CHRIS PERETO
Drawing is something I’ve been doing since before I was five. The act has always seemed, to me, to be as natural as breathing. It was always there. I have always felt the need to show things that weren’t being portrayed in the (all too many) cartoons I used to watch. The sort of slice-of-life things one would see in photographs. Unguarded moments where the characters were, as it were, caught in the act of being themselves.
As such, mixed media has proven to be the best way for me to convey the photographic quality I was aiming for. Initially I wanted to be more “toony” (unbroken black outlines, little-or-no shading, etc.) but, about ten years ago, I began breaking up the lines and adding more detail. This evolution process felt too natural to resist, and thus, my current style became what it is.
Ever since reading Richard Scarry at an early, impressionable age, I have always preferred using animal characters in my works in lieu of humans. There is more freedom to play around with characterization and avoid (or even demolish) stereotypes. In the words of animator Chuck Jones, “…it is easier to humanize animals than it is to humanize humans.”
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