Describe your illustration style in ten words or less:
Colourful palettes, emotive characters, magical realism and vintage vibes.
What items are an essential part of your creative space?
Pen and paper, artbooks and my Cintiq and computer.
Do you have a favourite artistic medium?
I love being able to create digital work, I think it gives me a kind of freedom to experiment or change things around that I really enjoy.
Name three artists whose work inspires you.
Miroslav Sasek
Alice & Martin Provensen
Mary Blair
Which artistic period would you most like to visit and why?
I would love to visit the dawn of abstract painting, specifically when Hilma Af Klint was creating her mystical paintings for the temple. I’ve been reading up on her and her process lately, and I find it so fascinating.
Who or what inspired you to become an illustrator?
I think growing up my favourite parts of books were always the covers and illustrations in them, so I’d say the books I read growing up were my biggest inspiration. I was always trying to draw characters I saw in the covers or interiors of books I loved, the Lemony Snicket series was a big favourite of mine.
Can you share a photo of your creative work space or part of the area where you work most often? Talk us through it.
My studio is in a corner in my LA apartment in Hollywood. I work mostly digitally, so my main set up is my MacBook Pro and 22 in Wacom Cintiq. I have an electric desk, which is very useful because I can adjust the height or stand up to work. I also have an adjustable wooden stand I bought for my laptop, that also doubles as a sketchbook stand whenever I paint traditionally.
I also have a toolbox where I keep all of my favourite traditional supplies, so I can move around and paint from other tables at my apartment.
What is your favourite part of the illustration process?
I think I really enjoy all of the parts of the process. It really depends on my mood. I think I love the very beginning where I’m still trying to decide how I’m going to approach it, because it’s so exciting to have so many possibilities. But I also really enjoy when I’m just painting, because painting is so meditative to me.
What advice would you give to an aspiring illustrator?
Don’t worry so much about what you think people want to see from you, make the art that you want to see exist in the world! I think sometimes we look around to see what the market is responding to and we feel that’s the only thing worth creating, but you truly never know what people will respond to until you show them your ideas.
Mirelle Ortega is an award-winning Mexican artist and writer for kidlit and animation based in Los Angeles, California. She is the author-illustrator of RIVER OF MARIPOSAS and MAGIC: ONCE UPON A FARAWAY LAND, for which she received a 2023 Pura Belpré Award Honor for illustration and an International Latino Book Awards medal.
For more information, please visit Mirelle's website or follow her on instagram.