Jake Souva

Born of two loving and artistic parents, I was always drawing things for the sole purpose of having them immortalized forever on the fridge. Thankfully, Mom and Dad valued the making of art (even if it consisted of random scribbles that would never look like a mandolin playing platypus, or whatever the topic was at that moment) and encouraged me with kind words. I later discovered the joy of Maurice Sendak, Bill Peet, and Dr. Seuss at the library and fell in love with illustration. Middle school cemented the love, when I found out that the ability to draw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles could make you popular (if but for the moment). All of these early memories of illustration drove me to Syracuse University, where I received my BFA in Illustration.

After a brief hiatus away from the profession, I decided to jump into the world of freelance illustration and design. I enjoy the challenges of rendering ideas into images and love working with other creative people. I'm up for any size project and have a very quick turnaround, due to my process.

In short, I've given up being popular, but I'd settle to put food on the table doing something I love.

I usually need some time to let the ideas simmer into something usable. Then I start doodling and finally come to a thumbnail. The thumbnail turns to full blown sketch with layout, positioning and color ideas. If it's for a client, I send this work to them and await approval, make any changes and work towards the final. At this point, I usually ink or do some finishing work to a sketch, scan it in and start collaging and painting in Photoshop and Illustrator. Some time later another illustration is brought into the world.