The pho­to illus­tra­tor con­struct­ing her own off­beat visu­al worlds

Cre­ator Sto­ries is a series in sup­port of the Adobe Cre­ator Col­lec­tive, a new col­lab­o­ra­tive hub intend­ed to inspire oth­ers. Here, artist Vanes­sa McK­e­own shines a light on her unique cre­ative process – which sees her cre­at­ing images and scenes that feel com­plete­ly new.

As an artist, Vanes­sa McK­e­own rev­els in sub­vert­ing expec­ta­tions. Work­ing with every­day objects – bal­loons, cig­a­rette pack­ets, food – she’s less inter­est­ed in images you’ve seen before. Instead, it’s about blend­ing dif­fer­ent ideas and mate­ri­als, in order to cre­ate some­thing entire­ly new. Take, for instance, her project Fru­loons & Veg­a­loons, in which she con­structs a series of inflat­able fruits and veg­eta­bles from items col­lect­ed in and around her house and garden.

It’s an approach that has proved pop­u­lar: today, she boasts an impres­sive archive of work, and almost 120,000 fol­low­ers on Insta­gram. The unique­ness of her process marks her out as a key mem­ber of the Adobe Cre­ator Col­lec­tive, an online cre­ative com­mu­ni­ty seek­ing to unite artists from across Europe. The plat­form exists to cham­pi­on authen­tic­i­ty, and inspire oth­ers to cre­ate: the col­lec­tive offer tips and advice to Adobe users, with Adobe pro­vid­ing free assets for up-and-com­ing cre­ators to get start­ed themselves.

Below, McK­e­own reflects on her jour­ney up to now, and explains how her dis­tinc­tive process ensures she remains unshack­led as a creator.

Tell us about your cre­ative process. How do you tack­le a new project or idea? Do you sketch or mock up your ideas before mov­ing into execution?

I usu­al­ly try to think of 100 ideas – not that it ever hap­pens. Nor­mal­ly I’ll end up with around 30 ter­ri­ble ones, and maybe five decent ones to choose from. Often, I’ll think one idea is not good enough and then in a weeks’ time I’ll look back and think, ​“This is all right, what was I think­ing?!” With client work, I try to make a rough mock­up or a sketch, which real­ly helps when tak­ing the pho­to. How­ev­er, when it comes to my per­son­al work, I’m much freer with how it’s going to look. I like to exper­i­ment and try new things out.

Any tips on beat­ing cre­ative blocks?

This hap­pens to me all the time! Here are a few things that help me out. One: the first thing is to chill out. Two: keep in the back of your mind that some­thing will come even­tu­al­ly. Mind­set is impor­tant. Three: look at any­thing visu­al… blogs, inter­net library archives of old books – even things unre­lat­ed to what you’re doing. I feel like your mind con­nects things with­out you know­ing, and in a few hours you will be out of your cre­ative block! Four: If none of that works, take a walk to clear your head.

How did you first get into pho­tog­ra­phy? Did you exper­i­ment with oth­er areas before land­ing on still life?

I start­ed pho­tog­ra­phy on the week­ends in my kitchen – I had a full-time job doing some­thing else at the time. I began tak­ing pho­tos of sim­ple objects on a colour­ful back­ground with nat­ur­al light. I liked the idea of doing still life, as I had a lot of con­trol over it and only had to rely on myself. I also didn’t have to go any­where to cre­ate. The best exper­i­ment I did was [tak­ing] toma­toes [and turn­ing them into] my Fru­loon pic­ture. I had some bal­loons and toma­toes lying around and BAM, I com­bined them!

I remem­ber think­ing, ​‘This is what I should be doing’. It felt more fun to com­bine things and cre­ate a new image no one had seen before – for me any­way. I some­times try tak­ing nice, sim­ple pho­tos of things, or even land­scape pho­tos. I see so many tal­ent­ed pho­tog­ra­phers mak­ing beau­ti­ful work and I’m in awe. How­ev­er, when I do it, it doesn’t feel very me. My brain is like, ​‘No! Make it stranger, do some­thing else’.

Any tips for those start­ing out in the world of still-life photography?

When start­ing out, don’t wor­ry too much about equip­ment and crazy setups. All you need is nat­ur­al light. A cloudy day is great for soft light­ing, and a sun­ny day is per­fect for harsh shad­ows. Adobe Pho­to­shop has always been a life­saver for help­ing improve the pic­tures after­wards. I think it’s best to learn and improve as you go, and I love this quote by Arthur Ashe: ​“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

What’s your dream project? Some­thing you’d love to do but haven’t had the chance yet.

I’d love to make giant sculp­tures of my work.

Do you retouch your own work?

Yes, I retouch of all my work. I’m still learn­ing but I find using online tuto­ri­als the best way to pick up new things, as well as tri­al and error.

Do you col­lab­o­rate often? How do you tack­le that process?

I haven’t col­lab­o­rat­ed [with any­one] yet. I’d love to, though. Maybe I need to find a sculp­tor. Jeff Koons, you busy?!

Tell us an art­work or pho­to­graph by anoth­er artist that you have hang­ing in your room/​house, and why?

I actu­al­ly don’t have many things hang­ing up. But I do have a col­lec­tion of sou­venir patch­es I framed. I did a few road trips around Amer­i­ca and col­lect­ed them – I’m pret­ty obsessed with them, they’re quite graph­ic and I like that. I don’t know why they seem nos­tal­gic as I nev­er had patch­es as a kid. Maybe in my pre­vi­ous life I did. But I find the places I went to inspir­ing, so it’s nice to look at them now again and remind myself of good times. Some of the patch­es were quite touristy, but I did find some in Palm Springs by an artist called Mea­gan Rose Dowl­ing – she has a shop that sells the cutest patch­es I’ve ever seen.

The Adobe Cre­ator Col­lec­tive project show­cas­es the best new art, design and illus­tra­tion tal­ent week­ly, con­nect­ing artists with the wider Adobe com­mu­ni­ty. Want to be inspired? Vis­it cre​ative​cloud​.adobe​.com