In my 8th interview in this series, I had a fascinating conversation with Ohn Mar Win.  She’s an illustrator, designer, teacher and author, based in Hertfordshire, England.

Shelley Skail: Thanks for taking the time to talk with me this evening. To kick things off I was wondering if you could tell me a little about what inspires wonder in you – where do you draw inspiration from?

Ohn Mar Win: Well, first of all, food has always been a huge inspiration for me for as long as I can remember. And thankfully, I’m a food illustrator! Just today in Emma Carlisle‘s Patreon the theme was ‘close-up’. She had a picture of a raspberry and some of it was slightly out of focus and oh, I just loved it! 

I would love to do a project looking at how many ways could you paint a raspberry; collage it, mixed media, whatever. I ended up using acrylic markers and watercolour and a bit of ink. It looks quite messy, and it’s the sort of piece that Instagram would hate, but I adore it.

The two Patreons (Emma Carlise and Katie Moody) that I’ve joined have revitalized my sketchbook practice after the burn-out of the book, and I am indebted to them. I would just love to shake them by the hand because I had almost lost my way creatively.

I remember you saying sketchbooks have been a big part of your practice for a long time.

Yeah, it is my safe space. And part of me thinks I procrastinate in sketchbooks because I want to avoid doing something else. But I’m not really procrastinating because I’m learning. It helps me to let go on a certain level, where in parts of my life I might not otherwise be able to let go but in my sketchbook I can.

Ohn Mar Win’s does ‘letting go’ a little differently from certain Disney princesses…

It’s like I use different parts of my brain when I’m in my sketchbook. It’s not always the ‘organisational mum’. I produced a YouTube video in March where I say, “I’ve got two ADHD kids, and I have to be so organised. I don’t always want to be this hyper-focused all the time.” The sketchbook gives me relief.

That’s wonderful because I think when you have significant responsibilities in your life, it turns you into a sort of person that manages those things. And there’s always more to you than that. But with caring responsibilities, especially, it can be all-encompassing.

It’s my son in particular. He will start university later this year, hopefully studying photography at Bristol, and I’m thinking how is he going to get himself up in the morning? Because at the moment I kick him out of bed and say, “You need to get off to school in half an hour.” But that is the part I have to let go. He will have to find his own way and get himself out of bed come October. 

So, in fact, this year has been a huge learning curve where I said to myself, my son in particular needs me right now. I can’t focus too much on growing my business, but what I can do is grow my creativity. 

And it was so lacking. It was almost like the tiniest sliver of creativity was left last year and I just felt like I have to do what I need to do for myself. I’m having to go back to examine what my values and interests are – like food. I’m a food illustrator, but I’ve not been actually painting food in such a long time!

Autumn Vegetables, by Ohn Mar Win.

I just wanted to paint without thinking I ‘need to sell this or make it into a class’ I think for some artists it’s difficult to comprehend that approach, they would ask “But how are you going to sell that?” Do I really have to sell it? 

Travel and exploration is a value that started for me at such an early age. I had a map given to us by the airline that we flew into England with when we emigrated from Burma. It was Thai International Airlines and I kept this map for years! It was the map of all the routes that they had. And I just remember poring over it when I was seven or eight thinking, I wonder what it’s like living in Cairo or Madagascar? 

I’ve always wanted to travel from such a young age, but my parents weren’t into it because it cost so much money. Now, every year I do a goals carousel video type of thing with images of all the places I want to visit. And funnily enough, it often turns out I’ve previously painted some of them – this year Scandinavia and Japan were in my carousel and they are locations that had already appeared in my sketchbook studies. 

The first few times I watched the first carousel I created – it’s just a 40-second video – I burst into tears. I just want to travel the world and paint and eat and meet other artists.  I want to see new things. And I think that’s what’s been missing. Because the book has tied me down for so long and also obviously COVID.

Yeah, we all had our travel restricted for a while.

Yeah. And that is my inspiration. I want to eat food in Portugal! I want to paint Lisbon!

So that’s a long-winded way of saying that travel and food are my inspiration.

I love it! I love to travel as well and have done considerably less of it obviously lately, but also since having my daughter. But she’s starting to get older now. So I’m thinking that city breaks are starting to look like a possibility again.

Yeah, well, I’m hoping. My son finishes his A-levels in mid-June and I’m going to teach in a retreat in France, in Provence, in mid-July. So I said in between those times let’s all go off on a city break somewhere. And I said we could go to Lisbon or Copenhagen or Reykjavik or wherever.

And we’re also taking a trip to Singapore.  It’s the first long-distance trip we’ve ever done. All they’ve travelled on is Ryanair. I think their little minds are going to be blown by things like having a TV at the back of the seat, and how you don’t have to pay for water!

And even though they’re half Asian, they’ve never been anywhere in Asia. I thought Singapore would be a gentle dive into that.

If you were to pick three artists, living or dead, who are the artists that really speak to you?

Well, I have just seen the Cézanne exhibition at the Tate Modern. I was with two friends so we went around quite fast. I would have gone more slowly by myself and soaked in every single painting and read every single word. He did still lifes, he did landscapes and he was always thinking, how can I do it like this? How can I paint you like that? I’m going to paint that again. And it was the same scene, like months in Victoire, in Provence. It was a methodical study, but very free as well. 

