richardmurray

 

Interview with Julie Bell - Legendary Illustrator

COMMENT
I didn't know you met Boris as a model... those sessions with boris must have been great:) 
so you are a huge advocate of audiobooks... your favorite audiobook?
Did you ever put dougie , pardon my naming, directly in a work?
drawings from the old masters [ https://archive.org/details/drawingsfromoldm00lond ] 
great story of spiderman, will you ever let the public see that first work?
Do you have the least references for your own characters?
Proud of you stitching the traditional and elements of the electronic
What do you think people should do with old calendars? 

Questions
1:12 when did you decide you wanted to be an artist
2:41 first commission
4:25 agent 
5:45 how did meet boris?
6:38 her youth activities and flow to bodybuilding and influence on her artistic composition
8:10 how much research before a painting
10:30  what are your favorite surfaces
11:30 what paint do you use and  start with
12:05 how do you decide colors
13:25 What is your connection to non humans/animals?
15:00 how do you construct animal poses?
16:30 Which old artist inspired you and how?
19:00 how do you create skin tones?
20:45 how is it to work for comic book companies?
23:24 the hardest character or painting?
25:00 How do you coordinate with Boris and working on late request by clients and being herself as an artist?
28:25 have you tried digital art and using computers in touch up work?
30:27 calendars

TRANSCRIPT

0:01

[Music]

0:56

well welcome Julie Bell thank you for being here thank you for having me here this is fun we've been waiting to do

1:02

this for a long time um well you've had a really long successful um career so where did it all

1:09

start when did you first decide you wanted to be an artist oh well I I think I that was just

1:15

a I wasn't so much a decision as a just you know the way it came out I just kind

1:22

of born that way really I um remember you know as a little kid like just like

1:28

art was always on my mind and um when I was in elementary school one the first

1:34

time I really spoke it out loud that I want to be an artist one of my teachers in fifth grade asked me what my goals

1:40

were and um I was like what are you even talking about I have no idea and she's

1:46

like you have to have a goal so I was like okay I'll be an artist so that was the first time I said it but honestly I

1:52

had no idea as I got older um you know like how do you make a living as an

1:59

artist and all I had known were art teachers and so it was a very mysterious world to figure

2:07

out so what was how did you actually get into art then what was your first

First commission

2:12

commission um my first commission well like before I was doing the kind of art

2:18

I'm doing now yeah um uh years before that actually I had been my first

2:23

commission was actually in high school you know to do a portraits of my teachers for a special thing they were

2:29

doing but um and then I had uh a couple of children's books that I

2:35

Illustrated that were like children's novels really um not really like an

2:40

illustrated picture book but a a Illustrated novel that I just did drawings for and um so but that you know

2:48

that was really early and they were just very lowr run prints and things like that so um but when what you know

2:55

connected to the art that I do now my first commission really was um it's hard

3:01

to remember exactly which came first but I remember I got a commission from T to

3:06

do book cover a book cover um and also I

3:12

you know that was a commission that came directly to me and so that was really exciting um and I think the way it went

3:19

was that before that there were a couple of commissions I did for video game

3:24

covers that had come to Boris but he didn't have time to do them and so so he

3:30

said hey would you look at Julie's work and so you know a lot of artists get their start that way when they ask for

3:36

someone else and that person can't do it and so it gets you know you get kind of like second look and so um I think

3:42

really probably that was the first and then I took my samples of that Tut tour I just don't remember the order it all

3:48

happened in but it was kind of around the same time right okay so you do you tend to try to get the work yourself

No agent

3:55

then you haven't got an agent is that how it works yeah um I haven't

4:00

really you know I I did um kind of toy with the idea of having an agent at one

4:06

point but I was already kind of on my way with my work you know an agent to get me art art uh commissions I was

4:14

already on my way with my career and this guy was really you know very honest

4:19

with me and he said honestly I'm not really going to be able to help you more than what you're already doing so it

4:25

doesn't make sense you just need to keep doing what you're doing so I kind of came to an agent a little bit later and

