Hello Andy, welcome to BrandEducation and The RV Book Fair! Your work blends illustration, songwriting, and storytelling. How do those pieces fit together for you?
Well, I’ve never been able to keep my hands in just one creative area. My mind is constantly swapping between different creative media.. Some days the story comes out as a sketch, some days it fights its way into a melody. To me, they’re just different roads leading to the same ending, where characters, colors, and chords all sit around telling the truth the best they can.
When you start a new illustration, what’s the first thing you look for?
I look for the heartbeat of the characters. It could be a crooked grin on a cowboy’s face, the way two characters are communicating in the background, or a boot scuffed from too many miles. I want the moment that feels lived-in. Once I find that, the rest of the drawing is just trying to stay honest to it. What kind of location do these characters inhabit? It begins with the characters and ends in a whole world.
You’re also writing books now. What pushed you toward that?
Writing felt like the natural next hill on the horizon. I’d be sketching a scene or humming a tune, and suddenly the story behind it would start stretching wider than a song could hold. Books give me the space to wander—let the characters ramble, let the world breathe. When I write, I only have to please myself, although I can be tougher on myself than any client.
How does performing country-rock influence your visual art?
Performing teaches you rhythm, how to let something breathe, how to build tension, when to cut loose. I’ll be halfway through a sketch and hear a lyric in my head telling me, “Ease up right here,” or “Lean into the shadows there.” Music keeps my drawings from sittin’ still too long. Music can take you to a mood or place which comes out in the drawing.
How do you create the locations and landscapes in your books? They’re very detailed and filled with so many characters.
I build them the way you build a small town, one front porch, one dusty trail, one stubborn personality at a time. I start with a place I’ve felt before, not necessarily seen. Then I walk through it in my mind, listening for the folks who live there. Pretty soon, the shops, forests, riverbanks, and background details start crowding together like they’ve been waiting to be drawn. The details come from treating each spot like a character with its own history, and the characters grow out of the land like wildflowers, or weeds depending on the day.
What’s the toughest part of being both an illustrator and a musician?
The biggest challenge is switching creative mindsets. Illustration asks for patience, detail, and long stretches of focus, while music demands energy, emotion, and a sense of momentum. Balancing those two modes—and giving each one the time it deserves—can be difficult. It’s a lot of juggling, a lot of resetting your brain, and learning to protect your creative bandwidth so neither side gets neglected.
And the best part?
When someone tells me a drawing made ’em feel something they almost forgot… or a song hit a nerve they didn’t know was raw. That connection, where your art becomes a little flashlight in someone else’s dark, that’s the whole reason I keep at it.
Find out more about Andy at: https://www.andycaseillustration.com/ and https://www.relatable-media.com/the-relatable-voice-magazine