Author: Alison Hazel   –   Last updated: January 2025

Artist Interview

Arwynne O’Neill

This week I have something really special for you my dear reader. I was recently honored to meet with and interview an outstanding artist and good friend of mine, Arwynne O’Neill from Vancouver, Canada. Arwynne creates a lot of strong female figurative artwork. She explores many mythical and fantasy themes in an irreverent, pinup style.

She blogs about art, books, movies, nostalgia, sociology and anything that interests her. Her favorite medium is pencil drawings, finished and colorized in Photoshop but recently she’s been experimenting with colored pens and colored pencils for a faster turnaround, with more organic results. Arwynne attended the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore, MD, USA and majored in illustration.

Initial Impetus 

Alison: Welcome, Arwynne. What initially drew you to participate in art challenges like Pinktober and Drawcember? Can you tell us a little about your first experience with these contests?

Friends

Arwynne: Well, to be perfectly honest (and I think you know this), it was you! My good friend Alison, dear readers, inspired me to participate in the Inktober/Pinktober challenge.

Dr. Sketchy’s

I hadn’t created any new art since Covid shut down my favorite drawing class, Dr. Sketchy’s, which had been my monthly source of inspiration for nearly a decade. In that time, I created a series of “Zodiac Pinup” calendars starting in 2014. In 2018, I started a series of Badass Goddess calendars. Despite Covid, I had enough material to publish a calendar in 2021, but then I ran out of steam…

Taking Action

In late 2022, a friend discovered my website and gave me a good natured harangue that shamed me into action. I pulled together a few drawings I had been working on but never completed, and added several of my favorites from previous years to publish a sort of “best of” calendar with about five new pieces for 2023. But then I stopped again, until this past summer.

Inktober

When Alison told me about Inktober, I decided to give it a try, and it ended up being one of the best things I did all year! By the end of October, I had 31 new drawings, more than enough material to print a 2025 calendar, and the desire to start up another challenge in December (Drawcember)!

Daily Art Practice

Many artists find it difficult to maintain a consistent creative practice. How has participating in daily art challenges helped you develop a regular artistic routine?

Deadlines

Maybe it’s because I’m a Virgo, but I find I really need an “assignment” or a deadline to get me motivated, until something becomes a daily habit. I can’t just wait until I feel like doing something new because I’m never going to want to do it.

Limber Up

There are all kinds of books that advise writers to do “morning papers” or some kind of journaling, just to keep the writing muscles warm and limber, so I’m coming at art the same way. Not all of my drawings will be good, but I’ll feel good that at least I created something, instead of spending that time scrolling Instagram or YouTube.

Wellbeing Benefits

Many artists speak about the mental health benefits of regular creative practice. What changes have you noticed in your mood and or wellbeing since committing to daily art?

Get Moving

Honestly, drawing every day is a lot like working out every day. I may not always want to do it, I just resolve in my mind that it’s something I have to do every day (or almost every day, because life happens). Then just do it. With exercise, even on days when I don’t want to, I change my clothes and put on my headphones, cue up the latest audiobook or podcast and get moving.

Get Started

With art, I pull out my pencils, pens, sharpeners, etc. and get started. I know I’ll feel better once I’ve done it, whether it’s a workout or a drawing challenge. To paraphrase a quote from Joe Rogan, I don’t know anyone who works out regularly and is depressed.

Build an Art Habit

It’s the principle of creating healthy habits through repetition. If you don’t start somewhere, you’ll never get anywhere. Just commit to making a tiny change, walking around the block or taking the stairs instead of the elevator or carrying a bottle of water with you to remind yourself to hydrate.

Daily Art

Do a quick drawing every day. If structure helps you, do it at the same time every day, right after your morning coffee, or on your lunch break. If you’re a procrastinator, find ways to reward yourself. No lunch break until the drawing is done, or whatever works for you!

Make Space for Art

If you’re a perfectionist, set a timer to take the pressure off deciding when it’s good enough to stop. It’s all about tricking the body/hands into carrying out what the mind wants to accomplish. Don’t think about it, just do it. Set up a space in your home where you can sit down and draw without any preparation.

Reconnecting to Art

You’ve returned to making art after some time away, what role did these daily art practices play in you reconnecting with your artistic passion?

Finding the Fantastical

I hadn’t done any drawing for over a year, aside from a couple of months in 2023, when I attended a drawing class in Vancouver, but I didn’t love the fact that you never know what the model is going to look like. While I appreciate the idea that drawing any model is great practice and all body types, genders, shapes and sizes can be beautiful, my preferred subject matter has always been fantastical women.

Fantasy Inspiration

I really loved the Dr. Sketchy’s concept, where burlesque dancers would pose for three hours in a series of exciting, often heroic poses. They had great themes and costumes, spanning the gamut from traditional pinup outfits, lingerie and feather boas, to famous characters from books and movies, to more outlandish fantasy/sci-fi and horror movie inspired themes.

Take a Risk

One of my favorite models, Little Miss Risk, was always a delight to draw. She’s a bona-fide B-movie actress, having starred in a number of independent films under her “real” name, Tristan Risk. Some of her more memorable costumes were inspired by Mad Max, Aliens, Predator and Quentin Tarantino’s Deathproof. She posed with her pet snake once and those drawings inspired Kadru, the Indian goddess of serpents.

