Interview With an Artist: Plinio Pinto

Sometimes art is a mystery. And sometimes we “get it” and just want to know more. What could have inspired the artist? What does it mean? How do they make what they make? We love it when an artist is willing to sit down and talk to us about what makes them tick and where their work comes from.

Plinio Pinto

Plinio Pinto has been painting popular culture since he graduated from college. Primarily known as an illustrator, his depictions of celebrities, political figures, and pop culture icons boast a portrait-like quality that emanates from one of the most difficult mediums known to any artist: watercolor.

Florida Music Festival 09 - Cooper, Pop & Zappa © Grape Soda Studios, Inc.

Watercolor is an unforgiving medium. You can’t really “erase” anything; you can only blot the paper, hoping to draw the errant pigment from out of the paper. And you can’t paint over an area to start over like you would when using a paint that dries in separate layers, like oil or acrylic. In watercolor, the touch of the brush must be deft and gentle, or the artist risks lifting the pigment from layers below or even destroying the surface of the paper. Plino creates portraits with layer after layer of washes of carefully mixed and placed pigment. A trained illustrator, he’s known to deconstruct the mystery on his Facebook page, breaking down the magical process into real steps for all to see. Here’s the kick: it’s still magic.

© Grape Soda Studios, Inc. Click to enlarge

Whether a commissioned portrait or a face we recognize, the twinkle in the eye and the tenderly painted skin of his subjects speak to the fact that a good portrait is more than just an accurate likeness — it needs some spirit. And that is just what bleeds from the tip of Pinto’s brush.

We wanted to know more, and the artist was kind enough to sit down and talk to Guy.com about his work:

I noticed that you do straight portraits as well as caricatures. Is it the client that determines the style, or does the subject matter suggest its method of capture?

“A little bit of both. Sometimes the subject matter just screams ‘caricature’ such as movie stars, singers and people that are in the limelight or having their 5 minutes of fame. Politicians are also an easy target for caricatures. A straight up portrait, in the other hand, might get limited to not only the subject but also to the type of publication hiring you.”

Limited Edition Skate Decks © Grape Soda Studios, Inc.

About the limited edition skate decks with pop culture images… How did that project start out?

“I was hired by a local store to create a limited edition skate deck featuring a famous skater to be sold at their store and it was such as cool project that I started my own limited edition decks! So every 6 months I design a deck, featuring something recent that I created, and I put it for sale on my online store.”

All images compiled from separate illustrations, each © Grape Soda Studios, Inc.

About your Star Wars “sketch book,” how do you approach pop culture icons that have been depicted in such a ubiquitous manner and still keep it fresh? Are there any special precautions you take, or any strategy to keep the imagery from lapsing into some sort of fan-boy copy-cat realm?

“Funny you mentioned the fan-boy-copy-cat thing. I’ve been going to Comic/Sci-fi Conventions these past years and a lot of the art work that some of the artist have been displaying in their booths are so plain: always the same medium, a lot of digital work, and the same appeal. I think that working in watercolor gets the viewer’s attention because they are not used to it. They haven’t seen it yet. My next project is going to be targeted to the comic/sci-fi crowd. I’m going to be working with some well-known Cosplayers in the country, painting their portraits and trying to show how amazing these costumes are. I hope to generate some buzz and take this show around the country, who knows?”

What drew you do that subject matter (Star Wars)? Are you a fan?

“Just like everything else I paint, it needs to attract me visually first. Yeah, I’m a fan. The Return of the Jedi was one of the first movies I remember watching in the theater and I can still remember Vader’s huge face in the screen when Luke took his mask off. So, with that said, what attracts me visually doesn’t really mean the same thing as looking pretty!”

''Diablo is cool and so is the game'' © Grape Soda Studios, Inc.

Is there a portrait subject that stands out from the rest in your career? And was it your relationship to the subject matter or the process that made it unique?

“All portraits are singular. I remember creating every single portrait and seriously, if you get too attached to them, you will not make money in this career. However, it is really cool when you get some kind of feedback from the actual celebrity that you painted. I was fortunate to meet some of them through their actual painting. I was contacted, by email and by twitter, by the writer/director Diablo Cody. She saw a portrait of her that I painted a few years back, she liked it so much and wanted to buy it.

I think the style of my portraits is still in development. I’m discovering new techniques and approaches to each portrait and I think that is also why each painting is unique.”

© Grape Soda Studios, Inc.

Your portraits on wood grain have a transcendental quality. I think of Erin and Lucy Liu. Are there others? Were you experimenting, and how did that technique come about?

“That is another example of the different approach that I’m experimenting with. I only have 5 portraits in that style. They are actually black and white watercolor painted on paper, then scanned and digitally layered on a scanned image of a piece on wood. I wanted it to look like it was screen printed but ended up with something very light and transparent. I really like it but it looked like an Audrey Kawasaki.”

© Grape Soda Studios, Inc. Click to enlarge.

Why watercolor?

“Watercolor is the only medium that I was actually totally comfortable in using from the very beginning. I have painted with oils, acrylics, gouache, house paint, and Venetian Plaster, but the only thing that actually gives me satisfaction is painting with watercolors.

The only reason to actually take watercolors to the level that I do is to have people that think watercolor is a boring medium do a double take and ask themselves: ‘is that watercolor?’ ”

Johnny Cash © Grape Soda Studios, Inc.

When creating a celebrity or political portrait, whose perception are you trying to capture? The general audience? Something the subject matter might be trying to project about themselves? Is it how you see the subject?

“When you’re illustrating a political piece, it is really important to capture the meaning of the article as well as the physical appearance of the subject in your illustration. Capturing the looks of celebrities is easier only because we’re more exposed to them, and obviously their looks are more striking, since that’s just part of being a celebrity. However, if the assignment is just a straight up portrait, and not so much a caricature, then it is nothing more than my interpretation of the subject.”

Plinio Pinto offers a fresh take on the history of portraiture, modernizing the subject matter, and proving that a gentle touch and attention to detail whether on a tattooed twenty-something, a rugged rock star, or a young woman’s face should mirror the way we see the world — through the skin and into the subject we know. See the sidebar to the right for links to more of his work.