Biography and Frequently Asked Questions for Students Research

Below are a collection of details, facts and information compiled specifically for students and others needing information on Selina, her art, and her career.

Full Name: Selina Almira Fenech
DOB: 4th November 1981
Place of Birth: Kurri Kurri, NSW, Australia
Current Residence: Sydney, NSW, Australia
Marital Status: Unmarried
Professional Artist Since: 2001
Education: Bachelor of Graphic Design, Visual Communication, The University of Newcastle

Primary mediums: I work primarily in watercolour, with a number of other mediums mixed in as well for whatever effect I require, including gouache, acrylics, pencil, pastel, and ink. I also occasionally work digitally, using a Wacom tablet and photoshop, or for black and white works, completely in graphite pencil. I generally work on 100% cotton watercolour paper by Arches no matter what medium I am using, and use Windsor and Newton Artists watercolour pans and tubes.

Prefered Medium: My original favourite medium was graphite. I started out, as most people do, sketching in graphite pencil. After a while I realised graphite can be much more than just for sketches, creating much richer and detailed artworks with it alone. Since then I've moved primarily to colour works in watercolour (plus some other mediums mixed in) which I love to work with, but also still love to work in graphite as well.

Size of artworks and completion time: I generally like to work at no smaller than 8x11 (A4) size. The majority of my artworks are 8x11 (A4) or 11x17 (A3) in size, with a few exceptions at 17x22 (A2) size when I need a lot of detail, or there is a large background area that would make the figures of the artwork too small on other size. Generally, I like to have an artwork finished within 2-3 days, no matter how big or complex it is. Simpler artworks are generally completed within one solid day of work, about 12 hours.

Influences: I am greatly influenced by a lot of artists, both current and past. Artists and art movements such as Alphonse Mucha and the Art Nouveau era, Waterhouse and Bouguereau and the Preraphaelite era, as well as comic and anime art, fairytale and childrens art have all affected and influenced my style at some time. I take great inspiration from current artists such as Brian Froud, Alan Lee, Amy Brown, Jessica Galbreth, Maxine Gadd and more.

Art Training: I always drew a lot growing up, probably more than most kids. In high school whenever I could choose to take art classes, I did. At the age of about 16, I decided I wanted to be a comic book artist when I grew up! I began more seriously studying artworks and practicing a lot and self teaching at that stage. My love for comics faded a little after high school and I decided a job in graphic design would be stable, and still creative, so took a course at university in Visual Communication. This course was mostly advertising based, working a lot with computers, designing logos, packaging and so on. It taught me a lot about design, and there were a couple of excellent drawing classes included as well. My training in graphic design has been indispensible in my career as an artist, as I'm able to design my own logos, packaging, website and so on.

Inspiration: Like many artists, I find inspiration comes and goes. People often ask where my ideas come from... where do anyone's ideas come from? The great melting pot of the imagination. They simply are ideas in my imagination that I develop along with my years of experience and research and love for enchanted things, to create the artworks as I feel they should be. I find that things that can spark these ideas are generally beautiful natural objects, shapes in a tree, and so on, as well as stories and fairytales and mythology.
Over the years, and having to find time to paint in between "business work", which I find makes my inspiration run away anyway, I still get artists block. I often just wait it out now, I know inspiration will come back. But in truth, the best cure for artists block is to just paint. Nothing inspires me more than just finishing a painting, I want to jump right into the next one!

Is art your full time job? Yes it is. This does not by any means mean I get to paint all the time though. A career in art has to be very flexible and varied, and find it's income in a lot of different places. My primary income is through sales through my website www.selinafenech.com, and much of my time is spent simply filling orders, packing and shipping, maintaining the website and answering emails. I can often go weeks without time to paint between other business duties such as order filling, networking and negotiations for licensing products, account keeping, advertising, product development and design and so on.
Needless to say, the favourite part of my job is still painting. That, and receiving samples of the cool products that manufacturers have licensed my art for!

Why and how did you become an artist?
There isn't really a reason I became an artist. I just AM an artist. I've always loved art and loved to create art, and it was simply through the encouragement of online peers and fans of the work that I showed on various websites that my career seemed to grow quite on it's own. Of course once I saw the potential for it to grow, I put in a lot of hard work towards that end, both in improving my art itself, and how I present it.

What advice do you have for starting artists or art students considering their career?
There is no one piece of advice that can be given that will ensure a successful art career. What I can say though, is that it IS possible, and not as hard as many people say being a professional artist is. Of course, it's not easy either. It's still a job, it's still work. You have to make sacrifices, be flexible, be inventive, always be learning and researching and finding new ways to make your art better and business better. Because unless you simply work through an agent, you have to be both the best artist you can be, and the best business person you can be. The good thing is, these days there is a lot of technology from internet stores to printing technology that mean starting into an art career does not have to be a big risk, or big investment, you can take it slow while working other art related jobs, which is what I did. I worked for a couple of years as a graphic designer/store attendant/copy centre girl while developing my own business before I could leave and just be self employed.

Why the Fantasy genre? Why Fairies? Why not? I think I read too many fairytale and mythology books, and watched too many sci-fi and fantasy movies as a child. I just love getting caught up in magic, and being able to create images of magical things is even better!

What is your favourite artwork of your own? I could be cliche and say "the next one", and while in some ways this is true (because you should always be improving), I do have some favourites amongst my current works. My all time favourite is Love Me Not. It is a self portrait that I drew at a very emotional time, so it has great personal meaning to me. I almost didn't even release it publicly because it was so personal, however I am glad I did, because the emotion in the artwork has touched so many people, it is wonderful.

Future Goals: I hope to keep being able to support myself as a working artist, but my main goals lie in the quality of my art itself. I simply hope to keep developing my technique and style and skill in painting to produce more and more artwork people will cherish. On a more practical level, I hope to publish some books of my artwork, and through the publishing of my art (in books and other formats) bring magic to the wider population as well.