Article by Vademékum Magazine.

[Photos courtesy of Vademékum creator Diego Ante.]

I am honored to be part of a small student magazine project in Colombia called Vademékum Magazine. You can view the online version here.




Here is the article they did on me, translated from Spanish to English:

"Jason Seiler
When we see a masterpiece, or a great illustration, most of times we don’t think in the preamble that led to that success, most of times we consider that because that masterpiece was created by certain artist, we knew for sure that it was going to be successful and is like that, how we forget that those artists also struggle when they’re working, I mean, there are moments in which they also have to fight against the uncertainty of not knowing if what they are doing will end up well.
Is that how we find Jason Seiler, an American Illustrator which is only 32 years old, he has already had clients as MAD Magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, among others and recently he worked as a character designer for Disney’s movie, Alice in Wonderland directed by Tim Burton.
He explains that any person can draw, but this requires of hard and constant work, if there is discipline and joy about what you’re doing, you can triumph and furthermore of something that could be considered as “god given talent”, there is work. In addition to everything he does, he works as a teacher as well, he teaches through schoolism.com an online school and as he says “Everybody can do it […] as long as you are willing to actually do the work and listen to what I say, I can teach you how to draw, I can walk you through; The students that actually do that, they end up doing some great stuff … that’s why I keep teaching.”
It is precisely there where is the difference between the ones who succeed and the ones who don’t, while some are wasting their time in different things, or they simply don’t have the discipline to reach their dreams, those few that fought, worked and had the will to get what they desired, are who at the end will be able to triumph.
Jason studied fine art illustration in Chicago in the American Academy of Art, and his style reminds somehow renaissance painting for how he manages form; He is a modern classic because he expresses majorly through caricature, but achieving an impressive realism. His images are characterized for their vitality, from his sketches it seems as if they could talk, they have always one thing in common and that is realism. The colour in his pieces is another thing to highlight, in which independently of the medium, he always use a method similar to what he does with watercolours, through the variation of opacities and the superposition of colours he is able to communicate.
Jason leave us something to think about and it is that if we had reached certain abilities as artists but we are not progressing, it might be because we are not doing what we want, we need a change of attitude, if what we are looking for is to be renown but we work in something apparently small, we have to put all of our capacity, all of our endeavour in that small project as if we were working for the most important client, we should always leave the best of us in everything we do, because that effort will be rewarded through our achievements."