Abbie Smith

Abyssal Zone

My name is Abbie Smith and I am an illustrator whose style combines graphical and fantasy. The art I create could be described as “sketchy” or “rough”, but I am able to adapt to a steadier and cleaner style.

My motivation for this project stemmed from the vastly unexplored ocean- of which we have only seen approximately 5% of. Surprisingly, I’m afraid of the ocean, but my interest in sea creatures overpowered that for this project. I’ve wanted to create illustrations of weird, creepy creatures for a while now, and this project was a great start for it. I researched the creatures of the ocean and handpicked some to turn into beautiful monstrosities.

Lino printing has been my favourite process in my artistic career, it gives me space to experiment however many times I’d like to. This project has inspired me to develop my processes and adapt to some new ones.

My process has been complicated; many experimentations and many versions of the same image were produced; just to try and get the perfect result. It has been quite heavily multimedia-based: mixing traditional paint for the grounds, lino cutting, printing, digital drawing, and more all for the final image. See the process on my website.