Illustrator Celia Jacobs describes her aesthetic as “pretty colorful, soft and a little hard, sweet, and a little weird.” In an interview with Ballpitmag, she admitted her goal is to make ordinary stuff with just a little more magic on top. “I like everything to look purposeful, but like a hand made it purposefully, so it got a little messed up on the way,” she relayed.
Born in Portland and currently living and working in Los Angeles, Jacobs’ illustration have that oomph factor (that extra magic on top), most illustrators can only hope for. So it comes as no surprise that amongst her selected clients she counts top tier publications like The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, as well as brands as big as Google, Airbnb, Snapchat, and TED.
Passionate about colored pencils, Jacobs creative process is fairly straight forward. “Put most simply,” she says, “I sketch out the drawing then color it in. I try to picture what a piece is going to look like beforehand so that the act of drawing is mostly brain-hand translation. I also like to do a lot of research and get myself into Google wormholes.”
According to Jacobs, she’s a drawer more than a painter, feeling most comfortable with a pencil at hand. Her interests also include nature, music, and social issues, as she illustrates them with sensitivity and California technicolor.
Her wonderfully textured work is a feast for the eyes:
