Rachel Dyck

Something that Rachel strives to capture in her artwork is a sense of memory and nostalgia. 

She draws lots of things, including landscapes, characters in places, and ordinary objects observed in day-to-day life. Though they are different, all of them are connected because they exist in her own memory, each forming a part of who she is.  

She often considers how a landscape drawing becomes much more meaningful if the viewer has a memory of the place it depicts. Having grown up in Alberta, Rachel loves the wide-open fields, the distant sound of trains, and bike paths that cross under highway roads. She notices how the setting sun lights up ordinary objects like traffic signs and building façades, making them appear extraordinary! Drawing is a way for her to translate these wonders of her real-life observations into a new form. 

Rachel prefers drawing with just a 0.7mm mechanical pencil, often with a small sketchbook. This helps to capture the essence of a place or character without worrying too much about the exact details. The next step in Rachel's process is the addition of digital colour. Layering these digital colours over her original graphite pencil drawings has become her favourite method of creating illustrations! The unique texture of pencil on paper carries over to the final digital piece, creating a hybrid of “traditional art” and “digital art” which the artist really enjoys.