Samson Adetoyinbo

I, Samson, my art

My name is Adetoyinbo Samson, I am an facial expressional artist. I have been making art right from when I was a kid but then it was just for fun-as I grew older I came across lots of veteran artists online and seeing their works got me inspired to dive deeper into art, even though I reside in a city without an art scene, Ibadan, in my home country Nigeria.

My type of art is based on drawing people’s faces while they’re making all sorts of facial expressions. I also use my drawings as a medium to pass a message across and as medium that makes people be aware of the expressions that the human face is capable of doing.

Ballpoint & blue

In the early days of my drawings I used pencils to create my portraits, but then I realized that making use of pencils requires other tools as well like the mono eraser, blending stump and more tools of that kind. They are quite expensive and as I wasn’t financially stable enough to get them I had to make use of what I had which was the ballpointpen. So I started working on my pen drawing skills and right from that time I became sort of addicted to making drawings with a ballpointpen. As for why I chose the colour blue, it’s because I believe that the contrast is brighter when drawing with blue than with black and I want my works to be bright and beautiful. Blue is also my favorite color.

My creative process

I make drawings of anyone whose facial expression I find interesting, children, women, men, people I know, celebrities or strangers. Sometimes I search for random pictures of people making facial expressions online and sometimes I use photos that I find by coincidence. My works are still medium sized but I have plans to make bigger sized works by Gods Grace. It takes me 3-4 weeks to complete a drawing and sometimes it takes me a month, it all depends on how free I am to make art.

I believe that art can build their creative mindset, and that is very beneficial. I’d recommend any young person to draw and create as well, if they have interest in art of course.

Emerging artists I’d like to recommend

I’d like to recommend my friend Timothy who makes drawings with the pointillism shading technique, making use of dots to create a piece. He is an amazing artist and I invite you to check out his Instagram account.

What I’m currently working on

I just completed a facial expressional drawing of Khaby Lame who always makes a particular facial expression in his comedy skits that I find it very funny and interesting. I just had to put him and one of his expressions on paper.

My hopes for the future

My hopes are getting me and my art out there, so that people will know me as an artist and also understand my art works and type of art. From that, I also hope that they’d want to buy my work. I hope to be a well known artist both at home here in Nigeria and abroad and also to be a source of inspiration to the new upcoming artists.