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Hannah Tiedman is a skilled artist at Minot with a comic book style for her works.

An appreciation and passion for something can come at a very young age and that was just the case for a young artist here at Minot.

Hannah Tiedman created art all her life. She watched her father draw and create digital pieces. Her love of drawing was largely inspired by her father and the cartoons she watched when she was younger. Some of his favorites were “Teen Titans” “Sponge Bob SquarePants,” “Hey Arnold!,”Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends “and others on Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon.

Tiedman’s artistic style is influenced by all the cartoons she has watched. When she feels ambitious, her style changes to become more realistic. The style she chooses to draw depends on her mood and the amount of detail she wishes to add.

The realistic part came in part from a figure drawing course that Tiedman took with Micah Bloom at Minot State University. She had already had trouble drawing the anatomy and keeping the exact proportions, but the course helped her to improve.

“He put a new light on my way of seeing the human body”, she said.

Hannah Tiedman painted the portrait of brother on a 6 x 8 inch piece of mixed cardboard using Prismacolor markers.

Her quick sketches and shading were done in charcoal and she thought it was really fun to work with.

The method she knows best is to draw on paper, using a variety of utensils. The original sketch is done in pencil and then sketched with different thicknesses of black Micron pens or thin black Prismacolor linings to give it more of a flat cartoon appearance. Depending on the part, Tiedman uses Prismacolor double brush tip markers or Sharpie markers. Despite the flat cartoon style, it adds layers and shadows to give it depth.

A drawing of a rising Converse shoe and a Venus flytrap took him about five or six hours to assign to a university class. Tiedman spent a lot of time using charcoal and colored pencils on a 1 foot 5 inch square piece of paper. She wanted to make it more color-based. She was able to choose her own shoe, and she also had to choose a plant to accompany it. It could have been any plant, be it real, fake or from images found on the Internet.

“I chose the flycatcher of Venus because you don’t see many of them here”, she explained, “And they’re hard to keep alive when you find them.”

With that in mind, she used many photos of the Internet from different angles to get an idea of how she looked.

Piper Sunbathing was painted on an 11 by 17 inch piece of watercolor paper using watercolors.

The size of the paper she works with also varies. The two sizes with which she likes to work most often are 8 1/2 by 11 inches and 11 by 17 inches, using mixed media or markers. Sometimes she makes a collage, cuts pieces and puts them on a page to form a new image. When she draws something in one of her sketchbooks that she wants to hang up, Tiedman tears it up and taps the edges or frames it.

For the most part, art is a hobby for her and she orders for those who ask her to do something for them. People will ask him to make pictures of them, their pets or a piece of them with their pets. Some even ask him to draw them with their significant other.

She also wants to start selling her art, but she won’t sell it all. If a song turns out to be much better than expected or if she really likes it, she will keep it as a future example for herself.

Tiedman also mentioned that she wanted to experiment a little more with painting and digital art.

“I use paint from time to time,” she said.

His paint of choice is acrylic, which is much easier to handle and dries much faster than oil paints.

“I will probably not use oil paints due to the difficulty of use”, she said.

Canvas is what she does most of her experiments on, practicing mixing colors and creating different textures.

She does her digital art on her Surface Book Pro. The screen can be removed from the keyboard to be used as a tablet. She has a Wacom Bamboo drawing tablet, but prefers to use a stylus or digital pen to get thinner, less flickering lines. The pen she uses has a soft plastic tip at the end so as not to scratch her screen. Using your finger is also an option, but it is difficult to see around it to determine where the lines and colors are going.

There are many different art programs that an artist can use, such as ArtRage, Microsoft Paint, Sketchbook Express, Procreate on Apple devices, and many Adobe programs. Tiedman uses Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator for his digital works. Each has multiple functions, some overlapping in both.

His girlfriend, Maddie Barnes, is one of his biggest supporters and inspirations. This inspiration helps Tiedman to go beyond the artist’s block.

“It’s great to have another wonderful spirit in my corner to help when I’m stuck”, she said.

Tiedman thought of doing a piece of collaboration with Barnes, but admitted that it was rare for her to give up the reins when it came to her art. When she meets with a group for a play, they give all their ideas so that she can see what everyone is feeling before they start.

“Sometimes there are contradictory ideas, but we work with them in harmony”, she said.

“If you are passionate about something, go ahead and do it”, Tiedman encouraged. “Don’t think about your work.”

She said she cringe when she looks at her old art, but it’s a great reminder of where she started and how far she has advanced and honed her technique over the years. Barnes tells him there is always room for improvement.

“She rides on my case,” Tiedman said of his girlfriend, “And give me a good encouraging speech.” Having this motivating factor in your life helps you progress as an artist.