Featured Artist: A Grape Design
Weird little characters and cute animals.
Artist, Anna Grape, also known as A Grape Design, creates quirkily cute illustrations from her hometown of Norrtälje, Sweden. Anna’s designs blend the perfect balance between cheeky and charming. When Anna isn’t creating art, she’s busy developing her StyleDressUp game. Read on to see Anna in action.
Deep Sea Angler
The All Knowing Cat
Shark and Friend
Merpug
A Grape Design at a glance.
Where is home?
A little archipelago town called Norrtälje, north of Stockholm, Sweden
What is your creative weapon of choice?
Thin marker pens and my trusty Wacom tablet. And definitely my eraser!
Please describe your work in 7 words or less
Cute, imaginative, funny, quirky, hoofs and roller skates.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given as an artist?
Don’t work for free! Unless it’s for a super good cause.
Screaming Internally
A few fun facts about the artist.
She has two dogs and a pink piano! Anna also shared with us that she has a “weird neurological disorder” that makes her hands and feet fall asleep easily. She loves the smell of the ocean and once when she was 5, she lived in northern Sweden where the sun didn’t rise in the winter and (nearly) didn’t set in the summer!
Wizard and Cat
“Artists play a really big role in society, as I think most people don’t realize how illustrations and art are almost everywhere around you, on packages, walls and in books and magazines. The world would be such a boring place without artists!”
What’s the hardest lesson you’ve learned while creating a successful art career? What advice would you give to your former self?
I really wish I didn’t get so comfortable when things went well in my career a couple of years ago. I just thought that it could only go upwards from there but nope, it totally went downwards last year and that was a bit of a shock. So I had to almost start over and build my career again in a way. And I’m actually super happy that I found Redbubble last fall, it has helped a lot and also has given me a reason to push myself and draw more! So my advice would be to my former self; don’t get too comfy, keep trying and getting new clients and try new stuff all the time! And please save money for your pension. (That last one is also advice for my current self).
I work out
Roller Skate Unicorn
Please share the story behind your favorite design in your profile.
It’s super hard to pick a favorite, but my roller skating unicorn is probably one of them! I made it as a print in my own webshop first with the text “normal is boring” above it, but for Redbubble I just have the unicorn and I just love how it’s not giving a sh*t and just skates away from its troubles! With a green jumpsuit.
Where do you find the inspiration for your little creatures?
Oh everywhere really, animals are obviously a big inspiration. I love making them like people and doing people stuff. Also, I love making pop culture references, with quotes from my favorite movies and tv-shows, like Jurassic Park, Sabrina the teenage witch, Mean Girls and so on.
What is your dream project?
I have an idea in my head about some kind of exhibition where I would pair up a visual artist with a musician or sound artist and they would collab and design a room with visuals and sound and whatever they want. Man, that would be so awesome but will likely never happen but who knows!
“I really wish I didn’t get so comfortable when things went well in my career a couple of years ago. I just thought that it could only go upwards from there but nope, it totally went downwards last year and that was a bit of a shock.”
Stop by A Grape Design’s shop to pick up your favorite quirkily cute designs!
(Header Cat and Unicorn)
