Smith splits her time between making music, selling music, or translating music and bands into pictures. Some hours Smith spends singing and lending rhythms and melodies to multiple bands (Evening Hymns, The Magic, The Pale Mornings). Other hours she passes at the legendary Toronto record store Soundscapes – both behind the register and as the designer and curator of the vivid, playful displays that decorate the store’s windows. Smith also dedicates precious hours to creating unique, signature gig posters for bands and musicians.

The Iceberg talked with Smith about sketching, the “tension” between innovation and expectation, and the trial and error of creating music and art – and art about music.

Which came first for you – illustration or being a musician? And how does being a musician complement your work as an illustrator and vice versa?

Well, way back in the beginning, drawing came first. But “being a musician” came before “being an illustrator” – I started playing in bands in high school, well before I decided to pursue a degree in art.  In fact, “illustration” as a career goal didn’t properly solidify for me until a few years ago. But being a musician has absolutely helped me with my illustration because I have made tons of gig posters and used them as a forum for working out different approaches and techniques. And, conversely, I can draw any posters or t-shirt designs the band needs or wants and that’s really fun, too.

What other activities, which help extend your love for drawing and music, interest you?

Well I don’t know how directly anything I do extends my love for drawing and music. It’s more that those things become a reflection of my lifestyle or my state of mind. But things I love to do in general include cooking (and eating) especially with other people, sewing, amusement parks, and being outside.  In fact, the act of just “being outside” and finding the perfect conditions in which to enjoy that feeling, might be one of my favourite things ever, but you might not guess that about me because I’m not what you’d call “outdoorsy.”

How do you compose your illustrations for band/gig posters? And how do you decide on which images to use?

Well first I just kind of look at the band’s album artwork, website, etc., and just get a sense for their general aesthetic. This may never actually translate into the final artwork but it’s where I start looking for inspiration. Sometimes though, elements of their look will find themselves literally transplanted into what I draw. Like when I did a poster for Bruce Peninsula – their album cover was a photo of a bunch of sticks and the poster ended up being basically a whole bunch of sticks or logs. Anyway I just come up with some imagery, sometimes literal sometimes not, and then I draw it. I don’t bother too much with layout at this point because the next step is to scan all the drawings into Photoshop and move them around and re-scale them until they look right. Then I add the colour.

Music illustrations are tricky because you have to take into consideration the musician/band and their music itself, and at the same time, be motivated by how the music affects you on a personal level. What’s the most difficult aspect about your artwork?

To be honest the hardest part is the tension I feel between wanting to be true to the particular musician’s already existing artwork, and my desire to create something new and something that feels like my own. This is more an issue with window displays actually which I do for Soundscapes, because those are specifically promoting an album and are basically adaptations from the cover art for a 3D space. But the issue still exists with posters and t-shirts because I’ve been struggling to find a voice or a “style” that’s really my own and that I feel confident with.

What would you say are the fundamental similarities between the art of music and the art of illustration?

Hmm… well in my experience they’re both dependent on trial and error. Lately I haven’t been focusing on writing music, but when I have done so in the past it’s a complex series of “let’s just try this and see what happens” until you come up with something you like. It’s the same with illustration for me – I just come up with a random idea and try it. That’s why all my posters look so different. Eventually I hope to narrow down my experimentation to perfecting smaller aspects of a cohesive method. I think I feel the same way about writing songs.

Nature and interior settings recur as themes in your work. What kind of images are you drawn to?

Yeah that’s true. I guess I like focusing on small or close-up things. I’ve never had any luck with landscapes, and people are tricky. I like drawing people a lot, but it’s harder to get them to stay still than, say, a chunk of old pipe or a bush or something. Not that I don’t draw from photos (aka Google searches) all the time. I do. I have a real fascination with interiors of old buildings and all their weird old obsolete guts. I’d love to do a series on just wires crossing.

What about the use of typography and colours? What sorts of things do you keep in mind when you create artwork that’s going to be hanging at record stores or someone’s home?

