital one.

Selecting parts of different photo images I try to blend with the double exposure technique the human body with nature and its four elements, fire, air, water and earth.

I noticed your workspace photo is of a Wacom Cintiq. How does this tablet fit into your workflow?

I use an iMac with an external display in my studio but my favorite and best tool is Wacom Cintiq. It’s my digital canvas, the place where my ideas come true, drawing directly on a display makes a more natural and speedier workflow.

What is your favorite Photoshop trick/method at the moment?

The double or multiple exposure technique is one of my favorite effects in my last works.

Can you briefly explain how you achieve this multiple exposure effect?

Double exposure or multiple exposure is a photographic technique that combines two or more different images into a single image. Traditionally, this is a technique in which the camera shutter is opened more than once to expose the film multiple times, usually to different images. Nowadays we can recreate a similar effect in Photoshop with the help of Blend Modes – Multiply, Screen, Overlay – in combination with various masks and appropriate selections.

What is your favorite Photoshop tool or plugin at the moment?

Thanks to the application of colour adjustments to every single layer – like Curves, Levels, Hue/Saturation, Selective Color – I can have in any time the complete control of the color throughout every phase of my work.

Many among Photoshop tools are capital in my art works. I very much use Blend Modes – Multiply, Overlay, Soft Light – to obtain peculiar effects in the combination of different layers and textures, for instance the double exposure. The blending allows me to combine in the best way different elements, colours and images in a single work, creating shape and color compositions beyond imagination.

Adjustments layers are another essential tool. For me color is an element of primary importance for the final perception of the artwork. Thanks to the application of colour adjustments to every single layer – like Curves, Levels, Hue/Saturation, Selective Color – I can have in any time the complete control of the color throughout every phase of my work.

What work of your own are you most proud of?

Cosmogony Reloaded is one of my artworks that I think fully represents my style, my world, my sensitivity.

In this artwork I wanted to give my representation of the origin of the universe. A girl that comes out and materialize herself from the sky, through an heap of clouds and an explosion of colors.

Also it is the work that allowed me to make myself known to the general public because is on the Adobe Photoshop 25th anniversary “Dream On” Oscars Spot was featured during the Academy Award Oscars 2015 ceremony and was also used in other media as part of an international bigger campaign.

Today it has been watched over 2 million times on YouTube and recently has achieved three awards at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2015, a Graphite Pencil D&AD Award, two AICP Awards and a nomination for Outstanding Commercial at Emmy Awards 2015.

What are you currently working on?

I’m currently working for many clients and new projects.

A few weeks ago I’ve been contacted by Penguin Random House of New York to create the cover jacket of a new young adult novel. The project is still secret so I cannot say more.

In these days I’m working on the cover jacket of the Italian edition of the book “Panic” by the American author Lauren Oliver (also known for “Vanishing Girl” and “Delirium” trilogy), which will be published by Safarà Editore for the first time in Italy. The success of this novel is so huge in the States that the Universal Pictures has already bought its movie rights.

I’m also working on the cover album for an American singer artist.

What would you tell someone who is starting out making Photoshop art?

The school was fundamental for my education and learning the programs necessary for the development of my work, but it is the constancy and above all the passion that I have for this job that allowed me to achieve excellent results.

The advice I would give is to have patience but be persistent, have an open mind and try to always inspire your creativity.