Tereza Troxy Vajsová:

Golden Hours: Can you give me a bit of info about your background? Did you study art?

Troxy Vajsová: I’m from Slovakia. I didn’t study art. I wanted to, but my parents didn’t let me. I was sort of forced to go to grammar school instead. I was going to art lessons once a week in a folk school. So that was basically my only education in art, and I was trying to learn by myself from the internet.

GH: Who or what has been the biggest single influence on your way of thinking?

TV: Mostly books, I would say. They influenced me a lot.

When I was a kid I read a lot of Slovak folk stories, and they usually had dragons in them. And I don’t know- I just always felt sorry that the prince slayed the big dragon. I was like- the dragon looks such cooler! Why does the prince want to slay him?

I think that was the biggest push to what I’m drawing, because I didn’t only draw dragons. I drew all kinds of fantasy beings and stuff like that when I was a kid. There were no humans in my sketchbooks. Only griffins, dragons, phoenixes, and things like that. And that all came from these folk stories.

Later I started reading fantasy books, like Tolkien. I read The Hobbit at a very young age, and I was like- Smaug is so cool... before he was cool. Later the Witcher series. This is basically fantasy based on Slavic folk stories, so I loved it.

GH: What is your favourite thing in the world to illustrate?

TV: Dragons (laughs). I love them. You can make so many different ones, they can be serpents without wings. There are many different styles you can make them in, so they’re still fun to draw even if you draw a hundred of them.

GH: Do you have a particular style? How would you describe it?

TV: That’s really hard, because I try not to have a style. One of my favourite teachers basically says that style is just a collection of mistakes you make. You need to become a really good artist of realism first. Then you can break rules and create your own style.

So right now it’s not a style, and more what I don’t know. But I am inclined, especially when drawing people, towards a bit of an anime style. I try to fight it, but it’s there. Maybe also a bit of a comic book style, since I really like how that looks.

GH: How does illustration affect your creative process in other aspects of your life?

TV: I have very graphic memory. My brain works with images to a point that when I read, I don’t remember if I read the book or watched the movie. I have it all in my mind going as a film. That usually makes it harder to read more advanced texts or tutorials because I can’t imagine that. I have a hard time with that, that needs to be a video.

GH: How often do you illustrate? Like how many hours a day?

TV: Less than I should. Because of school mainly. Even when I have a free day sometimes, I’m just so tired that I don’t, and I hate myself for it.

I draw at least half an hour a day, but I should be drawing at least two hours.

GH: What are your strategies for balancing your studies with your illustrating?

TV: I’m terrible at balancing. I know I should be doing, for example, studies. Like with painting, I’m still not good with faces, and people. I still skip it to draw something else. I know I should be doing something for a school project, but then I think, yaaa! sketchbook, let’s draw!

It’s chaos. I think it’s part of the illustrative brain that I have no power of organization.

GH: You sort of do the thing you’re passionate about in the moment.

TV: Yea. It’s bad when it comes to building for the future. But I try to do the things I have to get done.

GH: Do you feel you’ll get the hang of it?

TV: I hope so. Right now I’m in the stage of hoping for everything.

GH: Was your decision to apply in a Multimedia Design program influenced by your love of illustration?

TV: Yes, I basically wanted to use the skills I have in illustration for something more practical. Making a living purely as an artist is very hard- almost impossible. So I wanted some practical skills to go with this, like programming, making websites, working with multimedia, understanding some basics of the business.

But basically my first choice when looking for school was animation and multimedia. I didn’t make it into that program, and I got in here.

GH: Is it something you still see in your future?

TV: I would love to learn animation, yes. Definitely along the way, once I’ve gotten better in Photoshop, I’d like to more to Adobe Flash and Premiere.

GH: Do you have a favourite style or artist?

TV: Yes, this YouTube teacher I follow (Istebrak) who critiques submissions explains so much about the art. She’s really incredible. What she does is completely great, and she’s great in the realistic style of painting. This is what I want to learn the most right now. To capture reality and then start modifying it in a more specific way.

I really like Surrealists and that kind of drawing. Especially Dalí because he obviously knows Realism very well. His paintings are almost lifelike, but they’re twisted reality. I really like how he uses this really realistic illustration to portray something unrealistic. He’s probably one of my favourite artists.

Then there are classic artists like Leonardo Da Vinci and Botticelli who I like as well. In general Classical art I really like.

GH: How do you teach yourself to draw those things you can’t draw?

TV: You basically take the thing you are trying to draw and make it simpler. Bring it to its simplest geometric shape. How to draw circles, cubes, lines. Slowly you can build from there. You can create anything from there.

Taking a photo and copying it also works well. You can see how things behave in the light, how shading works, notice the different textures.

GH: Any advice in particular for people wo want to learn to do what you do? Like good resources, particular steps / milestones they should follow?

TV: Find something that you really like. I don’t care if it’s an animal, an object, or a character from a TV show. That’s something you’ll probably be passionate about.

Don’t start with form studies of a cube, or a globe, or - I don’t know- a rectangle on a background (laughs). That’s not interesting. That’s what you have to force yourself to do if you want to be a good artist. It depends on what level you’re trying to get to.