Hello and welcome to my newsletter, Hidden Layers! I assume most of you reading this post already follow me and my work elsewhere, but in case you’re a newcomer, I’d love to quickly introduce myself:
My name is Christina Chung and I’m a Taiwanese Hongkonger American illustrator based in Brooklyn, New York. I grew up in Seattle and Singapore, and moved back to the US after 7 years abroad to study illustration at Pratt Institute. After graduating, I dove headfirst into trying to carve out a career for myself, and I’ve been working professionally as an illustrator ever since!
✦ Why a newsletter? ✦
Like many illustrators who have an online presence, I’ve grown increasingly disappointed and exhausted by the way the landscape of social media has developed in recent years. Platforms like Instagram and Twitter have algorithms that work against artists, and are generally limiting in a lot of ways. What you get from scrolling through the socials of an illustrator is only skimming the surface of their artistic practice.
I often want to share a lot more of the process and thinking behind the projects that I work on, especially as I spend weeks to months developing them from an initial idea into a fully formed illustration. But with the word limits and unavoidable crops that you have to deal with on social media, I always feel constrained to a mold that I know my work doesn’t fit into.
Over the past year or so, I’ve been quietly enjoying reading the newsletters of other illustrators and seeing what’s possible on this platform. It feels like dropping an armful of sketchbooks and loose drawings onto a table and spreading them out for others to see, rather than trying to enjoy a gallery of paintings through a keyhole. I’m excited and I’m hopeful for what this experience will be like!
The name Hidden Layers is a nod to the much-used function of hiding layers in Photoshop, but it’s also a reference to the many layers of my artistic practice and who I am as a person that are not always seen on social media. These layers combined stack together to form my identity as an illustrator. If only for myself, I wanted to write this newsletter so that I can look back on an archive of my journey that’s more than just a timeline or a feed of images badly cropped into squares. And if my ramblings can be helpful in any way to others, that would mean a lot to me as well.
On a (hopefully) monthly schedule, I want to share:
Sketchbook pages
Updates on what I’m working on currently
More in-depth looks at the process behind projects that I’ve worked on
Things that inspire me and current obsessions
Short comics/essays/ramblings
✦ Newsletter recommendations ✦
Here are some of my favorite illustrator newsletters that have inspired me to start my own:
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey!
So excited for your substack! And really love how much thought you gave to your title.
YAY CHRISTINA! Welcome to Substack, can't wait to follow along and delight in more of your process <3