One of our favourite styles of yours is needle felting, please could you tell us how your felted friends series came about?

I was curating an artist open house in Brighton called Into The Woods in 2010. I had some of my needle felted animals for sale including a scene of dogs playing poker, which was used for a window display for a boutique in Brighton called Florentin. An editor from Making magazine had seen my work at my open house and wanted me to create a step-by-step tutorial “How to Make a Needle Felted Sparrow”. Then, a few months later after the issue came out, CICO Books saw the article and got in contact with me, asking if I would like to do a “How to make” needle felted animals book with them. I immediately said yes (even though I was heavily pregnant and my due date was in two weeks). Sure enough after a lot of sweat, blood and tears I completed the book three months later with 35 different animal tutorials. Phew!

I really enjoyed making this book, it was a big challenge and a big change to sitting in an office doing graphics for e-learning companies. It was incredibly stressful with a newborn baby with colic but it is incredible what mums can do! Looking at the creatures I had created I felt they would make a great children’s picture book, the way they are pictured in scenes, what is their story. When my book was launched in Waterstones later that year, Allison Green Book’s Art Director, Zoe Tucker, approached me and said that she thought my characters would make an amazing children’s picture book… which is my ultimate dream. A few years later, that is what I am currently working on with two stories I have written myself. I am off to Bologna Children’s Book Fair this April to approach publishers with my stories. When I get back from my trip I will upload some of my illustrations to my website, keeping it a secret for now.

We loved your David Bowie tribute piece, what was your favourite thing that he did and why?

Thank you, the Ziggy Owl was commissioned by The Specky Wren opticians in Brighton for their advertising campaign. They asked for a surreal owl and so I decided to do a tribute to David Bowie as he had recently passed away, it was the perfect way for me to grieve. The Specky Wren decided that the owl didn’t need glasses after all once I showed them my sketch, they loved it. I would say my most favourite thing David Bowie did for me is the way he was so good at surprising people. Creating such striking characters that blew your mind using weird and wonderful theatrical costumes combined with witty and sometimes risky lyrics, he created something powerful, something special and something unique. One of my favourite videos is Ashes To Ashes – I love all of David Bowie’s theatrical costumes. His hat in this video inspired my logo.

David was my dad’s life-long friend, and he has so many unbelievable and amazing stories to tell, there is a great article about my dad that appeared in the Guardian recently to give you an idea: George Underwood: the artist who led Bowie to make music. David once said to me when I was a teenager that I am great at writing imaginative stories – and, he encouraged me to write. Together with the whole family we used to play fun writing games like consequences and the dictionary game. He was such fun. His words have really stuck in my head recently, and has given me the confidence to persevere with my own stories. To find the strength from within and be confident with who I am and create my own imaginative stories and characters, staying true to myself.

Unlike a lot of illustrators you have resisted the temptation to be typecast in a certain working style, has this been a conscious choice?

Well that has happened naturally. I absolutely love trying out new techniques and materials. I think it is good for the creative mind to try something new rather than doing the same thing all the time. I really enjoy the beginning phase of a new project, the creative process you go through thinking up ideas, exploring different mediums and techniques. I love a challenge! I have had some unusual commissions, but I have always stayed true to who I am. The outcome is still Mia Underwood.

Why do you think that traditional crafts are still so popular and versatile today?

Handmade is never going to go out of fashion, you just cannot replicate it in machine made products. I am constantly inspired and blown away by the talent I see day-to-day on Instagram and Pinterest. For me it is not so much the finished product but the process that I go through, from creating the idea of what I want to make to sourcing the right materials to creating the piece, I enjoy learning along the way  and this handmade process leaves a unique story.

You come from a very creative family, could you tell us more about them?

My mum and dad are both creative in different ways. My dad, George Underwood, is a fine artist who has had several paintings accepted in the Royal Academy Summer Show. For many years he was a commercial illustrator with FOLIO as his agent. He has painted hundreds of book covers, adverts for billboards and magazines. Before this he designed some of the most famous record sleeve covers including: David Bowie, Marc Bolan, The Fixx, Gentle Giant…the list goes on and on.

My mum, Birgit Underwood is Danish, a self taught chef, she had her own company called Twenty-Two doing corporate catering for high brow clients, such as The Danish Embassy and The BBC. She now concentrates on making a traditional Scandinavian almond cake/biscuit called Kransekage. In my mum’s spare time she loves to garden, do pottery and knit beautiful jumpers for my kids and socks for the adults. My mum has an art for putting things together that look pleasing to the eye and she is a real perfectionist, which I try to live up to. I am definitely a mixture of my mum and dad.

Who has been your greatest influence as an artist?

My dad made the biggest impression on me when I was young, he taught me how to draw and paint. He continues to inspire me today with his detailed oil paintings of imaginative people, warriors and landscapes. You begin to question who are these people? What is their story? Is it a man or a woman? But it is not only the subject matter I find inspiring but the sheer scale of the paintings and illustrations that he has achieved in the last 50 years, simply mind blowing. The amount of painstaking detail he puts into each piece is phenomenal, whether it is the patterns on the metal of a warrior’s helmet or the iris of an eye. The lighting on these imaginative figures brings them all to life, very clever. He also has the most amazing art book collection on hundreds of different artists from abstract to surreal. Before the internet it was my main source of inspiration looking through these books and going to art exhibitions around London. My particular favourites as a teenager were; Max Ernst, Hieronymus Bosch and Paul Klee. I would also say my mum and my grandmother have influenced the style and confidence of my artwork. I am always inspired by Scandinavian art, design and handmade crafts, it is where my heart is. My favourite place to draw and paint was always in the kitchen while my mum/grandmother were cooking, it was so comforting and cosy.

We love Mia’s work and are extremely excited to see her unique style develop further. Traditional 3D techniques like needle felting lend themselves perfectly to animation and could be great way to develop bespoke branding and create a memorable campaign (check out our 8 Ways to Brand Animation blog post). We look forward to one day collaborating with Mia and experimenting with another groundbreaking blend of digital CGI and traditional mediums.

See more of Mia on her links below

Website:www.miaunderwood.co.uk
Facebook: miaunderwoodartist
Instagram: miaunderwood_art
Pinterest: miaunderwood22
Twitter: miaunderwood22

All images are copyright of Mia Underwood.