Featured Artist: LydiaLyd

Head down to the candy store and fill your pockets with treats, or just enjoy the sweetness of this week’s featured artist, LydiaLyd, instead! Her self-described “eye candies” are like taking a walk down the candy aisle and finding yourself in awe of the beautifully crafted chocolates, brightly glazed desserts, or irresistible candy concoctions; will you go home with an adorable piglet design or a zombie cat t-shirt? Indulge your sweet tooth and find that perfect candy today!

Lydia is a 29-year-old cartoonist from a small town in Russia named Kirzhach. She jokes that her hometown is filled with “frogs, grass snakes, magpies and crows and that’s pretty much all.” However, the local animals and her pets serve as inspiration for her vivid and cheerful designs. She loves the simplicity of line art and “doodles with bright colors” and these styles help bring her animals to life on the page. She teases that her favorite creative influences are always the “derpy” animals because “funny results makes me a little bit happier.” For her, being able to “put a smile on someone's face” is the most important reason to share art with the world.

In her own practice, she promises that she will continue to use fun bright colors because it brings her happiness. She teases that she will only reduce the brightness until “your eyes are not bleeding anymore” but that the bright colors are here to stay. She reiterates that in addition to bringing joy to her audience, an important part of creating is to simply have fun while doing it. She resists the temptation to get caught up in making a piece perfect; she believes that artists must find the joy of creating and “make it messy” again.