When Paul Farrell needed to capture the broad range of personalities that make up the Australian public, he turned to Anna Wilkenfeld to solve the brief. With her expressive linework and vibrant palette Anna’s work is full of characters dripping with humor and sincerity.
After seeing the impressive results, we had a few questions for her;
Q. Your characters are really expressive, where do you get your inspiration?
A. I get my inspiration mostly just from watching people in their natural environment. Whenever I’m in a public place, I find it hard to keep myself from just staring goggle-eyed at all the passers by. The human face is a weird and wonderful thing.
Q. What challenges were there for you in create such a diverse range of characters and how did you deal with them?
A. It was important in this particular instance that the characters represent a broad cross-section of the Australian public. We’re a pretty varied lot, so I tried to capture that. I also wanted to make sure the characters weren’t the uniformly clean-cut, young and attractive types you might find in a Tourism Australia campaign. The client was looking to do a travelogue which celebrates the more unusual aspects of Aussie culture, so that gave me license to fill the drawing with all kinds of odd characters. I’ve been fortunate enough to have come into contact with a lot of odd characters in my time, so I’ve built up a pretty extensive mental library!
Q. Which illustration was the most fun to develop and why?
A. I think it must’ve been the little girl holding the ice cream. I wanted to capture that look little kids give you when they’re right in the middle of something terribly important and really don’t care that you want to take their photograph. Plus you can just imagine the face paint-and-ice-cream mess that’s going to be all over her shirt in about five minutes from now. Either her or the jazzman, trumpet players’ cheeks are way too much fun to draw.