Mont Sainte-Victoire by Cézanne c.1890

When I was in Amsterdam I went to the Van Gogh Museum and I saw his sketchbooks and I read about his life. I was almost in tears because he was such a hero of mine. This is a recurring theme actually. They didn’t give a monkey’s. They just painted what they painted. Cézanne painted – I know he wasn’t as ignored in his lifetime as Van Gogh – but both of them just went ahead and did what they wanted to do. 

So I think that’s a recurring theme, that I like artists who do that. But I suppose most fine artists are a little bit like that, there’s a bit of bloody-mindedness about them.

There was a Van Gogh exhibition in Edinburgh last year that we went to and it was one of those installation ones. It was very, very moving. I loved reading his letters, and how he talked about “these people that paint stars like dots of white, they’ve never really looked at them.” I love that he painted things how they are rather than how they look.

Yes!

The Starry Night by Van Gogh, 1889

I also think that’s the other thing, repetition. I like artists that repeat the same theme over and over but try to find different ways of doing it.

I went with Jen to see a Picasso exhibition. And she spent even longer than me looking around! And again, he produced so much work, and seeing his sketchbooks! 

In one of the introductions I filmed for a recent [Skillshare] Chroma course, I said, “I want you to look at Picasso’s sketchbooks. Here are some photos that I took. What you see on Instagram is not what sketchbooks were meant to be. They didn’t have cameras back in the 18th century when artists started doing the Grand Tour, sketchbooks were just paper that they could have on the move. They only had time to sketch for 10 minutes.” This is what people don’t get because social media’s completely warped our sense of how creativity works. I could talk about that forever. 

And some people commented on Picasso’s work, “Wow, that’s just like a few bits of line!” Yeah, it is a few bits of line, but he was very intentional with those lines. 

Portrait of Francoise Gilot by Picasso, 1946

He’s got some really great advice about art and about that the amount of art you have to create as well. When I mentor younger artists or those who are at the beginning of their journeys. I say just create the art. Some of it will be absolutely awful, but just carry on. You’ve got to get the quantity first before you get the quality. 

Yes, I’ve seen some memes about ‘how to get great at drawing’: Step one: draw a lot. Step Two: repeat step one.

It is true. 

From my early, early days when I was a teenager and I thought I could be an artist, these artists were always my heroes. My mum said, “Please, please don’t become somebody like Van Gogh and have canvases stacked up in your garage” because she thought that all artists did that.

And you don’t. You’ve got sketchbooks [laughing]

[Laughing] Stacked! But they still don’t really understand what I do. Bless them.

Just a few of Ohn Mar Win’s sketchbooks…

What’s your favourite thing that you’ve made?

So I’m on Katie Moody’s Patreon. She gives us reference photos and I had never done anything like this, I’d always done things off my own back. I always find my own reference. 

I think the first one I went to was something called a “map crunch”. So what the heck is a map crunch? Well, it’s almost like Google Street View. It’s a thing that artists have been doing throughout the pandemic where you pick a place and just paint whatever street you chose. 

And so these two images. It must have been part of a theme that she had sort of an autumnal farm, land-type theme. I was watching the replay, and I kept to the time limit. She had recorded the chat that was going on where she was answering questions. You could hear people talking in the background about what they were doing and what materials they were using, and it was amazing. I felt like I was in a real community again, even though Katie lives in Hampshire and there were people in the call from America. 

I think they were only 15-minute studies. I’d never done anything like this before and the only way I can describe it was so freeing. I’m not saying is the most amazing thing that I’ve done because it was it’s just meant to be a study. 

Sketchbook studies by Ohn Mar Win, 2022

But it was almost like a pivotal moment where it didn’t have to be amazing. It’s almost like I went back to basics – this is how I started my sketchbook practice. I was rushed off my feet as a stay-at-home mom with a three-year-old and an eight-year-old.  I would literally only have 15 minutes. This is the core of why I create. I don’t want to create frickin Instagram-worthy pieces. If I’ve only got 15 minutes, I’ve only got 15 minutes, and I will fill that time. 

Instagram is beautiful in some ways. It’s been amazing, but in other ways, it’s so distorting of actual reality.

I completely agree, it absolutely is.

You’ve referenced your values a few times. I wonder if you would say a bit more about what they are?

I would say I am deeply authentic. I hate fakeness. I love creativity and connection, and anything to do with connections, true connections, not fake connections. I don’t want to be a great businesswoman. I just want to be an artist. 

Provence Sketchbook, Day 5 by Ohn Mar Win, 2023

Family as well. My kids. I write in my journal every morning that I hope my kids will find ways to be happy and highly successful and I write straight afterwards that I hope that my students will be their best creative selves. Everybody has potential, but not everybody realizes it. Everybody’s got their own unique talents. 

And I think what is kind of causing me an upset in my system is I see other artists have created million dollar art businesses with ten assistants and I was thinking, Oh, I should do that or other people are doing this, so I should do that as well.