4:32

um that was that was really nice of him to do that uh and I'm glad I did it that way I've I've learned how to um you know

4:40

you have to learn to think on your feet a little bit more when you're just doing that you know of course I had Boris to

4:45

give me answers and you know introduce me to some people that really you know

4:51

helped at the beginning um but uh we did used to work with a licensing agent and

4:59

that was an inter thing that was someone who worked with Boris before I knew him for a long time before I knew him and so

5:05

that was an interesting time yeah um and I you know I'm not sure how that's working right now we aren't really

5:12

working with any agents at all right now except for maybe if you consider um a gallery I'm working with raay Gallery in

5:20

New York City and it's not like an agent but they um they represent some of my

5:25

paintings there you know and I get occasional commissions through them but mostly I'm just doing it you know uh

5:32

myself through the website and um and uh you know being on Instagram and Facebook

5:39

yeah and just Word of Mouth from from my history so how did you meet Boris if you don't

5:44

mind me asking um I had been in a bodybuilding contest uh and the guy who was the um

5:54

organizer of that show I won the show actually I got first place in all all categories and whatever big prize winner

6:02

and um the guy who organized the show you know told Boris that I would be a

6:08

good model for him and so that's how that came about ah okay do you find that

Bodybuilding

6:15

from that sort of background that um the the bodybuilding aspect do you think that helps with your figure painting at

6:21

all oh for sure yeah and and I had really been you know I got into bodybuilding um earlier when I was a kid

6:29

I was into a lot of ballet and different kinds of dance forms you know tap dancing and modern dancing and all that

6:36

and also um then in high school I got into gymnastics so I really have always

6:41

been like a a fairly athletic person um I don't like I never was really into

6:47

team sports like football or basketball or anything because I I can't stand being pushed around and have people yell

6:54

at me and blow whistles at me and that kind of thing so you know you find in gymnastics it's you can get a lot of

7:00

really rough treatment if you take it that seriously but at the level I was at it was just um it wasn't like that so it

7:07

was more individual kind of thing um but yeah just being you know involved in

7:13

doing any kind of athletic you know anything is going to make you aware of how your body moves and I think honestly

7:21

being involved with ballet and dance in general taught me a lot about creating

7:28

you know visual lines of you know interest or energy or whatever like a composition with your

7:33

body happens when you do dance when you especially in something as um you know

7:39

as structured as like a ballet or something like that you're taught to create these lines using all of your you

7:46

know your hands and your eyes and everything so that is something that really does come into play a lot with my

7:52

work um yeah for sure oh that was one of my questions actually how did you get the

Research

7:58

dynamism into your into your figure painting but that answered that one yeah

8:03

yeah um one thing that I wanted to ask you as well is well I'll start from the beginning because I'm jumping all over the place but um how much research would

8:11

you normally do let's say you got a book um cover commission uh for a story how

8:16

much you know how much um would you delve into it before you started the

8:21

painting well it really depends you know um sometimes it's more important to do

8:27

that than other times uh usually a lot of times like I'd say most of the times

8:33

that I've been commissioned to do a book cover um the author will either say kind

8:39

of what they're looking for in general like a certain scene or a certain feeling or they will direct me to a

8:47

certain you know few pages of the book so that I don't you know I don't really

8:52

have that much time to actually read every book you know that takes a lot of time and thankfully now most books are

8:59

audio books that you can listen but I still um I like it when the uh the art

9:05

director kind of tells me what they have in mind I we may not end up going with

9:11

that exact thing but it points to what they're thinking of as their you know their

9:16

representation um yeah so like for instance so when um I really had not

9:21

been familiar with the stories of el of M nibon and I um you know when I I got

9:28

this commission to do this big painting that I did recently but I felt like with that particular thing because I I came

9:34

to understand what a really important character he is in fantasy literature

9:41

you know in the whole history of fantasy literature he's a very revered character and I I was like I really want to I just

9:47

want to know myself what is it so special about him and it really became like wow I love this story you know so

