talking techniques… Emma’s use of Photoshop used to mean she gave
little thought to her choice of paper, but recently that attitude has changed. “I now exhibit and sell my originals so I choose my paper carefully and that’s definitely improved things. I generally use The Langton hot-pressed watercolour paper from Daler-Rowney.” Alongside her more natural subject matter, Emma
also produces a striking line in hand-drawn typography. “I love drawing bottles and jars with interesting typography,” she says. “I tend to use pencil and gouache for that. Fruit and vegetables are juicy so there’s that element with the ink and the spatters, but bottles are hard objects so pencil and gouache works better.” Her lettering is especially popular for book covers,
where its quirky irregularity is often set against a crisp background photograph. “I really enjoy working with typography, and the book covers are really nice projects to work on,” she says. “I’ve developed a style in which the typography comes off the edge [of the object]. It started from trying to draw a bottle and not having room to finish the writing and then that turned into a stylistic thing.”
Emma also produces abstract paintings purely for pleasure: “It’s important to keep
experimenting – it helps keep my commissioned work fresh.”
Besides her commissioned work, Emma spends
a significant portion of her time working on larger abstract paintings. These are done purely for pleasure and incorporate a variety of mediums. “With the larger scale pieces I work more thickly and
experiment with different media,” she says. “I’ve been working in oils for two or three years so it’s still relatively new and it’s forcing me to experiment. I also use crayons and oil pastels.” Another recent addition is screen-printing, which
she has started to incorporate into some of her illustrations. “I begin by doing a painted background, getting that to a point I’m quite happy with and then I screen print onto it and work into it some more before doing another screen print – I tend to keep building it up in layers,” she says. Her working space reflects her passion for acquiring
new techniques. Emma is part of the Jamaica Street Artists, one of the largest artist-run studio complexes outside of London. She has set aside a corner of her room in the Bristol-based complex specifically for experimentation, and she welcomes input from the other artists who base themselves at the studios. “I really enjoy where I work because there are about 45 people working in a huge variety of mediums, which is really interesting. It’s good to have other people around to discuss your work with if you’re not sure what to do about something.” Emma’s love of experimentation helps her to
strike a balance between the precise demands of commissioned work and the need to develop artistically. “Sometimes when you’re doing commissioned work and you’ve got deadlines, it’s hard to have that freedom – you’ve just got to get the work in on time. That’s why it’s important to keep experimenting: it helps keep my commissioned work fresh.”
www.emmadibben.com
BELOW Emma’s commissioned work for Waitrose and Waitrose Food Illustrated includes these Piccadilly tomatoes and the salmon, plus (on previous spread) the figs, anchovies and pointed cabbage
Artists & Illustrators 49
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