Meet the Artist: Roberlan Borges
August 21, 2014
Roberlan Borges was born and raised in a small Brazilian city called Vitória. From this home base he has contributed to four CAN campaigns, his latest being
Vote The Environment. We asked him to be in an artist spotlight blog post and here are his candid answers to our questions.
Describe how you became an artist.
The first time i thought of myself as an artist, I was very young. The first things I started to draw were robots and cameras, don't ask me why—maybe because I liked science fiction a lot. I never stopped drawing and in 1993 I got my first computer and started making digital art with Paintbrush. I never really worked with traditional painting mediums.
What’s your connection to the cause of Vote The Environment and other CAN campaigns?
It's an attempt to change the world, to make people stop for a minute, look at at poster and think about these questions. For me it's a way of spreading the word and making the situation public, so more people can join and help [find] a solution.
Roberlan's designs for Vote The Environment.
How do you come up with your ideas?
Well, now that's a hard question to answer, my ideas come up all the time. It's not something I push, it just happens. And it's quite weird because sometimes it's something I hear, or a sign i see on the streets, or a label. it could be anything. Once an idea pops into my head I don't start working on it right away. I keep thinking and thinking about it, and if it's worth developing I will continue thinking about it until one day I start work on it. Then I start sketching the idea several times: making thumbnails, really trying to refine it. I work a lot on the computer but I also draw on paper. Since I'm more a digital artist my sketches are very loose, just to know where to place things in Illustrator or Photoshop. My process is all very chaotic until all elements are placed together. Each work is also different in its own way.
What are you working on these days when you’re not designing for CAN?
I'm always working on client work. But I also like to design t-shirts and other products that I sell on my virtual stores.