9:54

um so I did end up I've actually read and reread that you know first uh book

10:00

of that several times now and I have another commission to do a big painting of him and I'm really glad that I that I

10:08

have that background with it it's a deeper understanding you know that um it's going to it really does make a

10:14

difference with something that you know it's like that character I feel like I really needed to understand him in a in

10:20

a deeper level so it kind of just depends on the on the commission yeah yeah what do you

Painting surfaces

10:27

normally paint on to do you paint on to the Bold snow L I like the surfaces that

10:32

are that are like that I like um I don't really paint on linen or canvas that

10:38

often because the texture um you know it doesn't it's not

10:44

my my Surface um you know I like what other artists do with it and I like when

10:49

I have done it I enjoyed it but I I love these more kind of slippery surfaces

10:54

that I can let the paint do interesting things and surprise me and then tame it down or whatever it

11:02

really just feels natural to me to work that way so I I tend to work on what's called gesso board which is basically

11:09

like a um hard board that's very smooth

11:14

and then it has gesso on it and and you buy it with the gesso already on it but I put my own gesso on top of that so

11:21

that it has my own kind of natural texture to it yeah H so I like a little

11:27

texture but I want it to be a texture sure that I understand you know I've got it um what what sort of paint do you use

11:34

is it acrylics or Oils oh it's oil for sure yeah yeah I start with acrylic actually

11:41

I do start with start with a pencil and then acrylic and sometimes I take the acrylic you know pretty far before

11:48

putting the oils on um but you know it doesn't it just depends it's different

11:54

all the time but I the acrylic is basically an underpainting just to give me gu to how to have the structure but a

12:01

lot of times it gets lost in the end anyway and I kind of have to redo and it becomes just as if it was all

12:08

oil how do you decide on a palette because one thing um that I love about your paintings is it's really really

Choosing a palette

12:13

vibrant colors it's really beautiful you know the colors themselves are beautiful so how do you decide on that before you

12:19

or does it just evolve as the painting goes it does evolve um but there are

12:24

times like usually I have a certain idea of what to start with and then um I will

12:31

choose you know I don't ever have I used to a long time ago like Boris is the one

12:36

who taught me my first techniques for using oil paint and he uses the same palette you know every time and then he

12:44

doesn't end up using all the colors and I just started feeling like you know I'm only going to put out the colors that I believe I'm going to use and it actually

12:51

worked better for me to do that because then I didn't get as confused by so many

12:57

colors and I kept a little more you know like within certain color range but then

13:02

a lot of times I will bring in a surprise color later if I want something

13:08

to have a different effect as the painting goes on you know but I could make that choice um in a calmer way for

13:16

me so yeah there's a lot of animals and in

Animals

13:23

your work I love that I love seeing the animals um have you got special interest in animals yeah for sure sure I um I've

13:31

always really had a thing like a Just A Love For Animals I mean I had dogs

13:36

growing up and um you know my my very SP

13:42

favorite special dog when I was a kid you know he's always kind of in the center of things but my dog that I have

13:49

now um you know they all my dragons end up kind of looking a little bit

13:54

douggy and uh you know it's just I I love dogs and I really love cats I mean

14:00

I had cats too um and I have right now I have grand cats because my sons both

14:05

have cats and I sometimes they come one of them comes and stays with us here when they travel or whatever so um but

14:14

yeah and we had horses growing up also and um you know just love animals in

14:20

general I really uh I don't know I I like their the looks of them of course

14:26

and I just like the straightforwardness of their brain you know they aren't I don't know you feel like there are

14:32

tricky animals for sure my dog lies to me all the time you know but but it's kind of like

14:39

I can see through it most of the time yeah I've got cats like

14:47

that how do you because I've noticed your animals are really well sort of um

Posing

14:52

uh Po and obviously when you're painting people you can ask someone to post for you in a certain pose so how how would

14:59

you get the you know how would you get the animals to pose like that how do you go about um researching that or you know

15:04

what do you do there well I can't ask I mean I actually my first the dog that I

15:11

had um for the last you know 12 years or so she died recently but um I could ask

15:18

her to post she's a border colly mix and I could tell her to put her paw a certain way and she would literally stay

