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If you ask Medford based artist Alix Fuerst to describe what she does, she’ll tell you, “I specialize in realistic, highly detailed, color pencil drawings of animals, wildlife and custom portraits.”
But it really doesn’t begin to describe her work.
Fuerst’s art is so remarkably lifelike that many, on first glance, look like photographs. Her painstaking attention to detail is her hallmark. The subtle change in the blue on the feathers of a parrot, the tiny creases and wrinkles on an elephant, the eyes of the cats she’s drawn, the thousands of individual scales on the chameleon are each a testament to her patience and skill.
A native of North Carolina, Fuerst said she’s been drawing since she could first hold a crayon, long before getting her bachelor's in fine arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
“I started out drawing cartoons but then got into more realistic subjects in high school and college,” she said. “But I didn’t really get into color pencils until after I graduated.”
Fuerst started out as a painter, then, she said, she started seeing YouTube videos of artists creating hyper realistic color pencil drawings.
“And I was like ‘oh, I didn’t know that you could do that with color pencils,’” she said. “That really, really fascinated me.”
Because at that point she was, for the most part, painting animals and landscapes, Fuerst said she thought colored pencils would be a great way to capture small details.
“And it is definitely less messy,” she said with a laugh. “That definitely appeals to me.”
Fuerst said there were actually a lot of things about the medium that appealed to her, and once she saw it was indeed possible to create very realistic, detailed subjects, she was hooked.
“I immediately bought a pack of Prismacolor pencils and started,” she said.
Fuerst said she continued to use only Prismacolor pencils until fairly recently, when her partner gifted her a box of Caram d’Ache Luminance colored pencils.
“And they are my new favorite,” she said.
However, she also recently bought a package of Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils, which she said are great for detailed work such as hair or fur or the millions of tiny scales she created on that chameleon piece.
A quick online search lauds the oil based Polychromos pencils for fine detail work whereas the waxed based Prismacolors are creamier. Her new favorites, the Caran d'Ache Luminances, are described as “smooth, lightfast wax pencils with intense saturation,” which also kind of describes her work and explains what makes them pop.
How does she do it?
A lot of time and patience is essentially how Fuerst creates her hyper-realistic drawings. Depending on the size of the piece, one portrait could take her anywhere from seven to 30 hours she said. A 5-inch by 7-inch piece might take 7-10 hours, whereas an 8- by 10-inch could take 15-20 hours. And 11-inch by 14-inch drawings could take as many as 30 hours to complete, she explained.
The details are made by building layers of colors, not unlike painting, she said.
“I mix a lot of different colors and burnish them,” she said.
Her subjects are largely animals, both domestic and on the wild side, including people, and she does some landscapes.
As a kid, Fuerst said, her family had a variety of pets, including dogs, cats, fish, chickens, hamsters, guinea pigs, and the like.
“So I’ve always loved animals and been fascinated with nature,” she said. “I used to watch the birds when I was a kid, at my grandmother’s house. She had a bird feeder and I’d sit by the window.”
Her favorite creatures to draw are cats, she said, “because of patterns and details in their coats, and their striking eyes.” Second would be birds, again because of the colors and particular features in their feathers, she said. People are her most challenging, and when it comes to custom portraits, her most frequent commissions are dogs.
“People love their dogs,” she said with a smile.
Fuerst said she works from photographs that not only come from pet owners but also ones she finds through wildlife photographers that she works with. Over the years, she has met wildlife photographers at various art shows. Some have even pitched their work to her, she said. Others she has connected with through Instagram.
Fuerst said she actually didn’t do a lot of art shows until she moved north, when her partner accepted a job in the area. The art market was a bit smaller in North Carolina, where she only did one or two shows a year. After discovering a vibrant art community in Medford and beyond, Fuerst said she began to frequent local art shows a lot more often. She said she enjoys them because it gives her a chance to meet fellow artists and fellow animal lovers.
“The art shows are the one chance to really put my work out there and get out there and interact with people,” she said, which she doesn’t always get working from home. “It’s great for making connections and to meet people who are wildlife lovers.”
To check out Fuerst’s work and get a list of places where you can interact with her, head to www.alixfuerst.com.
