Bored Panda reached out to Isabel, an artist who has uniquely channeled her coming-of-age struggles into a relatable character named Petunia. Through her Instagram comics, Isabel captures the awkward, funny, and often contradictory experiences of growing up, providing comfort and laughter to her followers. Isabel's work emphasizes the importance of self-acceptance and the power of humor in facing life's challenges.

When asked about the inspiration behind Petunia, Isabel shared, "I wanted to create a face that reflected my inner world. All my life I’ve gotten that I look confident and collected, but I experience life pretty intensely and I pay close attention to my emotions…and there she was! The name I just find endearing and hilarious."

Balancing her time between her demanding job in academia and her passion for art, the artist admitted, "I work in Academia and it’s very demanding, so unfortunately I don’t have as much time as I did in the past. I try to schedule drawing time, but I fail often. I was very focused on growing when I started, but now I feel like I need to reconcile with myself first and then go back to drawing more consistently."

Reflecting on the comics that resonate with her the most, Isabel mentioned, "I don’t have one in particular, but the ones that deal a little bit closer with the hardest moments of my life make me feel that I can open up to people and I’ll be safe, which is something I have struggled with for a long time."

Discussing the themes of her work, she explained, "The themes weren’t so much a conscious decision when I started, but an urgent need. I was very young and quite lost, and I was taking things one day at a time, hoping I would eventually figure myself out."

Isabel offered a nuanced view on self-acceptance, stating, "Accepting yourself is first looking at yourself, understanding yourself, seeing the imprints of other people in you, and committing to all of that, avoiding denial, and allowing curiosity to take over. Then you take yourself and do things you want and can... That is self-acceptance for me, and Petunia always worked as an honest mirror for me."

She also touched on why her work resonates with many, "I think the reason it resonates is because the common discourse and the messages we receive every day are contradictory... A kind and realistic take does not impose unachievable expectations, and allows certain degrees of imperfection and human flaw without identifying the individual with them."

On finding one's voice through art, Isabel advised, "My advice would be to try to pour as much time into it as you can, and to expect fluctuations and periods in which you look at what you’ve made and it stares back at you with dead-fish eyes. But I believe there’s something interesting and valuable every time we exit a tunnel, and artistic self-expression seems to be the door and the key to those experiences."