Mixed media artist Sonia Alins employs semitransparent paper to create a water-like effect to her unique illustrations. Exploring the expressiveness of elements such as transparency and blur, her illustrations display dream-like settings in which women interact with water. Whether diving, floating or fully submerged in water, her cartoonish women seem to be detached – out of time and place.
Using watercolored paper for the backdrop, her characters are drawn with ink, and then cut and placed on the semitransparent paper. Alins sometimes adds wool underneath that adds texture and depth to the finished product.
“When I start working on a piece, I have a very clear idea about what I want to get,” she relayed in an interview with Our Culture Magazine. “When I finally see that idea reflected in the artwork, I know I have finished it. Sometimes It’s a hard process and I need to repeat the artwork more than once until I achieve my objective.”
“Almost anything (a personal experience, an impression, a landscape) is likely to become part of my artworks,” she added, talking about her sources of inspiration. “My family and my dreams are a great source of inspiration too: some days I wake up with a good repertoire of ideas from my dreams. Sometimes I think my mind keeps working even when I’m asleep.”
Enter her dream-like universe:
