Interview with Kozz Draws!

SEPTEMBER. FINALLY. Already?
2025

   It is both amusing and embarrassing every single time the weather changes for the better and I’m Suddenly AY-OKAY. In a sudden miraculous shift, Tennessee has dropped the haze of constant 95F and 90% humidity that hit in mid May and it’s been 80F during the day, 55F at night FOR OVER A WEEK and I CAN BREATHE. Everything is fine. What was I so freaked out about all year?
   *remembers AI, tariffs forcing all the artists I follow to shrink their business, climate change, inflation, impending big life changes*
   ...
   Ah… yeah, that. So things are still scary, in the grand scheme. But I will lean into and take all the soothing I can get from having the windows open and needing a sweater to drink tea outside on my porch at 8am. It makes my capacity to handle it all expand significantly. I’m just a little animal, after all, though my big noisy brain tries to convince me otherwise. I tell myself I should be above being affected by the weather. Ha! And yet a 70F day with a blue sky cures me temporarily of just about everything. So cute. So humbling.
   In August I spent 10 days in Michigan expecting a blessed break from the heat, and instead, just in time for the week I was there, I got:  

 I've had bad luck with travel weather this year. My visit to Michigan in LATE May when it decided to be frigidly back in the low 40's instead of spring, my trip to Missouri where it rained and rained and threatened tornadoes, my camping trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains where it also just rained constantly. Well, at least I still managed to get in one swim in Lake Charlevoix. Maybe it can be enough until I get to try again next year.
   I was so hopeful that after being away from my routine I’d feel a renewed sense of productivity, but I came back just as stuck in Getting-By mode as before. Alas. I'm sure I've already said it and I'll say it again, 2025 has been such a hazy blurry fog, I can't seem to make myself focus on anything. Every day I've just watched myself somehow spend the whole day not making anything creative happen. It's this surreal, out-of-body passive gloom. I know how to be productive, I've done it before! And yet I can't find the energy to lift my lazy bones. There doesn't seem to be a point to trying. And I thought I'd finish another children's book this year. HA.
   Maybe my productive season will be fall/winter??? One can only hope. I have always hated winter and been a pure summer girl, but this year I can’t WAIT. I want everything in Tennessee to die so I can go outside again.
   And in the meantime, I’ll play Dragon Quest XI, Pokemon Friends (I finally got a bulbasaur plush the other day, so that's an achievement), read book after book after book, listen to What’s All This Then while I do the dishes, and keep practicing those pull ups.

Kozz Draws!

 This month I am bringing in something new! (Well, new-ish, I did INTERVIEW REBEKAH when PENNY AND THE POCKET DRAGON came out.) (Which you can get in HARDCOVER now!) (So actually not new at all.)

   Since I'm not making any art and have nothing to show you (LOL) I’m interviewing an artist I love so I can share them and their beautiful creations with the world, starting with another one of my long time friends.

   I met Erica (who I struggle to remember to refer to as Erica because in my head she is just Kozz) somewhere around 2014 or 2015. A big grey area in my memory, as I was not very happy in those days. I’d graduated college, and my partner at the time was also a fantasy artist and much better at Meeting People than I was. I got to be along for the ride, for Artprize and Grand Rapids Comic Con in Michigan. Erica was one of the many talented people my then-partner gravitated towards, and BLESS HER she let me quietly co-opt her and make her one of my favorite people on the planet. She was with me through some really weird and difficult times, and those kinds of friends are the good, sticking kind.
   On top of all this she’s a crazy talented artist, too.
   I always want to describe her art as Deep Sea Fantasy Lisa Frank, but I feel like that still doesn’t cover what she creates and I’m not sure everyone understands it as the high compliment I intended it to be. What I love most about Erica is that, from my perspective, she has never let not knowing how to do something (yet) stop her. She dives into projects and experiences outside of her comfort zone for sport. With all the colors of the rainbow. And glow in the dark paint.
   This human never stops drawing. Ever. I used to find it infuriatingly envy-inducing, and sometimes still do. She’s a comic artist, a needle felter (feltist? feltsperson?), a cosplayer, a writer and an illustrator. She’s great to talk to about books and movies, she’s so very, very kind, so funny and so warm, and I’m really glad she and I are past the 10 year mark as friends, because I read that means they're usually a friend for life. Yay!
   I’m 99% sure she was the one who told me I would really like Over the Garden Wall, which I’ve said before was a huge catalyst in pushing me to shift into the style of art I make now, the style that suits me and feels like my real home. So we have that to thank her for, along with too many other things to count here. I treasure every moment we spent laying on the floor drawing together and being excited about Steven Universe. I say the time we met was a grey spot, but it had its bright moments too!
   Erica, I don’t call you anywhere near as often as I should, thank you for listening to me whine for ten years, let’s have a parallel play date soon.

