Meet Sarah Henwood | Visual Development and Story Artist

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

Hi Sarah, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
I don’t think that I knew many other kids who voluntarily woke up well before sunrise, let alone on a weekend. Saturday mornings were a precious opportunity to sleep in for my brothers, a rare flicker of peace for my parents, and several uninterrupted hours of unfettered access to the TV remote for me. My animalistic desire to absorb as much animated content before the I could be lectured for sitting too close caused me to wake up progressively earlier—6 a.m. was the sweet spot. I would fill a full ream of perforated fax paper with doodles by the time my parents were conscious enough to drag me kicking and screaming out of the living room. I still wake up early, although now at a far more reasonable 7 a.m. but I think the innate fascination with animation and its unique ability to give personality and heart to literally anything is something that I can only attribute to spending an eye-numbing amount of time plastered to a screen with a pencil in hand.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I have very little patience for scrupulous detail and polish; I tend to favor loose but clear character sketching because there is something infinitely more interesting to me about a character’s inner world or interactions than their direct environment. My favorite drawings are frequently quickly doodled moments of character acting, a skill that carried over beautifully from my tenure as a theatre kid. I feel as though I have an obligation to myself to leave this question a little half-baked, because while I am incredibly proud of the progress I have made as an artist, as I graduate college I think that it would be disingenuous to pretend that I am complete. While I undertake the sizable challenge of proving that I am not only competent enough to be hired but that I am deserving of said job, the only thing that I continually remind myself of is the idea that to get my name out there, it only takes one company to hire me.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Any and every museum within a 30 mile radius is absolutely fair game; obviously the big ones like the Getty, the Getty Villa, LACMA, the Broad, MOLAA but also just popping in to every little gallery space in the Arts district! The Guatemalan Night Market, Thai Town, Ubuntu, and 4th Street Market have a great variety of food. The Rose Bowl Flea Market is a great place to walk around, find cool vintage oddities and have a competition for who can find the most cursed item. Tattered is genuinely one of the best resale shops in the greater LA area, very fun place to look around. Close the week off with a walk along the beach and I’d say that’s a pretty solid trip!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I don’t think I will ever be thankful enough for the ridiculous amount of support that my parents have given me. I think with the amount of time I spent drawing as a kid, the idea of me pursuing art as a career was less of a blindside and more of an inevitable progression, but I know that the fickle nature of the entertainment industry and the pervasive idea of the starving artist made them wary of the idea for want of a better word. But their caution was never condemnation of my choices, as they took every opportunity to understand me as I complained about esoteric problems with art software, and love the passion that I have for my silly little lines.

Website: https://www.shenwoodart.com/

Instagram: @shenwoodart