Cachetejack is Nuria Bellver and Raquel Fanjul, a Spanish freelance illustration duo with a nomadic lifestyle working together since 2011. The crew has always been about more than just the illustration, making women professionals more visible and celebrating simple pleasures of life. Cachetejack explores, discovers and brings hidden gems to the surface while making progress in a variety of mediums like books, magazines, clothing, painting and illustration. We asked them some questions to get to know the creative duo better.
Cachetejack will speak at the Forward Festival Vienna in September. Next to them, you will be able to hear Creatives like Alice Isaac, Fons Hickmann, Ju Schnee and many more.
First off, back at your Art Uni time, how did you end up creating a duo and what do you think made you such a good pair? What did you see in each other that made you want to start working together?
It was in our last year of uni 2011 that we wanted to work together. We were so angry with the university system that we decided to create art manifestos to stir our minds and those of our classmates, that’s how Cachetejack was born as a secret persona who wrote art manifestos. We were united by our humor and critical sense when it came to seeing the world.
How did things begin to kick off for you at the very beginning? And so how do you approach and percept your work now?
In the beginning, we started to try many ways of discovering our own style. We have made progress in the synthesis and learned how to focus on where we want to head to. There was a lot of chaos and obsession, but, on the other hand, a lot of enthusiasm and energy that are helping us to stay afloat today.
Cachetejack has a strong and humorous identity in terms of the work you make and some of that seems to come from your bio. Where does your love for drawing stem from?
Humor comes from our personality and us being together, it multiplies. We have always considered that the image must have a clear and direct message, and we prefer to use it with humor. The less good things also go better with humor and it is accessible to everyone.
Your latest NFT ‘ Goddess Temple ’ of the collection ‘The pleasure is all ours’ is dedicated to women’s visibility and their eternal power. How would you describe being a female artist in a creative industry? Would you like to change or tuck in anything about it?
Being women artists within the NFT world where the majority are men, we wanted to focus on the visibility of women and our rights and freedoms, to expose female pleasure without hesitation. We work in our daily lives to respect our environment and ourselves and we have to do the same in the professional world. It is a commitment to ourselves.
What do you think is the key to a successful artistic career? And what does it mean to be successful for you?
The key to success is believing in yourself and trusting in what you have inside. Be true to your instincts and be honest with yourself, be ready to stumble many times so as to get back up again. Also enjoying what you did like as a child is being successful.
In your opinion, what makes a creative concept outstanding?
When something excites us from within, stimulates our senses and stands out.
You both are originally from Spain. Any hints for the best spots where to enjoy art there?
In Spain, everything you can see around inspires you: a lot of humor, irony, people and, of course, their expressions in the way of talking. The sun and the blue sky are also always inspiring because you feel a lot of energy. The cheerful color and lifelong traditions such as long meals with friends and family make time enjoyable and shared. In terms of the illustration world in Spain, we have been to many self-publishing festivals like Gutter fest (Barcelona), Graf, Tenderete (Valencia), or urban art festivals like Festival Asalto (Zaragoza) and Poliniza (Valencia).
You work across a range of different commercial projects as well as gallery shows, exhibitions, workshops and talks. What do you prefer doing the most? When are you at your happiest?
We like to have a balance between these two things: having commercial jobs (where we expose our style & message) and our drawings. We also need our creative side totally free while playing around without judgment. We really enjoy making our exhibitions and experimenting with unlimited creativity in any medium.
What will the future of illustration look like?
We observe that more people resemble each other, that their styles are being unified and very few people take their time and dedicate themselves 100% to be unique in the world of illustration. We hope that in the future quality and respect for art and not TRENDS will be valued more.
We were wondering if you had any advice for anyone from the creative industry on how they can make a better effort to educate themselves?
Our advice is to listen to yourself, trust your talent and experiment without fear.
Creating a duo such as yours is a dream for many artists. What are your hopes for the future now, despite what you have already achieved? What’s up next for Cachetejack in the nearest few months or years?
Cachetejack still has a lot to tell and many ideas to show. We would like to enter the world of art with sculptures, parks and paintings. Cachetejack is on a large scale!
Were all of the illustrations you drew in your artist book brand new and created exclusively for 100for10?
90% exclusive, yes. My plan for the book was this one: I just got two new sketchbooks and filled them up to the very last page with new illustrations, so I would then have enough pieces for the book. I also found the idea of being able to show two original books at the end very tempting. And the plan worked out very well.
Are the illustrations coherent, or does each one of the artworks stand for itself?
They tend to stand alone. The book is intended to give an insight into my style and their variations.
What was your main source of inspiration for the illustrations?
I always like to gather my inspiration from different sources. While I was working on the book, I found a lot of inspiration from nature, as I've spent a lot of time in the countryside over the past year. These influences were then mixed with various science fiction artists of the 70s and 80s. Art Nouveau has also been a great source of inspiration for me for several years.
How much time did you spend drawing all of them?
100FOR10 contacted me in May 2021. I started right away and finished it by the end of 2021.
Are there times when you lack inspiration? If yes, what helps you get out of that state?
Of course I also go through such phases. An ideal situation for this to happen is when you would have time to spare anyways and then you can take advantage of it and give yourself time to think ideas through and not torment yourself by feeling pressured. However, if inspiration is lacking at certain a moment where the job is pending and you can’t think of a brilliant idea, it always helps me to put everything down and go for a walk. It doesn't matter if it’s stormy or sunny, walking is good for body and mind. Usually after a walk, when you get back to your workplace you definitely have at least a rough idea.
Could you tell us a little bit about your illustrating process and how you get into your workflow?
I have two ways of starting. Firstly, I draw very rough sketches with fine-liners on cheap copy paper, therefore I also don't feel wasteful. The second part starts directly on the Cintiq. As soon as the sketch is ready, it is either scanned and then a second layer of lines is depicted in Adobe Illustrator, or the second layer is switched on directly and worked out. As soon as the lines are all in place, I’m creating the shadow areas. As a third step, I put a layer under the line and shadow layers and create a colour composition.
For this book, however, as I already mentioned, I drew all the illustrations analogously in sketchbooks, scanned them and edited them in Illustrator so that they were clean and all in the same shade of black.
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