Meet Filipa Santos, also known as Pypah Santos, a Portuguese animation and illustrations freelance artist. 23 year old visual artist Pypah is known for her unique art style and characters. Pypah shares her artwork via YouTube as Pypah’s Art (where she has almost 1 million subscribers), and Instagram under @pypahs_art. Currently, Pypah is living in Manchester, UK. Pypah believes an art degree isn’t absolutely necessary to achieve creative success; as she noted, “I don’t think you need a degree to do what you’re doing because some people who are self-taught are just as amazing as people who go to school for art.” Pypah was actually planning on attending medical school prior to realizing her true calling was as a professional artist.
As an artist in this day and age, Pypah finds it important to be intentional about the balance between which parts of her creative process are meant to be monetized and which parts are just for herself. She likes to imagine little worlds that her characters live in, which sometimes Pypah is living vicariously in herself—perhaps this is why her artwork and characters specifically are so original. Pypah understands that everything she’s drawn, even the smallest of sketches, has influenced the way she currently creates: “Whether I realize it or not, every single thing has influenced my technique or the way that I create right now… Everything builds up to the point where you are at the moment.”
Pypah is a mixed media mastermind! She likes to use a bit of everything in her illustrations. Pypah recognizes that different materials add different details to her paintings and drawings. For instance, when she works with her Arteza Professional Colored Pencils, she likes to work in watercolors as a base; when she works with EverBlend Art Markers, she also uses Inkonic Fineliner Pens and pencils on top to create even more textures. Pypah is a big fan of Arteza’s EverBlend Markers, she remarked: “Ever since I’ve gone with the EverBlends I haven’t gone back to any other markers because they take all of my favorite things from other brand markers all into one; especially the EverBlend Brush Pens because I love brush markers.” Pypah especially appreciates the color selection and blendability of our EverBlend Art Markers. Pypah even went as far to inform us that she has yet to work with a marker that blends as well on paper as our alcohol-based EverBlend Markers! For additional detail when creating, Pypah always reaches for our Professional Colored Pencils.
Some words of motivation that stuck with Pypah are: “Everyone who climbs a ladder has to start on the first step”. While this is a simple concept, these words resonated with Pypah because they act as a reminder that everyone you see online and people who are successful all have had to start at zero too. Putting the work in and ‘climbing the ladder’ is the only way up afterall! Pypah comments, “I feel like I’m still like not even halfway up the ladder myself, I’d say I’m at step three or four at the moment”. Pypah encourages everyone to “think of everything as different steps in your journey and always remember to look back at where you started because it’s easy to forget how far you’ve come when you’re working everyday.”
Pypah finds her mother and family to her biggest inspirations. While her mother isn’t in the creative industry herself, her willpower truly inspires Pypah. Additionally, Pypah’s little sister seems to be creatively following in her footsteps. Pypah reminisces, “She always inspired me to do my best and be creative so that it inspired her to be creative as well.” Pypah’s refreshing outlook towards climbing the creative ladder and remembering to look back at your steps along the way is as inspirational as her artwork! We hope this artist profile has fueled your creativity. Be sure to set yourself up for creative success by securing Pypah’s limited edition Arteza marker bundles!
