Uses This

Who are you, and what do you do?

My name is Polina Fearon. I am a Belarusian-Canadian illustrator and visual designer and mom of two little boys! I started attending art school at the age of four and graduated with a Bachelor Degree of fine arts in Technical and Scientific illustration. I've had the pleasure of applying my design and illustration skills to all kinds of projects and for a wide range of clients. I've worked at an agency as a Designer at Fuel Industries in Ottawa, Canada, a UI artist at a mobile gaming company in SF (Pocket Gems) and a Visual Designer for Idean, a Finnish UX agency, in the Bay Area.

I've been able to pick up all kinds of visual design, illustration and UX skills along the way. Currently, I am a stay-at-home mom who spends her free time doing freelance work and creating a children's book and illustrations.

What hardware do you use?

Typically all of my traditional and digital work starts out the same way - in a Moleskin sketchbook or on a piece of paper of some sort. I'm a firm believer in starting out with exploration through drawing and sketching, before moving on to the computer. For my digital work I either scan or take a photo with my iPhone 7 Plus of the final sketch, and after that I move on to my 13" MacBook Pro, which I sometimes hook up to a 27" monitor. I also only use a Medium Wacom Intuos Pro when I work - no mice or track pads.

My traditional media pieces can be a mix of Prismacolor pencil crayons and watercolor, pen and ink on mylar, Staedtler fineliner or acrylic paint. My illustration work is often a mix of digital and traditional media.

And what software?

I often use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for my illustration and design work. InDesign comes in handy for books and other print projects. For web design I will also use Sketch, although I will often use Photoshop and Illustrator for this as well. Spotify is usually on while I work.

What would be your dream setup?

I would love to have a little studio set up in my home with an easel, a drafting table and a wooden desk (which my husband Dave has promised to build for me) for my future iMac and my Wacom tablet. I'd love to have a large scanner and a printer, which, in my dream, would never run out of ink!

My studio would also feature a giant window with some sort of body of water outside and a comfy couch, where I can use my sketchbook and iPad Pro for research and drawing and gaze outside. I would also love some framed art and family photos in the room, for inspiration.

Ideally I would also like a shelving unit to help organize art supplies, canvases and paper and to help hide the general chaos.