I’ve told myself, when you find out what is right for you, you know. Well, it’d be great to earn £1,000,000, but I really just want to earn enough so that I can go on holiday with my kids and I can do a few short breaks in Europe a few times a year with my sketchbook.

I’m really privileged. I don’t know if you remember or if you would have known me when the coup in Burma happened.

I did know of you then, and I remember seeing your Stand Up for Burma work.

I can be very bloody-minded when I feel like it. I produced over 150 three-finger salutes. The situation is still absolutely awful. My parents haven’t been back in three, four years, and it’s driving them bonkers because my mum’s mum, my grandmother, died, and she couldn’t see her. And her youngest brother died from liver cancer last year as well. She couldn’t see him either.

Oh, that’s awful.

I mean they might be able to get into the country, but maybe they would have trouble getting out and her family live in an area of Burma which could be a bit dodgy. And I know it sounds kind of flippant but I come from an incredibly impoverished country and I want to use my privilege to fight for their freedom.

I do what I can in the background. I’m not very showy about it. I don’t feel the need to shout about the fact I give money to Burmese charities. I really don’t mention it on Instagram.

3 Finger Salutes by Ohn Mar Win, 2021

What’s your current project or labour of love?

But I would say I am finding my voice. On YouTube I recorded this 20-minute, almost real-time process video, but I talk a lot about mental health. I feel like YouTube is going to allow me to really, really talk because there’s only so much I can bloody write on an Instagram post and many people don’t even read it.

So I feel like this is going to be a platform where I can really explore.  You watch me painting pears, but I’m going to tell you about what it’s like to be the mother of two ADHD kids.

I talk a lot about my mental health. I don’t generally go there – it’s not been glossed over on Instagram, but I don’t talk about it often. But on YouTube, I’ve just gone all out. And I said, “if this makes you feel uncomfortable, let me know. Otherwise, tell me if this format is working for you”. 

That sounds like it aligns really well with being authentically present in the spaces that you occupy.

Yes, I’m hoping that YouTube will fill that gap. 

Tell me about a day in your life – what’s does it look like?

I am trialling a new weekly schedule. I do not like admin and I don’t really like marketing but I’m trying to post on LinkedIn and Pinterest once a week on a Monday, Tuesday is for YouTube editing. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are mine. 

Yesterday I went to my old school and I did a talk about being an illustrator, but that’s not something I do very often. Otherwise, I might go out location sketching. Tomorrow I’m meeting my friend. She’s a photographer and she has to photograph an afternoon tea somewhere. So we get free afternoon tea.

That’s a good friend to have

Fridays have now become my sketching-on-location days. So two days of admin, three days for myself and the weekends for my kids.

You talked about getting your son out of bed in the morning – I take it your days are bookended with family life?

Yes. Typically it’s about 7:00am and I have to make him his breakfast because I put his ADHD pills on his plate. If I don’t do it, he might not take them. And there was an incident where he didn’t take them. He swore at his headmaster and got suspended.

Oh, geez. I can see why you might be quite keen to make sure he takes his medication.

Yes. Though after that I write in my journal. I write the same things like I live an abundant life. I’m open to miracles and little things like that. I might watch that little slideshow, the video of all the places I want to visit just to remind myself. And I do my yoga stretches. 

I tried to finish work by 4:00pm when my daughter comes home. And then I cook. I always cook food from scratch at least six days a week. We don’t eat too much processed food.

I love good scratch cooking. 

Oh yeah!

Can you finish this sentence? If you really knew me…

You’d know I’m very eclectic. I am subscribed to a very eclectic range of YouTube channels.

What’s your range, what are we talking about here?

Oh, a lot. There’s one that I really love it’s all about deep-sea animals, deep-sea vents. Things like the weird shark and the weird octopus that live in the twilight zone.  

I also really love this channel called Biographics and there’s also Geographics. It’s everything from the Chernobyl disaster to the life of Marie Antoinette and Cleopatra. So it’s a lot of history. All kinds of history, and also astrology. And I do like a bit of the science fiction Easter eggs videos. For example, even though Interstellar is a really old film, I’m still discovering things about it. 

But my favourite channels are the food blogs, where they will go to Nepal, go to Hawaii and eat with the locals and things like that.

Apricot Tart by Ohn Mar Win, 2023

Okay. Right. I’ve got a good sense of your range now.

What does that tell you?

It tells me you’re a really inquisitive person.

Right! I actually used to get told off by my mom, She used to tell me off for being too curious. She would say, “Will you stop?!?” I know as kids do, they keep asking questions but she said I was insistent.

So last this is my last question. What’s your favourite joke?

Oh, my gosh. I don’t know…

Okay, how about I’ll tell you one instead: why do you never hear pterodactyls go to the toilet?

I don’t know.

Because the ‘p’ is silent.

[Laughing]

—

You can see more of Ohn Mar Win’s work on Instagram, Pinterest, or her website.

To find out the latest info on new courses, art retreats and other intriguing bits and bobs you can sign up to her newsletter.

And to see more of her process and thoughts about life and art have a look at her YouTube channel.

– –

If you enjoyed this interview with Ohn Mar Win, you might enjoy my other artist interviews.