Behind The Social Wine Club: Meet Sara Gullberg
The illustration behind The Social Wine Club collection brings the Last Supper into the world of a modern midsummer party. We spoke with its creator, illustrator Sara Gullberg, about the commission, her love of drawing and the beginnings of Art for Animals.
The answers below are from our original interview. References to current projects, portrait numbers and future events describe that interview period.
How did you get started as an illustrator?
I have drawn since childhood and it has come naturally as it runs in the family. For as long as I can remember, I have had two great passions, drawing and animals (especially dogs).
Beside my education and work, I have always freelanced as an illustrator. Mainly I have worked as a graphic designer both in work and freelance but have always felt that pen and paper are more my therapy. The dream has always been to be able to work with both dogs and to illustrate and find something where I could combine them both. During a trip to Australia I started a portrait of my then dog Neela, this was the start of the company I run today; Art for animals. I started drawing portraits of dogs on commission where I donated most of the income to animals in need.
Today we have around 50 portraits that we print on various products that we sell on our website artforanimals.se. Every year we donate a portion of the sales to various animal rights organizations, which we are very proud of.
How did you capture the spirit of The Social Wine Club?
The Social Wine Club was definitely a fun piece of art and I really enjoyed working on it. I got the request from cocktailored saying you wanted something Wine related, Book club feeling with a touch of being smashed on wine.
Surrealism is something I find amusing, to be able to capture reality with a sense of humor. I wanted to create something like a clash between two worlds, the serious one and a more frivolous one. And then it hit me, what if we mix the famous portrait of Jesus' Last Supper with a modern day midsummer party.
What other projects were you working on?
At the moment I’m working on some new portraits of dogs. I have a long list of requests from our customers and I can’t wait to fulfill them. A drawing takes around 20-30h to complete, so it takes time to add new ones. Other than that we will continue our charity work for Hundar Utan Hem and prepare for this year’s events.
Find Sara's work at Art for Animals and on Instagram, @artforanimals.se.
