This is one of the things why we enjoy working on a design mag/portal:
people submit their work and we get amazed. We wanted to know things
about Mark's work and he let us.
Nuno Soares/
Cristina Correia
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MARK VERHAAGEN - To be honest, with most of my personal work I don’t
really have a theme in mind. I just get an idea and start working
on it. You could say that my work depicts a sort of fantasy world.
Digital landscapes with characters and robots living in it, enriched
with gradient color schemes, more or less abstract shapes, mixed
with realistic and figurative elements. I like this work to have
a certain atmosphere, to reflect a certain feeling. It’s also
a reflection of my imagination. I just like to make whatever comes
to my mind.
MARK VERHAAGEN - For me, sketching means developing an idea, and
translating these ideas into a visual form. A quick visual note.
I like to use cheap black ballpoints for sketching. I really like
doodling too. It’s fun and you can do it everywhere.As a lot
of my work these days is digital, I also do digital doodling: playing
around with different graphic programs to find new ways of expression.
In this case sketching is more like experimenting. I try to come
up with new shapes, or methods of creating stuff. I also enjoy playing
with color, to define an atmosphere. During these digital sketching
sessions I develop skills and ideas for new work. A lot of my free
works are just worked out digital sketches.
 
MARK VERHAAGEN - I like both, but since art school I have focussed
on working digital. Actually I started using my traditional painting
and airbrushing techniques in a digital way. Using a Wacom pen and
Photoshop, these airbrush experiments resulted in a series of freaky
fish characters. Later I started to add more graphic elements as
well. That’s great about working digital: it gives so much
possibilities. You can work in a figurative way or an abstract way,
do flat vector work or hyper realistic 3d, or do a combination.
And in the end you can animate all this and add a little music.
There’s a lot of experimenting involved as well, which I like.
You can try different options until you’ve got what you want.This
is the main difference I think with traditional work like drawing
and painting. When you want to make a painting, you have to think
how you’re going to do it before you actually do it. You have
to make sketches, get the right composition, carefully construct
your layer order and colorscheme. When you make a mistake, you can’t
press some buttons to undo your actions (sometimes I wish I could).
There’s less spontaneous experimenting going on, but I really
love painting. It has different qualities: the materials you work
with, the smell of paint, mixing the colors, see how accidental
‘mistakes’ turn out to beautiful little details... Painting
relaxes me a lot too.
 
MARK VERHAAGEN - There’s no deep meaning behind it. I’m
a sucker for details so I tried to make some hairy stuff with customised
Photoshop brushes. It gives characters a more organic look, and
as a result it’s a good contrast to the graphic shapes that
appear in my work. It’s one of those experiments that turned
out nice and now I use it more often in my regular work as well.
MARK VERHAAGEN - I’ve always drawn in a traditional naturalistic
way. I don’t paint that much, but painting once in a while
keeps me ‘in shape’. For now it’s not my main
focus, but from time to time I try to make new works, just because
I like painting. It’s also a good contrast to my computer
work. I like to paint in a naturalistic way, and am still trying
to improve my technique. Right now I’m doing this sneaker
series. It started as a school project, and I continued painting
shoes. Just because they are great objects, with nice materials
and textures which give me a good challenge. Also, shoes tell a
lot about their owner, which makes them a sort of indirect portraits.
Most of my works are acrylics on wood. I’d like to use oils
as well in the future, and make big abstract paintings. And I love
the smell of oils!
 
MARK VERHAAGEN - There’s a certain amount of hours that I
spend behind my computer making stuff. Or time spent on painting.
Let’s say 4-12 hours a day depending on how busy I am. When
I’m having a day off, most of the time I have my digital camera
or sketchbook with me. So I’m always ready for some creative
action, even when I’m not at work.
MARK VERHAAGEN - The direction of fame and fortune! Haha. Well,
one thing I’d like to do more is animation. I’ve done
some animation work in the past, but right now I’m figuring
out what kind of style I’d like to achieve. I would love to
make a short animated movie with a little story, but motion graphics
are great as well. We’ll see what happens.
RELATED LINKS
images used with the author's permission* |
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MARK
VERHAAGEN