After featuring our local favourites, Busking Bears and Dezen Dezen on our blog, we are now travelling over to Bergamo, Italy to meet with Elenia Beretta. Elenia has been working as a freelance illustrator since 2012 and she has worked for Bergamo Music Festival, Smith Journal Magazine and my personal favorite, Flow Magazine.

After 5 years of studying graphic design , I started thinking what i really wanted to do for a job and so I started to illustrate, that’s why I attended a Master’s Degree in Editorial Illustration in Milan. Drawing is something that makes me happy and free.

I usually work alone as a freelancer, but I am also interested in collaborating with other artists. Right now I’m working together with one journalists and  three illustrators, MissGoffetown, Elisabetta Bianchi and Mara D’archangelo, as UA Collective. We organize laboratories for kids, workshops and drawing events.

My inspiration comes mainly from real life, movies literature and old pictures. To make an illustration I first do a lot of sketches, I put the best ideas together and then I work on the definite piece. In my works I use gouache ink with nib and pencils. Right now, I’m working on a map for bicycles and I’m illustrating porcelain for the Christmas Market in my town. In the future I would like to improve my technique and I would love to be able to afford a studio space for me and my friends.

Visit Elenia’s website for more works and like her Facebook Page.