Samantha Messias is an award-winning hyper-realistic artist based in the UK. She developed her skills and creativity by using art to release, heal, and express her emotions from her past.
Her artwork got recognized on social media platforms, and her following and audience increased. This led to many gallery representations, exhibitions, awards, and recognition as a few artists at the top of my genre.
Samantha began to sell her work and started to get many commission drawings from friends, family, investors, and art lovers. That’s when she knew she could make this a full-time career. But, of course, the number one requests for commissions are pets.
Samantha’s Technique
Because Samantha is a self-taught artist, she uses a very unusual way of drawing that may not make sense to an observer. However, for her, it feels completely natural.
It is known as the grid method, and she started using it because she “smudged the graphite” with her hand when she tried conventional methods. “So it made so much sense to me to start in one corner and then work my way up in columns,” Samantha explains. “I just did it, and it worked.”
“(The grid method) allows me to focus in on tiny details of the image,” the artist explains. “So I never see the image as a whole. I always see it as little dots, or wiggles, or lines. And it’s when I push away from my desk that I see it as a whole. It’s quite fascinating because I don’t see it until the very end.”
Samantha sees life in the same way – comprised of little details that make a whole and not a complete picture. But, just like her drawings, she sees the little details and keeps adding details as she goes on, and when the painting is done, that’s when you can fully see it.
Connecting With Her Subjects
For commission drawings, Samantha likes to go deeper within the image. Her art is so much more than a drawing from a picture. She wants to understand the person, object, or animal she is drawing. For example, when she is drawing pets, she likes to meet them if possible to know how they feel and how energetic they are to express that through her drawing. And with people, she likes to get to know them, even if it’s in several pictures her clients send her or videos she can find of these people.
She likes to represent in her drawing the connection that her client has with whatever she is drawing. Her work is about enhancing the tiniest details, intensifying them, changing contrast, playing with highlights and shadows, awakening that emotion, life, and curiosity into the observer’s heart. That’s why Samantha wouldn’t accept a commission or project that goes against her beliefs.
Samantha would love her art to inspire hope and courage around the world. She wants to let people know everything will get better eventually and that you should keep on going and not give up. Finding ways to communicate her trauma has taught her that there is something else to live other than our traumas, and it’s worth living.
If you would like to find out more about Samantha and her remarkable artwork, visit samanthamessiasart.com.