As far as typography, I’ve never gotten into using computer fonts. Some people are fabulous at integrating type and hand-drawn imagery, but I’ve always felt like my posters harmonize best when the type is hand-drawn as well. Sometimes I’ll use an existing typeface and draw from that, or I’ll just use my own handwriting.  I’ve tried a lot of different hand-drawn typefaces to varying levels of success. The colours are rarely planned. Occasionally I’ll work within a palette based on someone’s album art or something, but usually it’s trial and error. I tend to favour pastels and what I think of as “sweet & sour” colours… the kind of colours that are saturated but not bright… maroons and dark teals and a lot of chocolate brown.

What images come to mind when you listen to your band’s (Evening Hymns) music? And how would you describe your own aesthetic?

Hmm listening to our band is not something I do very often! Of course I hear the songs a lot because we play them and I know them inside and out, but by now it’s so second nature… It’s less images with Evening Hymns and more a sense of light and darkness. I struggle a lot with how to develop artwork for Evening Hymns. Being so close to a project means I have trouble seeing it from the outside, getting a sense of what kind of imagery suits the music. Obviously nature is a recurring theme but there’s something darker and also sweeter about it that’s hard to capture.

How long does it take for you to create a poster? And how would you describe your ideal workroom?

I try to keep posters down to two days max. I could spend 40 hours on one poster, easy, but I would lose my mind. Sometimes people think that because a gig poster is relatively disposable and short-lived, that it should be whipped off in a few hours, but I can’t create a finished piece that I’m happy with that quickly. It’s a long process.

Right now I work in the front room of my apartment. It’s really sunny and the windows look out on the street, which keeps things interesting (especially in Parkdale).  But it’s a bit cramped. Ok, a lot cramped. Ideally I would have separate workspaces; a desk for the computer, with an actual ergonomic chair (I use a wooden straight-backed chair and that has to stop!), and I’d also have a huge drawing table within view of my computer screen but not at the computer table. Then there’d be a light table that could stay put instead of being dragged in and out of the closet. I’d have a lot of deep shelves to store paper and completed drawings on. And there would be a sink in the same room so washing ink brushes wouldn’t take a trek to the kitchen. Lots of light, and a sound system that isn’t my computer’s speakers. If I had more space I know for certain I’d be making more interesting work. I’d like to start painting again. It’s a real conundrum because I can’t afford to rent a studio, but at the same time I think my career would benefit from having one.

- Sylvie Smith, illustrator & musician

“Flickering Flashlight” by Adam & The Amethysts

The title track is about struggling to keep focused on positivity and positive relationships and not giving up on a goal or on your own happiness when you’re stuck in a time of uncertainty or in a rut or whatever.

You’re alone and keep shaking it awake and whacking your flashlight in the dark with the hopes that it won’t go out for good before you have your chance to find that thing you’re looking for. I also am just a sucker for alliteration, as evinced by my first album title (Amethyst Amulet), and several of my song titles. But I thought that this metaphor described well what I consider to be an important overarching theme of the record. It describes that struggle to keep that light of optimism or focus on true priorities going as best you can in dark times, but also learning not to be afraid of the darkness either. Darkness can be extremely worthwhile. It’s supposed to be an optimistic record.

- Adam Waito (guitar/vocals) of Adam & The Amethysts
Photos by Celia Perrin Sidarous

Read A Song & A Memory: Adam Waito

My cooler older cousin put this song on a mixtape for me when I was in grade 6. I would walk around the schoolyard listening to it on my walkman thinking it was so cool, and thinking that I was so cool for having it on my walkman. I knew with utmost certainty that I was the only kid at St. Vincent’s Elementary School in Thunder Bay, Ontario with that song on his walkman.

For me, a horror fanatic since I was way too young to watch horror films, the fact that there was this band that had written all of these amazingly catchy and badass songs inspired by horror movies… this was earth-shattering for me. I had no idea that music could be that cool. And aside from having ridiculously childish and disgusting, macabre lyrics, and a really catchy tune and cool sort of dark attitude about it, I felt, and still feel, that there’s something genuinely melancholic and tragic about that song (aside from little girls’ heads being hacked off and mounted on some creep’s wall being tragic). It still makes me feel emotional today.

- Adam Waito (guitar/vocals) of Adam & The Amethysts
Photos by Ming Wu

Read “Flickering Flashlight” by Adam & The Amethysts