When cover artist Esther Helas of Providence was in high school, her biology teacher caught her drawing in class. One day the teacher, Edwin Yoo, handed her a sketchbook and said, “Do it here,” the digital illustrator recalls. “That changed my life,” Helas says. She became serious about art and, after taking a figure drawing class on weekends at MassArt, wanted to make a career of it. She enrolled in the Illustration BFA Program at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. “After two years, I decided to make a detour,” she says. “I wanted to focus on the creative and fun part of it, which I wasn’t really doing in the program.”
Currently, she’s attending Johnson & Wales University and studying finance. Art remains a strong interest for her, however. “I wish it could financially support me,” she says. “But you never know.” Helas creates her art in Adobe Photoshop using a drawing tablet. She totes a sketchbook in which she draws with copic markers, mostly, and graphite pencils. “I like to use bright colors on a white background for a nice contrast,” she says. That’s the technique she used for the cover of Motif. Against a stark background stand colorful portraits of Ocean State must-haves for an RI transplant – like her – to enjoy, such as calamari, lobster rolls, Portuguese sweet bread, and almond croissants.
One of her favorite foods is the veggie burger at Chomp Kitchen and Drinks on Ives Street in PVD. Noting that PVD is a foodie hotspot, Helas says during our interview at Nice Slice on Westminster Street, “I want to get more adventurous with my vegetarian eating.” Helas sells her prints online, and on weekends she participates in art pop-ups such as Art in the Jungle at Jordan’s Jungle in Pawtucket. One of her favorite illustrators is Sachin Teng. “I’m drawn to her digital art because of how abstract and clean it is. And her use of fonts is something which I like to do in my art as well,” Helas says.
Another is Mateusz Urbanowicz, a watercolor and digital painting artist. “I like how beautifully messy his work is. I love the textures, too,” she says. Pointing out some of his work on Instagram, she comments, “He draws such intricate backgrounds, which I don’t do, so I’m very jealous of that.” At least once a year, Helas goes to the RISD Museum in PVD. She’s also gone to the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston, MA, and Gallery NAGA which is also in Beantown. “It’s about the size of this room,” she says of NAGA, gesturing around the Nice Slice interior. Helas has also viewed the pottery and ceramics on display at the Pucker Gallery in Boston. “Art is art,” she says simply. “At the Newport Art Museum I took a water coloring class, so it was like two for one,” she adds.
The illustrator was born and raised in Boston. She moved to Pawtucket with her mother in 2019 and, when Mom returned to Massachusetts a year later, Helas moved to PVD with her cat Prince. “The art scene is huge here,” she adds with a smile. Helas listens to soft or alternate rock when she’s drawing or sketching. “Anything slow,” she explains, “Because if it’s too upbeat, I’ll want to get up and dance or do some exercises.” She particularly likes what she calls “sad girl music” performed by The Marias. “My Mom always dreamed that I’d go into the medical field with her. But after doing a year of urgent care, I realized it wasn’t for me, and I wanted to pursue a career in art,” she notes. Helas, although she doesn’t have much time to read and wishes she had more, says one of her favorite authors is Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere. For Helas, her motto is: “The thing is to live your life, find inspiration, and create.”
Helas’s digital artwork and prints can be viewed at miscprints.square.site/s/shop