15:24

like that until I took the picture but um that's you know that's it but other

15:29

than that of course you have to like just take a lot of photos of your animals that you want to work with and

15:36

if you want to sometimes you get just the pose you want right there um but

15:41

sometimes you need to like combine you know drawings with different

15:46

photos like you have like a lot of photos you have a horse running and doing things and you can combine

15:52

different things as long as they as long as the body works with itself you know

15:57

in the end but you know you get different lighting and you know that's another thing I think is

16:03

really as at least as important as the pose is the lighting on the animal and

16:08

that that's a thing that um you know you just have to shoot a whole lot of pictures and then work with those

16:15

pictures to combine them how you need them to be right

16:21

okay A little thing I like about your paintings the very reminiscent of the old um you know the uh the classics like

Old Masters

16:29

kagio and tishan in terms of composition and uh color and you know the drama

16:35

there was that ever an inspiration of yours oh for sure yeah I mean I I just

16:41

really you know have been I don't I never actually took an art history class

16:47

in my life but I have been on my own studying art history you know um just as

16:53

a person and um actually my first introduction to and looking at that

16:59

stuff was um when I was first in college and then and I took my first life

17:05

drawing class um the teacher had us um

17:10

she they he had us buy a book called I think it was called drawings of I can't

17:16

remember it was called drawings of the Old Masters or something like that and he had us copy their chalk drawings or

17:23

their ink drawings you know like verbatim like each line he wanted us to really copy it and understand why that

17:32

artist you know would would do that and so it really was an INT a fantastic way

17:38

to learn from someone who has not been alive for hundreds of years just to copy

17:44

directly the lines that you have there because you you understand it's like getting a private lesson from that

17:52

artist but um and that was of course these were these Old Masters that you're

17:57

talking about and so it was my first and like it wasn't an art history class it was a life drawing class yeah but it was

18:05

learning from their work and so yeah that really did have a big influence on me and learning about how the Deep

18:11

Shadows and the you know the information within the shadows and all that kind of thing you know and of course Boris you

18:17

know a lot of his work is also influenced by that same that same thing

18:23

and so um you know I was influenced by him as well so and it's a beautiful thing to look at it gives everything so

18:29

much more form and you know drama and uh you know it's just more more exciting to

18:34

look at I think in general I mean I love I love when I see a beautiful painting that's done with a filtered light that's

18:42

you know just a very even light like some of the naturalist paintings are just gorgeous you know and and that's

18:49

you know a whole different thing so playing with the values the light in the dark is a really fascinating way to

18:56

think about your artwork as you're making it yeah how do you build up those brilliant

Skin Tones

19:03

um skin tones that you manag to get um I do build it up is exactly how

19:10

it works I um I guess the first thing when I'm

19:15

painting is that I you know like I said I choose certain colors that I decide

19:21

I'm going to be using and then I just have those colors on my palette to start with and then I

19:28

just take a fairly large brush and just block it like kind of carelessly and

19:34

fast to begin with to just get a sense of form and light and um you know the

19:43

temperature of the color more than the actual color yeah and just really basic and fast you know and then the the ideal

19:51

thing is to do that and let it dry you know assuming you have that kind of time for your piece depending on what you're

19:57

doing but um if you let that dry usually then when you go in and you refine it

20:03

with more careful study of how you're going to make those shapes and everything and the colors you'll have

20:10

such a great base to work on you know that when you layer it on it just goes

20:16

so fast and so easy it's just like it's just a great experience it feels good to do that you know I have it already

20:22

locked in and then just paint right on top of that after it's dry I love that

20:28

um and then you can always glaze more color in anytime you want to if you feel like you've made things too muddy or

20:33

dirty you can clean it up by putting different colors on there or changing what's surrounding it or things like

20:39

that yeah I know you've done a lot of um comic book art as well haven't you um so

Comic Book Covers

20:47

um how protective are people like DC and Marvel um of their superhero you know do

