Meet Brandi Kim | Illustrator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Brandi Kim and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Brandi, is there a quote or affirmation that’s meaningful to you?
My favorite quote is “Falling down is part of life, getting back up is living.” I resonate with this quote a lot because it summarizes my artistic life. Everyday I practice to draw, paint and design, but I always fail to master those skills. The main reasons I continue on my artist path is my love and passion for art.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Storytelling has always been part of my everyday life and it has been a long journey to develop storytelling skills. Since I was a child, I always looked forward to watching movies, sitcoms, and animated shows, especially Saturday morning cartoons. Watching Archie’s Little Mysteries to Dragon Ball Z opened my eyes and sparked my curiosity about many cultures and different storytelling styles. It has been difficult building confidence and fundamental skills but overcoming tough challenges has helped me grow as an artist. Learning to break my high standards and silencing my cruel inner critic has been the most insightful and liberating lesson I learned. Traveling to different places to plein air painting became one of my daily adventurous hobbies. When visiting various locations to sketch the surroundings it influences me to think about interesting scenarios. For example when sketching at a café in Old Town Orange while observing the workers serving food to customers, I can’t help thinking about elves getting the café ready for the day and preparing food. Part of my process is visualizing ideas, sketching light concepts to create value, mood and color to finalized illustrations. I hope the world know that my daily life is fueled by the opportunity to create and illustrate unlimited stories.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
The place I would take my best friend for a trip would be camping at Limekiln Big Sur. It is one of my favorites places to paint and enjoy the view of mountain river merging into the Pacific Ocean. Waking up at the sound of river, watching mundane life of little critters and cooking at campsite is the best parts of camping.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Throughout my pathway, I am thankful to have learned creative skillset at Fullerton college arts in the entertainment program. Specifically, I am truly thankful of Phil Dimitriadis for building my confidence in my skills and Garrett W. Kaida for his insight and encouragement. While in college I volunteer my time by supporting fellow students, full-time faculty members, and student-run clubs as my way of giving back to the college and community. The two clubs I volunteer to run on campus are the Entertainment Art Student League known as E.A.S.L. and Let’s Gogh Plein Air Club. Every Friday night E.A.S.L. hosts the figure drawing events to the public and Plein Air Club organizes painting sessions with students on the weekends. It is challenging to book models, adjust scheduling, set up dates for events, however it’s been extremely rewarding for me to help others. Fullerton college is a great place to engage in multiple activities that cultivate creativity for artists while creating a social network within the community.

Website: https://bhkimillustration.myportfolio.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bhkim_illustrations

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandi-kim-039869158

Image Credits
Brandi Kim