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I am Pēteris Līdaka.
I work in advertising as a creative. Currently I work for an advertising agency «Mooz!».
In my heart, probably like everyone working in advertising, I am an artist.
I screwed up on the first question! Who am I?
Get up in the morning, go to work, check out the new projects, go to meetings, think of ideas.
I also follow what the young ones are doing.
We have fun…
I barely follow, but we have to watch a lot of Youtube… have to drink coffee, read emails.
Well, there are different approaches to how to be creative.
There’s a certain empirical basis which you can use to get your way through,
but, of course, there are also «dry» days.
For me, usually, three months a year are taken by «ADwards».
They spare me at work, they don’t involve me in other projects during that time.
I made the «Sucks! and Rules!» characters,
the Ear, the Mouth, and the Eyes,
the erasers, the monsters…
yes, and last year, the graphic one…
the letters out of blocks.
This year, I didn’t spend so many nights, but last year, when I made the erasers and the pencils,
I actually filmed all that after work during the night.
When everyone’s gone…
They said they needed three clips, and we made eight.
We really had fun ourselves.
I like to work fast, mess around…
Here are some cats I drew for children.
It was Christmas, and the year of the Cat, that’s why the cats have socks.
Actually I don’t like cats at all
because I don’t like the smell of their pee…
if I’m honest.
One magazine had a topic on Nano-machines, I drew different gadgets that destroy bacilli.
There was a story where they were digging up some sort of Jewish site, and they mixed up houses.
It made a lot of fuss, a lot of onlookers gathered there;
there were a lot of police, and TV cameras.
Everything according to the articles. Illustrations.
So I have these different ways I draw birds, and also objects the way they could look.
I had a feeling that I am stuck in my work,
that there’s no progress,
so Ēriks [Stendzenieks, director of «Mooz!»] encouraged me to go and study in London.
He recommended Central St. Martins College, so I applied and got in.
I studied communication design and illustration.
I barely got in; I couldn’t pass the English exam. Some four times I set the IELTS exam.
I think eventually they took mercy on me and gave me the needed score;
otherwise I wouldn’t have got in.
The first year we were all together in there – lectures, briefs, etc.
They mixed the tasks – making fonts, drawing, or photography.
In the first year, they assign tasks, in the next year you do whatever you want, you make your own projects.
Go to the critics once a week.
Everyone’s watching you and listening to what you have to say, and tell what they think.
A very painful day.
I didn’t draw this way before.
Live drawing lessons did very much for me, they helped me loosen up, to give in to the process.
I’ve got a whole lot of these… I could show you.
This was a female model with a racoon mask.
I don’t know where the other animals came from – it’s my imagination.
Here, I drew a little dog.
This one was quick, two minutes or so.
There’s no time to think, just take another sheet.
My thesis was on cyborgs.
I was reading so much about cyborgs...
I drew a lot of people as robots, maybe that is the case.
This is some nonsense. A bit rude.
It’s embarrassing to admit, but I like terminators.
I know everything about them; I’ve watched them some eighty times.
I also like Rambo, Chuck Norris.
I like Van Gogh, Miró.
What else... Steinberg.
He draws very similarly...
must have got it from me.
After this, I made quite a lot of planes.
This plane is here.
Looks almost like this.
And… this one is this plane here.
This one here,
it’s meant to be like this.
And they fly in all directions?
And this one…
rather different proportions, but that’s O.K.
This one was the last one I made at the school; what can I tell you about it...
My wife was winding the threads, for a month, at least.
This piece… since I am not an ironworker, I find it hard to work with it.
This took me a week or so to make.
This was meant to be a flying mill.
In the animated piece, I had Don Quixote get caught in the wings and shoot off.
My signature comes from a childhood drawing.
I write P and Ē the other way round, and the rest is the right way.
Something like that.
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