20:53

they ever come back and say actually you know that looks wrong or something like that wait tell me I'm sorry I didn't

21:00

understand the question oh sorry you've done some comic book covers haven't you things like painted painted work for

21:06

them yes it's more trading it was more their trading cards that was a lot of the work was but some of them were

21:11

covers yeah uhuh so are they very protecting of of their the way that the characters look oh for sure yeah yeah it

21:18

has to fit within what they expect from their characters um yeah I remember in

21:24

fact the first time I painted Spider-Man I it was actually not for Marvel

21:31

directly but it was for a book publisher called Byron price and they did um they

21:38

were doing like novel novels of like like book in a book novel of the same

21:44

kind of stories that were in the comic books but as a novel and so they wanted me to do this cover of Spider-Man with

21:50

Carnage and man did I just get it wrong and it was so horrible it was this

21:56

painting I did that was I think I just felt like oh I it was after I had already been doing a lot of

22:02

Marvel characters and I knew I really knew Spider-Man I've had been reading Spider-Man for years so I understood

22:07

Spider-Man but I didn't understand the visuals of how to create Spider-Man at that time and so um I did this really

22:17

thff and boring and uninspired painting of Spider-Man and Carnage and I was like

22:24

this is fine I'm sure it'll be fine and I handed it in and it actually got rejected by Mar I know and I was like

22:30

horrified I was like this is the worst thing that ever happened in my whole life which you know of course I was but

22:36

anyway um so I said so they said we'll get another artist because they felt like I

22:42

didn't know how to do it and I was like oh my God I can't leave it like this I was like you know let me just do it

22:47

again just give me like a couple of weeks and I will come up with something really good for you I'll redo it start

22:54

from the beginning and I actually went to New York like the next day or

22:59

something and met with one of the editors there and said please advise me about Spider-Man I want to understand

23:06

what is wrong here you know and so he talked to me and gave me some pointers

23:12

and um so then I did a painting that did turn out to be really good and they loved it and everybody's happy yay but

23:18

it was it was so horrifying to be rejected like that I just felt like so

23:26

embarrassed well what's the all this t so that you've ever had to paint would you say the hardest character

Hardest Painting

23:37

yeah does nothing really stands out at this moment

23:43

um I you know I just feel like uh painting anything is just a matter of

23:50

getting to understand it uh you know at at to the level that you want I think

23:56

there is one painting that I want to do that I made an attempt at it and really

24:04

have didn't get it right it's for myself it's for a story that I wrote and it's

24:09

my own character and it's a moment in the story that is this you know

24:16

Indescribable feeling that this character is having and it's so I think it's just so abstract that I'm trying to

24:23

paint something that probably should not be attempted because once you nail it

24:29

down as a visual painting you probably are going to kill it you know it's like

24:36

one of those things that you can't you can't do that and so I feel like I'm

24:41

stepping in like territory of the gods or something you know I'm like overstepping overreaching my human

24:49

boundary here or something but um so that's the hardest character my

24:55

own character having his moment

25:00

well it's always intriguing me because I um you know I've seen some paging and the you you've done them with Boris so

25:07

how do you organize that I mean do do you take it in turns to sit at the uh uh you know the painting or what

25:13

happens yeah that's that's one way we do it is take turns um you know it's been

25:19

different and different paintings and different time periods you know there's sometimes that it's you know like

25:25

especially when we had work when we've had work for like an advertising agency because they generally want things very

25:31

very fast yeah and um you know even before there was a lot

25:38

of well yeah it's it they just always wanted fast I don't understand how the

25:43

thinking goes with their agencies because they spend like with these campaigns you know not necessarily our

25:50

artwork but the whole thing entirely ad campaigns could be very expensive and

25:56

that they generally wait till like they're like we need this in two weeks I'm like you know you need something you knew you knew this a month or two ago

26:03

why didn't you you know but anyway um I don't know how that stuff works the business side of that is very unusual

26:10

for me but uh but anyway when we have to work really fast like that sometimes we've had to do painting where we would