What is your favorite medium to work with?

• In general- gauche is king, I can most closely achieve the vibrancy that I can with digital work. It's a forgiving medium too- even with decade old, dried out cakes (which is not how the paint intended to be used) it holds up. It's texture is also the best I've worked with. I do mix media - I mix gauche, acrylic, powder paints - especially if I'm painting on wood or 3D  surfaces. At shows I often use watercolors!

When did you start out writing/drawing? Have you been drawing forever or did it find you later in life?

• My whole life. That sounds cliché, but I have scribbles since I was three. It's always been a sort of form of emotional self regulation.

Can you pick a favorite color?

• For clothes I like, and décor in my house- I love an orange. If we are talking about artwork, I love magentas (my first color love as a child). There's a very specific, Magical Magenta that my body thinks it can taste. It can be found in certain petunia flowers, in hyper pigmented paint, or in neon lights. This hue lights up some sensory part of my brain. My tongue waters as if I were tasting a sour fruit.
  

Favorite animal?

• This one is too hard! I have a new favorite animal every week. Yet I will say that that heyenas will always hold a special little corner in my heart. When saw the Lion King when I was maybe 3, I became obsessed with them. I dressed up in a Shenzi heyena costume, and I never stopped dressing up as characters since then. I was very lucky to see heyenas in the wild this year and it was an emotional moment for me!

What's your work style like? Steady? Sporadic?

• I don't have healthy work style ! I have too many ideas, I've never suffered an art block. I mentioned that art has always been a form of emotional regulation and self soothing. If I'm feeling particularly anxious or overstimulated, I can sit down and work on something for 5-7 hours, unmoving. The process (rather than the result) gives me the most dopamine my brain chemistry sorely needs, and I'll often want to see the task through to the end in as few sittings as possible so that I don't loose the thread of interest. That's why if you follow me, I'll put a lot of art in very quick bursts- not one thing developed over a long period. To speed up the process, I'll usually jump right into rendering and coloring, which is the most engaging "fun" part for me.

What have you made that you’re the most proud of at this point of your life?

• Right now I'm wrapping up a fan project that's consumed my creative world for the last year and a half.  It's an autograph booklet for the anime: "My Hero Academia", except the characters are unique mythological creatures. The book is in the form of field notes (think Spiderwick), and it has a story if it's viewed front to back. It's extensively researched and painstakingly charted and doggedly easter-egged. It's one of the few, large, labor intensive endeavors I've pushed through to the finish line in years. The whole thing has made me want to desperately get back to my own work to see if I can make something like that with my own world.
  

What fictional character do you identify with most?

• I'm not sure if I can think of a singular character! However- I am always drawn to the comic relief types, and it's for a silly, personal reason. A part of my warped self perception is that I am just a quirky background persona in the grand scheme of others lives. So I find it to be a very satisfying to witness a 2 bit, sideline, even annoying character reveal an interesting depth to themselves. You might see that in some of the characters I chose to make costumes of!

Is there something you do that almost without fail gets you out of a bad mood?

• A good, long walk. Sitting in the sun, and napping in the sun. Generally being outside and in nature in any capacity. We take nature for granted.

Any big goals for your work in the future?

• I'm taking gradual steps to make my merchandise to all be locally sourced. I'd also like to offer mostly glowing, or UV reactive pieces of art. I want the things that I offer to sell to be less of an impulse commodity, and more of an engaging and interactive piece that lives with you- that you feel good looking back on for ever after. I also want to be able to proudly say that I'm creating things responsibly as I can.
  

What has brought you the most joy lately?

• Making cute bento boxes! It might seem like a lot of work to put so much effort into something that's just going to be eaten and no one else will see. I find that prepping them makes me eat better, and it's a little way of showing kindness to myself! I imagine it is like how some folks like to dress up to feel good, or put on makeup, even when no one else is around to see.

Where can we find your work? Whats the best way we can support you?

• I post regularly on TikTok and instagram. My link tree has other places I'll occasionally visit, and my online shop. https://linktr.ee/kozzdraws I do have a newsletter that I send out more in depth updates every couple of months if you prefer something more personable. 
  

Kozz Draws

 Huge thank you’s to those who reached out for commissions last month! As always, I am SO VERY grateful for your support of my work, and I am smitten with every single one of your darling pets you have me paint.
 
Until next time, I hope you enjoyed my friend’s rainbow world as much as I do,
Lara Jean