Pinktober in Born

Anyway, this past October, I committed to the Inktober challenge (calling it Pinktober because my pseudonym and website are “Ms. Pink”) and set up my sketchbook with 31 mythological prompts, including goddesses like Eris and Aphrodite, creatures like mermaids and sirens, and strong female characters from popular culture like Elektra and Furiosa.

Accomplishment

Like I said, I didn’t know if I’d be able to complete the challenge, but having an assignment worked so well for me that I found myself drawing every day of October, then turning around and doing it again in December.

Calendar Catalyst

I understand you’ve just created a calendar from your art project pieces. Could you tell us about this thrilling project and how it emerged, like a phoenix, from your daily practice?

2025 Calendar

As soon as Pinktober was over, I decided to print a 2025 calendar from my twelve favorite drawings. I had been disappointed with myself for failing to pull one together in 2024, but I wasn’t sure if these daily challenge sketches were up to my standards for a calendar.

Polish Your Art

My preferred style is a combination of fantasy painting and digital collage, so these new drawings seemed very unfinished to me. But I managed to bridge the gap between the fresh, spontaneous style and a more polished look by scanning them in and cleaning them up in Photoshop.

Time Crunch

The fact that I had a very limited time to produce a calendar between November 1st and the end of the year prevented me from getting too picky with the details. I was able to get all twelve drawings finalized and the PDF sent to my local printer (MinuteMan Press, highly recommended!) and they were ready before the end of November.

Micro to Macro Approach

Some artists feel intimidated by large projects or blank canvases. How have these daily art activities, with their smaller scope and size, affected your approach to creating art?

Sketchbook

I bought a small (6″ x 6″) sketchbook for Inktober and Drawcember, which was not only perfect for posting to Instagram but also kept me from getting intimidated by a larger blank page.

Reference Images

In addition to using some of my previous drawings and photos of myself and my mother as inspiration, I combed my Instagram feed for great images of burlesque dancers and other heroic babes as a way of finding much-needed reference models.

Modern Inspiration

The big difference between now and a few years ago is Artificial Intelligence (AI). When I was creating my list of prompts for December, I asked ChatGPT to provide some inspiration with a list of winter-themed goddesses.

Extended Repertoire

It returned a lot of names I was familiar with, and had drawn in the past, like Sedna, Marzanna and Yuki-Onna, the Japanese Snow Woman, but also a number of goddesses and creatures I never thought of, like Winter Dryad, Skadi, the Norse goddess of winter, and Perchta, the winter goddess of the Northern Alps.

Art Prompts

Even better, when I found myself staring at an empty page and not knowing where to begin, I could ask Meta AI (the free one that is now bundled with WhatsApp) for inspiration. I would start out by saying something like, “imagine the goddess Arachne in comic book style” and it would create an image for me.

Refined Reference Images

It usually took at least three or four refinements, and about half the time, it failed to return anything I liked. But other times, I got a great reference image, and the AI is getting better every day.

Technology

AI is already a huge game changer in so many aspects of our lives, and art is no exception. There are pitfalls and controversies to be sure, but if artists can use it to generate ideas, we can at least benefit from this technology that is throwing so many creative industries into chaos.

Imaginarium

My advice is to experiment with the free AI tools as much as possible. Ask it for ideas, reference models, different poses, different costumes, backgrounds, whatever you struggle with imagining on your own. Brainstorming is one of the things it does best.

Pay it Forward

What advice would you give to other hobby artists who might be hesitant to even start art again or participate in daily art challenges?

Promise

Just do it. Commit to doing something every day, no matter how small. When I started the Inktober challenge, I thought I would have trouble drawing every day so I set myself a 20-minute time limit. I never actually needed it, but that was a way of tricking myself into getting started. Who can’t commit to 20 minutes?

Muscle Memory

Draw something… anything. Draw your pet or a plant, or anything you can see out your window. Copy a drawing by a favorite artist or a picture you like in a magazine. Ask AI for inspiration and reference material for your drawings. Get your hands moving every day (or once a week, whatever works for you). Once you trigger that muscle memory, your body will remember what it’s like to create.

Enter The Void

In time, just like any form of exercise, it will get progressively easier and easier. You’ll start to feel a strange guilt or emptiness when you don’t do it. On those days, you can brainstorm for ideas and write them down as prompts in your drawing journal, which will make it easier to start your next drawing.

It’s Never Too Late

This applies to any medium, by the way. My grandmother was a gifted artist who drew and painted all her life. In her 60s, took up clay sculpture and filled her home with tiny nude figures and familiar celebrities. I would open her fridge to find half-finished fairies and elves between the eggs and yogurt cups being serenaded by the torso of Jimi Hendrix. So it’s never too late.

Author Bio: Alison Hazel

Alison Hazel is a hobby artist and she shares her ongoing journey about becoming an artist later in life. She creates simple art that anyone can make. She hopes to inspire you to reach your creative potential in the area that suits you.

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