26:16

paint the background separate and then paint the characters on separate pieces

26:22

and we would both be painting different parts of it you know to make it and then we could take those individually in the

26:28

computer take them and put them together you know it still is a painting it's not a digital painting it's an oil painting

26:35

but it um and it has the feeling of an oil painting which is different but also

26:40

the um the people at the advertising agency can move it around to fit their

26:45

own format maybe they want it as a billboard it's got to be very wide or if they want it to be in a magazine it's

26:51

got to be more vertical you know so they can adjust it how they want or take pieces of it out or whatever so

26:58

H you know and then there are other times that we work together and it's just that you know maybe Boris feels

27:07

more like this is the part of the process that he wants to do and he doesn't really want to do the rest or I

27:13

feel the same way or whatever so we'll just do it whatever happens it's very organic depending on the needs and how

27:20

we feel and you know it's not really one set way each time the thing that's

27:26

fantastic about doing those collaborative paintings is that uh just

27:31

like when I mentioned you know with drawing from the old Master's drawings

27:36

that I learned so much by you know reworking redoing like making a master

27:43

copy of their drawings you know working with Boris has taught me

27:49

like the difference between what would come out naturally for me and what he would do and it gives me just those

27:55

tools you know it gives me the ability to okay Boris would think this way with this and I can't always I can't be Boris

28:03

but I can understand a lot more of what is the difference you know and and I

28:09

don't want to try to be Boris I I want my own art to be its own thing and have

28:14

its own voice you know and it does um but I like having more tools no matter

Digital art

28:22

what speaking of computers have we tried to actually paint using a computer we

28:27

tried using digital tools to make art at all a long time ago um when we first got

28:34

photosho we were doing that and when I think back on how how I did that it's

28:39

nuts how how the clumsy primitive way that I was working but yeah but at this

28:47

so yeah you know we did a few things but we're not digital artists and but at this point we do use the computer for

28:53

things like for instance um sometimes we will paint a painting where the figure

28:59

is nude because maybe somebody has commissioned it that way or because we choose to make the painting that way

29:05

because it looks nicer you know in context with the painting we want it to be that way but in our

29:11

calendar they can't be nuded because the book the people who sell the

29:17

calendars not that they have something against it but having it in the stores people be like oh naked you know can't

29:25

have that so we have to um what we is we paint the figures the way we want to and then if they need to have like a bikini

29:32

or whatever we can paint on a separate piece of board you know that bikini and

29:38

it looks like paper doll clothes and then yeah it's really fun because like we have these boards that are just

29:44

nothing but a bunch of bikinis lined up you know from previous paintings where they went on and then um you know take

29:51

it and digitally add it and I have learned one of my sons is does a lot of digital art for his work on video games

29:58

and he's taught me enough tools that I can get around you know using a mask I'm

30:04

so proud of using a mask and you know using those some of those tools with different brushes and

30:10

things that I really wasn't doing before to make it a better job of at least stitching those things

30:16

together so it's really helpful tool to have but I I don't for a second try to

30:23

be a digital artist because I would fail miserably and it would look so bad

Calendars

30:30

um well we we can get all of your artwork directly from your website can't we not all of it but a lot of it for

30:38

sure yes yeah yeah and are you going to continue doing the calendars every year do you think well hope so I mean we've

30:45

got contracts right now we're working on the one for um well we just we just finished up

30:51

with 2026 so we'll be starting on 2027 next um yep so we usually work you

30:59

know that far ahead yeah so the 2025 is just now being published it's now

31:06

available and 2026 is already complete uh but yep working on 27 now so

31:14

really exciting I love having the calendar because it gives us the opportunity to um to just like within

31:21

within the framework of of their the world that has been created in those paintings yeah you know they let us

31:27

pretty much do whatever we want to do yeah really lovely artwork oh thank you

31:32

for this chat it's been fascinating I've really enjoyed it me too thank you so much Sean it's really been great to

31:38

speak with you and say hi to everybody well you okay thank you okay you too thanks bye

31:48

[Music]

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4ifuCsmUkI