September 2024
Hello, my dear friend,
As I sit down to write to you, the rain in beating at the windows. The autumn seems to have started in earnest. Despite all the busyness, I have enjoyed the summer. I kept drawing in my small square sketchbook. I have also started working on the illustrated story I was telling you about! Before we dive into that, here is the illustration for September. It’s inspired by a view I see almost every day on our walks. We can’t go on the other side of the river as there is no bridge and I think it’s someone’s private property. But for this illustration I imaged us sitting there!
This illustration is available through Redbubble and, if you are on my mailing list, as a digital wallpaper for your devices!
I have also added my other newsletter cover illustration as wallpapers for you to enjoy! If you’re not already on my newsletter mailing list, you can subscribe here and get instant access to these digital wallpapers.
The Lady of the River
This is the working title of the story I am illustrating. It’s based on a Romanian folktale. I translated and adapted the text and my intention is to create a pattern collection around this story. I’d also like to pull it together in a book format so the illustrated patterns can live along the text. At the moment I am in the beginnings of the realisation phase. I’ve made a plan and I know more or less what I need to illustrate. This plan has however changed a few times, but that’s part of the process.
"The Lady of the River" overview
I’ve split the story in twelve key scenes to illustrate, like in a children’s book. The ones I have so far would look lovely on wallpaper, I believe. I have to note that I’ll release these patterns only when I have completed the entire collection. I am sure they will evolve, change colours and maybe new patterns will emerge or some I will end up not including. For the book format, I will research both self-publishing and possible publishers. If you know a publisher interested in this project, do let me know!
The lessons have also started at the Art Academy. As I’m in my first year of specialisation, I can dedicate all my time to a personal project and this is the one I chose! When we’ll have live drawing session with a model though, I will probably also draw along. Depends of how engrossed I am in The Lady of the River.
Work in progress "Pelicans among the willows"
My process is similar to that of most illustrators/designers: I started by gathering reference images, then doing observation sketches and finally building the pattern. I work, as usual in Affinity Designer and in raster. I think these drawings are “vectorisable”, but at the moment I love the texture of this pixel brush. I love both the result and the process of drawing with it. The latter is of course the one that matters, though the first mostly gets priority.
A sketchbook page of Romanian houses.
I’m a long way from completing this collection and every now and then I notice myself rushing through it, wanting to already have drawn it all so I can be happy and proud of myself. These moments of awareness luckily happen more and more often and when I do become aware, I realise the absurdness of it all. I rush through something I love (the creative process) to get to the point where I’m done with the creative work. There is, of course always another creative project I can start. But what is then the point to rush through that one as well, having my mind mostly occupied by how I think the final result will be. It brings the image to mind of the donkey with a carrot on a stick in front of his nose. The donkey keeps walking with his eyes fixed on the carrot, but no matter how fast he goes, the carrot is still out of reach. If the donkey would focus on each step, he’d realise that the carrot he was chasing was never real and that he already has all the carrots he needs. I do hope my donkey analogies are not too much for you today!
So instead I make a plan (in order to not get stuck along the way) and then i just take it one step at time. Focus on the activity I do at this moment, one brush stroke at a time.
Sketchbook
I still use and love my little square sketchbook. My subjects remain every day objects and people or animals I encounter. I’ve also timidly started to introduce a crayon (gray or coloured) every now and then. This sketchbook is another opportunity to observe my mind in its constant rambling “You already know how the vines of a leaf look like. Just draw them, you don’t need to look again. It’ll be faster and then you can move along to the next thing.” To write it out, as I do here, makes it obvious how absurd this is, but in the moment, if I don’t pay attention these kinds of thoughts seem perfectly normal.
Finally, here’s a recent shot of my workspace, always changing is ways both great and small!
I leave you with warm wishes, till next time!
Find all my patterns and illustrations below:
Drawing is not about what you see as much as what you can make others see.
I am an artist and illustrator who believes in the power of images to make people happy. I’m most known for my colorful cards and patterns depicting people, flowers, and animals, in a sensitive and feminine style using flat simplified shapes.
I live in Beersel, Belgium, and I like to go on long walks with my little dog, Luther.
