Laura Barrado García

Year of birth: 1998.
Where do you live: Antwerp, Belgium.
Your education: A-levels in art, 2 years of fine arts and 4 years of graphic design and soon to start with master’s degree in editorial and commercial illustration.
Describe your art in three words: Small, dreamy, colourful.
Your discipline: Digital art.
Instagram

Can you tell us about your journey from Spain to Belgium and how it has influenced your art?

I was actually in the middle of my bachelor’s degree in fine arts when I decided to move to Belgium where my parents also live, in fact, I moved here because they came first and it was my chance to live outside of Spain. At that time I was doing more traditional art and it was only a few months before I made the decision to move out that I started to learn how to paint digitally. So suddenly here I was, back to live with my parents after 2 years apart, this time in a new country where I had to learn a new language, very different from my own or even English, and try to apply to university again.

I would say that it was quite a change from what I knew and what I was used to do with my life. With no proper classes and only 2 years of learning the language and English, I had plenty of time to relearn how to draw this time digitally. So I opened my Instagram account and started making fanart of the different things I got interested. At the same time, I got quite depressed for a while and I threw myself into fantasy like fandoms as a comfort, Harry Potter, Adventure Time, Carry On… you can still see all those old drawings on my Instagram and how my style changed from one illustration to the next. However I would say that keeping it “magical” actually helped me through that time. Sometimes I think my style would be different if I had stayed in Spain, maybe something more stylistic or refined, who knows!

Laura Barrado | Apollo and Python | 2024

What initially inspired you to pursue a career in illustration?

This is a difficult question, because as long as I can remember, all I have ever wanted to do with my life was to create and to draw. 

There was never any doubt in my mind what I wanted to do with my life, but of course I didn’t decide right away that I wanted to be an illustrator, I think I went through several processes, I wanted to be a comic book artist, a concept artist, and I even thought about animation, but then, I don’t know, one day I think it just clicked. Apart from drawing, my other great passion is reading. I love imagining all the scenes in books in my head, and I guess the realisation that I wanted to be an illustrator came naturally.

How do your two greatest passions, drawing and reading, influence each other in your creative process?

Honestly, I think they are so connected at this point that they are one and the same!

When I was a kid, I used to have the usual arguments with my parents about the obligatory summer books from school. I was so against reading that it’s a recurring joke in my family these days. Then my mum signed me up for one of those book companies where they come to your house with a catalogue and you choose the books you want and they deliver them to you, and that is how I got into fantasy books. I was quite young, so of course my fantasy books had illustrations in them. Geronimo Stilton, Fairy Oak and I don’t know how many others. I read so much about dragons and fairies and witches and other magical creatures that by high school it was all I could think about and therefore all I could draw! Fantasy is still my favourite genre, so it hasn’t changed much over the years.

Laura Barrado | Bath Time | 2024

Your work often features elements of magic and fantasy. What draws you to these themes?

There’s definitely comfort in it for me, as I said, it’s usually the genre I read the most. Life is often hard and sometimes boring, it becomes repetitive when you follow a routine in your daily life and I find a bit of happiness and relief when I draw fantasy. Like adding colourful sprinkles to an ice cream! Life can be very good, but what if there could be more of it? There are many things we don’t know and as children we all believe in fantasy and magic. We lived in a world where anything was possible, that’s what I like about drawing fantasy, the illusion, the wonder in ordinary things or mythical creatures, but also the silliness and chaos that magic usually represents.

What role do daydreams and imagination play in your illustrations?

I would say they are the engine of everything I do. I have had a very active imagination since I was a child, in fact I was often punished at school for being in my own world. Often little ideas come to me and it’s like untangling a knot, sometimes you pull on the threat and it goes on revealing more information, new characters, their backstories, their worlds and so on. My mind gets restless until I have created enough of them, I throw myself into giving them life, I write mini stories and I do some illustrations. It’s just a constant thing that happens, like when I’m walking my dogs and the next song that comes on fits a certain atmosphere as we walk through the park. I just imagine fairies or big adventures! Or maybe it’s more quiet and I imagine how my dogs are feeling as we walk. 

Laura Barrado | Magical | 2024

Can you describe a particular piece of art that you are most proud of and why?

There is this piece that I have not posted yet, or maybe I have, depending on when people read this interview. 

There is this young magician arguing with his crow in his magic studio. It’s not a very complicated piece, but it’s probably one of my favourites at the moment.

It has this whimsical feeling to it. It’s playful with beautiful colours that I associate with magic and celestial bodies like blues, pinks, greens… in the background there are 3 paper lanterns in the shape of stars and a stained glass window that fills the whole illustration with these colours. It’s a simple illustration, but it feels very cosy to me. The chaos of magic is there, there are books that are about to fall and a cauldron of bubbling potion, but even in the chaos, it’s a place I’d like to be, to grab one of those books and find a cosy spot next to the stained glass window under the paper lanterns.

Laura Barrado | To be born 3 | 2024

What advice would you give to aspiring illustrators who are just starting out?

It’s funny, I’m starting myself, so this is going to sound like advice to myself, which I hope will actually reach people who are in my shoes right now.

So what I’m going to say is: I know this is scary, I know you want to do good, you want to do right, I know you want to be seen, you want to jump right in and you will. You will do so much good once you get out of your own head. Be brave, be kind, be loud, be who you want to be. For this is your dream and it will be worthy. Do not be afraid and keep fighting, do not give up! Don’t think you will fail because you won’t, even if things don’t go as planned, take a deep breath, count to ten and look carefully, have you ever really failed or was it just the right window opening for you when the wrong door closed?