Andre Villanueva
Year of birth: 1976
Where do you live: Alabama, USA
Your education: web design
Describe your art in three words: digital mixed media
Your discipline: Photoshop art
Website
You mention that discovering Photoshop during your studies was a game-changer for you. How has it influenced your approach to digital art compared to traditional mediums like drawing on paper?
Growing up, I was always drawing. Mixed media was the focus in my twenties. Then I discovered Photoshop while in school for web design, and I knew I found the ultimate art machine. An infinity of brushes, nigh-unlimited layers, wicked effects. So powerful!
Once I was able to create decent art in Photoshop, I got rid of all my traditional art supplies. Perhaps not the best move, but I did go all in on digital and was able to sharpen those skills.
After doing digital for many years, I began to miss art in the physical realm. Now I’m trying to balance digital and real-world art, staying true to my past and welcoming future possibilities.
Andre Villanueva, Thoughts, 2024How do you balance your role as a team leader in a Fortune 500 company with your personal creative projects? Do these two areas of your life influence each other?
The yin-yang of my two main creative outlets (corporate design and personal art) keeps me going!
Corporate work is bound by brand guides and stakeholder input. While typically strict, these limits help focus my creative energy.
Personal work is completely free, and it can be the perfect antidote for when the pressures of corporate work start to build up. The anything-goes approach of personal art is truly liberating … but having an infinite horizon of possibilities can become so daunting that I eventually start to yearn for the focused regimen of corporate work.
And so the push-pull endures, and I’m continually reinvigorated.
Your works are published in several renowned art publications. How has this exposure affected your career as both an artist and a designer?
I actually think I started getting published a little too early. I needed more experience. But I was given a chance, and boy did I jump on it!
In the first year or so of having regular commissions, I really focused on developing my craft. I was learning as I went, and yes, some of that early work was (in the parlance of today’s youth) a little cringe. Having an international audience drove me to push myself.
Andre Villanueva, Flowerchild, 2024As a writer and artist, do your two creative outlets intertwine? Do you ever draw inspiration from your writing to create visual works, or vice versa?
I used to write and illustrate my own little booklets and stories when I was a kid. I wish I held on to some of those!
Nowadays, my writing and art are strictly platonic. Perhaps one day I can wed the two once again.
Many of your pieces use vibrant color schemes and dynamic textures. How do you approach color theory in your work, and what do you hope to evoke with your palette choices?
I guess I don’t have an official color strategy for my personal work. At one point I really tried to work up palettes before I started a piece (or at least early in the process), but it usually just seemed to quash my initial momentum.
Now, when a composition starts to crystallize, I may finally close in on a palette. More often than seems reasonable, the palette magically reveals itself, especially when I’m in the zone and importing textures, mixing layers, and using blend modes with brushwork. And one of the great things about doing art in Photoshop is the ability to non-destructively adjust color at any point.
Andre Villanueva, Faith or Flight, 2012As someone with experience in web design and digital art, what do you see as the future of digital art in terms of both creative freedom and technological advancements?
AI is a big topic these days. It seems most programs have AI features, including Photoshop and other creative apps. AI will probably continue to play a bigger and bigger role in art and design.
I do use AI features for my art, but I strive to treat them as simply more tools in my creative arsenal. They can help me jump-start the creative process or joggle the artboard with a random generative effect, or apply the perfect finishing touches when I’m at an impasse in a composition.
AI features can be very impressive, but I never want to just click a few buttons to produce a new piece.
Lastly, can you share any advice for aspiring digital artists who are trying to find their voice in a rapidly evolving art world?
I got some of my first opportunities in the publishing world by just being myself. I try to follow art trends, sure, but I don’t necessarily feel the need to be bound by them.
Perseverance and craft are key. Every rejection made me want to both practice more and pitch my work to another editor.
Andre Villanueva, A Boy, 2012
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