Wallpaper Art

Interview with Wojciech Pijecki and Leonardo Dentico

Posted: 22 Mar 2011 01:41 PM PDT

The sun is shining bright and we thought it’s the perfect day to share our second double interview! We had the opportunity to see two amazing artists collaborate on a new exclusive wallpaper for you! They’ve collaborated on this masterpiece for a few weeks.After all that hard work I’m proud to announce, together with the interview, “Tertium”! Enjoy the interview, show them some love, spread the word and download the wallpaper! Have a lovely week everyone and we will be back with more wallpapers and interviews!

Visit our friends here:
Wojciech Pijecki Online Portfolio
Wojciech on the Behance Network

Leonardo Dentico Online Portfolio
Leonardo on the Behance Network
________

Wallpaper Art: Hey guys, welcome to WallpaperArt! We're really happy to do our second double interview, could you please introduce yourself to our readers and tell us where you're from and how you got started in the Digital Illustration scene?
Wojciech: Hello. I’m Wojciech Pijecki, 25 years old illustrator from Poland. My story began around 3 years ago when I had to do some school projects with Photoshop. Back then I absolutely had no idea how to use it, and seeing some great projects on the world wide web only made me want to learn it quicker. My progression was pretty fast, as I forced myself to some hardcore day by day practice! Since then I absolutely fell in love with digital illustration, as it gave me a tremendous variety of art solutions.

Leonardo: Hi, I’m Leonardo Dentico, an Italian 19 years old graphic designer and illustrator. I opened Photoshop for the first time about four years ago, it was just for fun, but I really got into it and I was amazed by its unlimited resources. My very first big step was joining SlashTHREE Art Collective in 2009. I had the chance to get in touch with many other great illustrators and I could also show my works to a new audience.

Wallpaper Art: I’ve asked this in our first double interview with Mart and Yves (link), but I would like to quote something from the book, "The collaborative Habit" from Twyla Tharp again; "You need a challenging partner. In a good collaboration, differences between partners mean that one plus one will always equal more than two". Can you guys confirm this? Because your both quite different artists.
Wojciech: That’s true. It’s quite interesting you mentioned this, because it exactly hits the point of our project’s title. Our art differences made us come up with something way beyond. It’s a Tertium, in my own interpretation – 3rd creative solution in conclusion of combining our two different styles. After working with Leonardo I might truly say that challenging partner brings a fantastic progress and difference to the illustration. I guess we just went with the flow. Everything that we dropped to each other had a very nice further match. I mean, there is no other way as being flexible, you just have to connect to what’s being made.

Leonardo: Yes, Wojciech said it, our artwork’s title is the perfect answer to this question. If you look at our collaboration, you can’t actually distinguish my style or Wojciech’s one, or at least nobody who knows me or him could say “Hey, that’s a Leonardo/Wojciech’s artwork”. I find it hard to believe we made this. I can absolutely confirm that a collaboration will give the artwork something more, another artist can correct something that the original author didn’t notice, can give a personal touch and improve the whole thing. I also have to say I’ve been lucky to work with Wojciech, he’s a great person and surely knows how to make an ace illustration.

Wallpaper Art: Lovely to hear you found each other! The result is amazing! In this beautiful wallpaper you both produced, we find so many details. Can you explain us something more about the story or concept behind this work?
Wojciech: Well, when you start a project you never know where you’ll wind up, especially in a collaboration. This artwork kinda takes me to the middle ages, showing personal story of a woman. She is the main point, every element and every detail behind her is connected to her past. It’s a life that she had, a personal tragedy which left her marked permanently.

Leonardo: To be honest we didn’t discuss too much about the story of the work, Wojciech advanced this concept, I was really interested by the way it was coming out and we inserted details that could remember the story of the girl, her past, her feelings etc… Anyway the focal point stays on the girl’s expression, it’s amazing.

Wallpaper Art: You guys did a great job! Did you learned anything from each other during the process and would you recommend your other fella designers to collaborate more?
Leonardo: Absolutely, collaborations can teach you many new things, you can see how another person work flow, learn new techniques and know other people. I’m really satisfied by the result, I’ll surely make other collaborations in the future!

Wojciech: It was absolutely great collaboration, we had a very light talk, no boundaries and a clear agreement on everything. He brought very nice ideas and depth to the concept, frankly speaking I’m glad we worked on that project together, I got a great new experience and learned some new stuff. There is nothing better than fresh, new perspective brought to the project. Working with Leo was a great pleasure, I’d definitely recommend him to anyone!

Wallpaper Art: To date what would you say is your favorite artwork that you have created? And why?

Rome by Leonardo Dentico
Leonardo : Well, to be honest there isn’t a real “favourite one” I can say I really like the result I came up with “2091, Rome & Steampunk day”,it exactly is how I imagined it in my mind. Its concept is intended to critique our governments’ actions: it’s an example of useless pollution,having a world party in which old steam machines come back to work. It’s just like the actual situation, we are using oil instead of developing clean energy, probably the whole work is just a reflection of human foolishness.

We, Numbers by Wojciech Pijecki
Wojciech: I think it’s my latest piece “We, Numbers” produced for Evoke. Beside the execution, which I’m very satisfied with, this work tells a certain story and has some symbolism hidden within. Every time I look at this project, I’m just proud that after hours of hard work I finally brought such a concept to life.

Wallpaper Art: In terms of your designing career, where would you like to be in 5 years?
Wojciech: Now I’m just simply freelancing and dealing with clients on arrangements. Therefore I’d like to start my own business soon. It would be great having there few friends from the arts world to co-operate. Also, I’d really love to expand my graphic programs knowledge more and more.

Leonardo: Pretty hard question, I want to work with some agencies during my first period, in order to understand the way they work and to learn something by people who have more experience than me. Of course I’d like to improve my techniques learning some 3D, Flash, InDesign, Aftereffects and explore better Illustrator, since I worked with it less than a year. In 5 years I’d love to open my personal agency, or at least work as a freelancer with big clients.

Wallpaper Art: How did you learn everything you know? What do you advice beginning designers?
Wojciech: There is no other way than practice and practice. I’m a self taught illustrator, and beginning is always the hardest period. This may sound corny but to never give up is just the key. Also, something that will definitely make your work stand up is the attention to detail. Pay attention to everything you add to your project and I promise this will lead you to a high level. I can tell you that not a single line in my projects is added by accident, everything is exactly where is has to be

Leonardo: I started practicing by myself, viewing tutorials and things like that. I followed some courses in the European Institute of Design in Rome, where I could learn some traditional techniques, logo studies and things more related to graphic design instead of illustration, but I can proudly say I learned by myself the most of things I can do.

What can I say to beginning designers? Don’t want to seem too hard, but if you go around a city and you don’t stop watching an advertising poster to understand how it’s done, that’s not something for you, you have to live trough design, each thing which is part of your life must become visually nice, what if an illustrator’s life has a bad aspect?

Thanks for your time guys and brilliant wallpaper!
Desktop Wallpaper art