cup of tea.
The Simpsons!”
“Then I do a rough pencil
sketch of the piece for precise
proportions.”
I scroll down the page, smile at
her honesty, “I actually created
two pieces for this one and
bombed the first one. I tried to
do the blue sorrow-filled eyes
and it just didn’t work out. So,
unfortunately, I closed the
eyes, but I am very happy with
the finished piece. I wanted
it to have the feel you were
looking for, but I also wanted
to play on the idea and colour.
It almost has a feeling of, who
is she under that cloak? And
is she really sorrow-filled, or is
she faking it?”
She takes the paints out: a
white case with vivid hues
splashed about the plastic in
messy contortions. She fills a
glass with water, chooses her
brushes, flicks the lamp on.
“Then I do a paint layer, like a
wash that I slowly build up.”
No tea this time, a cup of
coffee...
“Then finish it off with black
coloured pencil and any other
colour that I want to
accentuate.”
And now I just have to ask
how long it all takes...
“Depends on the size of the
piece... they can take two to 24
hours. The ones for the magazine have been around four
hours.”
I am humbled at the amount
of thought that go into her
illustrations; we’re a free magazine, and Meg contributes, as
our writers do, with no
monetary gain. It’s art for art’s
sake.
Of course, it’s always interesting for us to ask if our artists
have ever come across the
term ‘synaesthesia’ before.
And she laughs (albeit,
Four hours!
electronically) that, no, she
hadn’t, until she adds, “but I
She carries on, “actually, the
think synaesthesia is somebrief for ‘What Rose Wanted’ thing that all artists just
was a bit of a challenge for
subliminally have. I don’t think
me. I am not religious at all. I
I am any more aware of it now
was raised on science and
then I was before, I think it
evolution; my dad is very much just comes hand-in-hand with
into that. Everything I know
talent and skills.”
about religion I learned from
Meghan Niittynen is an established artist from Thunder Bay Ontario Canada. She completed
her Honours Bachelors of Fine Arts at Lakehead University in 2006 and is now a tattoo artist at
Underground Ink. Her medium of choice in her artwork is coloured pencil and acrylic paint,
although her paintings bear resemblance to those of watercolours. Meghan is very well known in
Thunder Bay and has exhibited her art in many establishments and galleries throughout the city.