Unveil the Creative World of Brooke VanDevelder: Illustrator, Designer and High-End Retoucher
What’s your name and current title?
Brooke VanDevelder: Graphic Designer and High End Retoucher
*Amber here, I like to call Brooke Our Secret Weapon… she’s actually our Lead Designer/Illustrator as well as a Jack-of-all-trades.
How would you describe yourself?
I’m an adaptable and artistic spirit always hunting for the next side adventure to complete. In my free time, I love to illustrate, travel and harass my cat while binging anything from the horror genre. My love language is sarcasm.
Describe your job in 100 words or less.
My job includes visual problem solving through various skillsets including high end retouching, photoshopping, composite and collage, illustration, graphic design, gif creation and video editing.
What’s your favorite part of working remotely?
The eternal battle of keeping my cat, Claude off my keyboard. Moreover, the flexibility to create my own work schedule that aligns with my most productive times so I can produce my best and most efficient work.
What does your ideal workday look like?
A quick workout and meditation prior to sitting down which energizes and grounds me. Then tackling the hardest task first like illustration or strategy and ending the day with basic retouching or video editing that requires less intense focus.
What work do you enjoy doing the most?
As a Creative, my restless brain appreciates all facets of my job equally. As much as I love the thrill of illustrating from nothing, we all need a visual break to get fresh eyes on our creations. Some days when I’m stuck on a creative project it’s refreshing to switch gears on straight forward retouching, color correcting or video editing.
What occupations besides art have you held?
Retouching and product photography for a foodservice and crafting e-commerce companies, peppered with some fun side jobs including pole dance instructing, at home care-giving and retail work.
What drives your art making?
My determination to always keep improving, inspiration from other illustrators, designers and creatives and the love of expressing an idea or part of myself without the use of words.
Which tools are essential to your work as an artist?
Photoshop is my ride or die. But Adobe Illustrator, Indesign, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Procreate and Canva are amazing tools as well.
My iPad pro is a phenomenal travel companion when i’m not at my desk using Wacom Intuos tablet and tablet monitor. But sometimes you can’t beat the tried and true pen and paper. Shout out to Micron and Bienfang’s bristol paper for fueling my love of traditional art-making during inktober.
What form of art best represents you.
It depends on my mood or what phase of my artmaking journey I was in. Currently its excessive layers of linework and color gradients made in photoshop. Which you can check out at www.vandevelder.com but my first love was oil painting followed by pen and ink drawings.
What is your favorite piece of art?
When looking at the final result of all my work its near impossible to pick, they all show their own learning curves to me but the one I had most fun creating was an illustration for Washington Post for a film critics review of various films with the criterion that the characters are in traveling in constant, restless motion.
My work has a lot of energy and movement through intricate line-work so the art director choosing me for this project was so perfect. It was an invitation to lean into and push my strengths further. It was featured in their top illustrations of 2021.
OTHER ARTISTS FAVORITES:
I’m obsessed with Victo Ngai’s breathtakingly intricate work and how she can effortlessly balance so many components and colors into one composition blows me away.
Edward Kinsella’s striking combination of flat, inferred surfaces with highly rendered people has really inspired me. And its settling mood speaks to my dark heart.
Rich Kelly’s signature askew style characters are visually delicious. True eye candy and when he adds warped perspective backgrounds and intricate hand lettering, its chefs kiss. This man can draw.
Cite an instance from your own life that served as inspiration.
Overseas travel is and has been an inspiration for a long time. My love of drawing portraits and unique real-life characters was fueled by my exposure to parts of the world that are so vastly different from my own.
I remember spending full days at a time just wandering around Bangkok or Paris and snapping reference photos of people and combining them with the equally fascinating architectural aspects of their city.
What particular event in your life has been fundamental in shaping you?
There’s no one major event but a culmination of many that share the same common denominator; fear. Knowing when I sign up for something, it will absolutely terrify me but in the end I will come out stronger than I was before. Most recently competing in a pole competition, with sheer terror driving me to practice harder and more efficiently than I ever had before and winning 1st place was proof to myself that not only can I do something scary but become a major contender against other phenomenal athletes.
