Payton Becwar: Pro Doodler and Cool Girl Extraordinaire

Known for her dynamic portraits and the vibrant “doodles” that light up our Instagram feeds, the local artist and cool girl extraordinaire Payton Becwar (19), sat down with Rabble Media to tell us about her creative process, dream project and inspiration across the decades.

Do you like working with the human face a lot?

Yeah, that’s what I love to draw, I don’t know why I just feel like you can capture a lot about the face- you can tell a story about it. I just spend a lot of time looking at faces and finding ways to manipulate the face and morph it.

Is there anything you’re really proud of and then anything you really aren’t digging about your art right now?

I think I like the way I have energy in my art, I like to work really fast- I do a lot of cross hatching and scribbling and stuff. I kind of have a plan basically of how I work and I like that, because some people don’t. But anyway, a weakness? Probably not so much in my art but more so what I need to get done, I will procrastinate doing things and I need to stop that. Or I’ll have too many ideas, and then I’ll try to do it and it’s like this is not even comprehendible. I wish I was organized with my work!

Since you’ve been making art pretty much your whole life, have you ever thought about what your art means to you, or what part of yourself it represents?

I have trouble talking to people, so my art puts what I have to say more so in pictures, cause with me being an ADHD bitch how I understand things is more like visually. It lets people know what I have to say when I can’t really say it.

A big struggle for a lot of artists is art style- do you feel like you’ve struggled a lot with finding your style and comparing yourself to other people?

I just kind of do whatever comes natural to me, like on paper I’ll say okay this is what my brain is gravitating towards, this must be what I like to do… it’s just kind of making something that is true to you and original and creative.

If you had unlimited time, and an unlimited budget, and the only thing you had to work on was one project, what would it be?

I have always wanted to make super big things, but my brain doesn’t have the attention span for it- but I would love to put different pieces together or manipulate some type of surface or draw on things. I love to debate like old versus young thought, I would love to take some pictures of old renaissance type paintings and draw over them, or draw onto them to kind of say like this is what’s new, and that’s what’s old.

Do you have artistic influences in both the old and the newer world?

I definitely have respect for older art and old artists, it’s just that you kind of have to keep up with the time – I love to see what was popular in art during the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s and I love to incorporate what’s going on now, but still remember what has been created.

What would you say your personal definition of ‘real art’ is?

I feel like art is, to me, seeing a piece and knowing that’s what comes natural to that person, when you can see the artist’s hand, you see visually like what what they’re trying to convey, that’s why when I was little I would look at art and be like this is boring! But, you have to realize what goes on behind the scenes. So yeah, definitely just seeing someone’s originality and creativity not only in the visual, but in the medium and in their hands. It’s like being in art school and being an art student: you have to work with every single medium and you start to realize how painstakingly hard and long these people must have worked on shit. Seeing someone who’s stuck with something and seeing someone’s originality and creativity is just beautiful- it makes me cry!