Meet Amy Pearson and Her Beautifully Illustrated Portraits

Be inspired by the unique style of her illustrations and her stunningly lifelike portraits

Amy Pearson (@amypearsondesign) is a multidisciplinary artist and illustrator specialized in creating art that combines analog and digital techniques. At the heart of Amy Pearson’s work are beautiful images of women who display power and strength. She has worked with clients like The Beauty Effect, Nylon, and more.

Her work has included magazine spreads, privately commissioned portraits, and other projects showcasing her unique creative style, and she markets her self-directed artwork through her website. In her Domestika course, Amy seamlessly combines graphite, watercolor, and Photoshop to create a stunningly lifelike portrait.

Amy showed her creativity from an early age, drawing almost every day, especially animals, encouraged by her equally creative grandfather, who taught her to draw in 3D. She drew portraits of all her family and friends throughout her school years, with an inclination to capture self-doubt emotions and self-expression.

Despite being advised to pursue a more conventional career, Amy showed determination. She went on to study womenswear fashion design at university, inspired by the hours she’d spent cutting up Vogue magazines and creating mood boards in textiles class.

When she graduated in fashion design in 2014, Amy moved to London and worked as a lingerie designer. In her words: “Lingerie is both self-indulgent and beautiful. It’s like a hidden armor that a woman can wear to give her self-confidence from underneath her clothes.” This idea gave her a real passion for representing women in her artwork.

Since leaving her job to pursue a career as a freelance artist, Amy has acknowledged that an artist’s life is often daunted by self-doubt, but this is a natural emotion. It has not stopped her from creating successful personal projects, such as a book of illustrations of the late David Bowie and an array of commissions.

Amy recognizes that one of the most challenging sides of working as a freelancer is promoting yourself on social media and online. “One day, you get loads of fabulous feedback; the next day, you get literally nothing. It’s hard not to doubt yourself at this point, but you just really have to keep going.”

Her distinctive style reveals Amy’s love for working in many different mediums. “I get bored really easily, and I go from one thing to another. I love to work on Photoshop and Procreate, but I also love to get all the paint out and get everything covered in a mess. When I’m working, I love to have a calm, quiet space with all of my equipment on hand: I never even tidy my paints away, to be honest!”

Amy gets inspiration from the art of other stylish illustrators, such as Tracy Turnbull, Stina Persson, and Beatriz Ramo, and she’s also continually collecting faces and images to use as reference from Instagram and Pinterest.

One piece of advice she wishes somebody had said to her is to not worry too much about what you want to draw and what inspires you. “Don’t overthink it. Draw whatever you feel like and follow the process that feels best to yourself. And make sure you keep practicing. Don’t worry if you feel like you don’t have an illustration style. Other people will notice it before you do. And either way, there are no rules. Follow your passions and do whatever makes you feel happy. This is when you create your best work.”

If you want to know more about Amy’s process of combining various analog and digital techniques to create captivating portraits full of color and character, sign up for her course Portrait Illustration with Analog and Digital Techniques.

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