Traveling to Europe by myself for the first time and stumbling through awkward French conversation or getting lost in Thailand but realizing, that’s part of the journey. Similar to artmaking, you have to be ok with getting lost in the process of creating because it’s messy but with determination and experimentation you eventually find your way.
Which of your earliest memories is the fondest?
Being an only child, I spent a lot of time by myself, which could become isolating and lonely but other days were truly magical. I remember spending most of my time experimenting with any creative outlet I could get my hands on. Writing, drawing, music without any outcome in mind just raw creativity.
What song motivates you?
What’s something interesting that our customers might not know about you?
I’m fiercely loyal and hard working and creativity is my oxygen. When a client comes to me, whether it’s just one person wanting to bring their graphic novel to life or a big ecommerce company looking for 2k images to be retouched for a website overhaul, I take pride in honoring their needs and coming up with the best visual solution tailored to their brand or project.
I love all of our clients because they chose us as a creative partner and I will work tirelessly to make their product and company shine through the magic of retouching, photography, compositing, video editing, illustration and design.
What hobbies do you enjoy in your free time?
Pole sport, i love it because it combines dance with acrobatic skill and storytelling in one. My pole partner and I are currently building our next acrobatic doubles routine for competition this fall at Pole Sport Organization.
When I need a low lift weekend, I love spending the day reading. I’m currently reading a thriller, The House in the Pines with my book club.
My most recent favorite read was Black Crouch’s Dark Matter. A mind bending sci fi thriller based in the physics theory of Schrodinger’s cat.
Name a favorite thing in your home and explain why.
My boyfriend, Zoriah, worked in a record store in NYC in the early 2000s right when world renowned Shepard Fairey was shopping his artwork around. Zoriah managed to grab signed prints of his work before he was a household name.
Without what could you not function?
My sound canceling headphones. I say this with love, my boyfriend’s a chatty cathy and work from home can sometimes be confused for hang out time. These headphones tune out his dad jokes like a dream.
What is your favorite or most motivational location in Denver?
Denver Art Museum! And the neighborhood adjacent to ours near DU. It’s a wealthy neighborhood where homeowners seem to be competing for the most elaborate halloween decorations and they’re all winning. It’s a magical place to drive through on my favorite holiday.
Which advice did you receive that you felt was the best?
One of my favorite books is Talent is Overrated a non fictional book studying all the masters of their respective crafts and the study behind how they became the best. It’s the sheer determination, hours of dedicated and strategic practice and not giving up which trumps anyone just riding on ‘talent’ alone. The take home for me was you can achieve greatness no matter who you are or where you come from and the work you put in doesn’t discriminate.
I also owe a big thank you to John English at the Visual Arts Academy. I signed up for a free consultation/portfolio review of my illustration work and while my work needed more cohesion and of course improvement, he gave me the push I was waiting for to start sending my work to art directors. My fear of rejection translated in my brain to, ‘I need to wait until my body of work is PERFECT before I show it to professionals.’ Which is not the case.
Make the leap and get your work in front of people. That was how I scored my first big publication at Scientific American. Huge thanks to Art Director Michael Mrak for taking a chance on me. Publications at New York times, LA Times, Washington Post, Politico, and the Republican shortly followed thanks to that first spark of confidence. Check out the podcast episode I did with Scientific American!
How Do You Get Inspired?
The most hard working and best high end retoucher I know, Amber Andrews inspires me daily with fun ideas to creatively push our skills separately and jointly to create entirely new styles of work.
Our clients like Feel the Beat, Boppy, By Hart and Fancy Tiger Crafts, who are up for unique creative ways to engage with their client base and improve their e-commerce and marketing campaigns. They allow us to use our creative skillset to the fullest in print layout, digital social designs, gif creation, high end compositing for billboards and so much more.
