About Face Illustration, an independent brand launched in 2016 and run by illustrator Paulina Kwietniewska, is dedicated to portraiture. Using a variety of tools that include watercolors, oils, and ink, Kwietniewska makes custom portraits (both paintings and illustrations), which are commissioned through her website.
“I set up About Face Illustration when my daughter was about five months old,” she recalled in an interview with the Printed blog. “Sadly, I didn’t know much about marketing at the time, but I was on Instagram and I was following some other mums. One day, I noticed that one of the mums I followed was looking for an illustrator to paint her and her son, so I volunteered.”
That first illustration proved to be the very beginning of her brand. “Two months later it basically became my full-time job- and 3 years and 500 portraits later, here I am,” says Kwietniewska. Her portraits provide the perfect gifts and mementos for occasions such as weddings, birthdays, and other happy celebrations.
But when it comes to inspiration, Kwietniewska needs only look inside. “Most of my work comes from within really,” she says. “But I am easily inspired, I recently went to the BP Portrait Awards and I all I wanted to do was go home and paint. I also love literature. I adore Nabokov’s Lolita, which I had the pleasure to paint recently. Also, I paint quite a lot from my experience.”
