I’ll have to make it quick, there’s so much to do…
March marks the end of my Semester-long Internship at Studio Film Bilder. I got to greet the new interns and make a thorough introduction to the Studio and the tasks of what’s to be expected of them and stayed for three weeks to make sure they have accustomed. It was a good time and went over so quickly. Particularly because of the nice teams and steady supply of things to do. I learned a lot, while not much in animation initially, but much of the organisation part of making films. It didn’t feel so much as a workplace, more like a second home. I felt the lack of the daily structure heavily on my first day off of work with me not really being able to get things done past noon. While I tell myself I’m pretty organized already, it is something I feel I really need to get a grasp on for my bachelor’s and potential future freelancing.
With the last week of my internship was very low on inside-projects, I continued to work on my commission work for the Animation Festival of which a special little thing I cannot disclose yet. I feel the time pressure weigh down on me right now due to me spending the following week after Easter at my home where I can’t work on it, leaving me without an additional week for work. At the very least it is some downtime that I feel like I really need now and can use it for some of my traditional projects.
At roughly the beginning of the month, I had been given the opportunity to move back to Offenburg as the shared flat of my friends got an empty room. Which was quite a shock that I had to consider; it would mean the immediate move where I had planned to stay at my hometown to slowly ease in to my bachelor planning and meet friends and spend time with my boyfriend… oh yeh that was made official too this month <v<
We met for the first time in December and got close very quickly. It took me a while to consider though as I wasn’t sure if a relationship is what I needed in life after 6 years without but I believe he is good for me ^)v(^
But yes, the decision whether to move to Offenburg prematurely was very stressful though now, sitting in the new flat, I believe made the right call there. It is… still so much to take in and will have more to say on the matter in the next reflection.
After NFC, I felt a lack of motivation to do art. I wouldn’t have thought it then but now it feels like I was having a small art block. I couldn’t draw merely for myself, I needed to have someone to work for. Which sounds awful and nice at the same time. I’m a little afraid that my personal things are being left aside that I would like to continue, like my island setting but working digitally… I dunno. Aside from some telegram Stickers, I haven’t really done anything bigger this year that is digital. Even my future plans like making several con book artworks are planned to be physical in order to be able to sell them at the charity auctions.
So I asked several people to make collaborations or art trades with though 2 of 3 need some time to prepare, the first that I could start working on was Mlice who I got to talk with at NFC. What honored me was that she really likes my bird and offered the art trade, I told her I’d love to draw her Sona with some plants and thus, this portrait was made. Though the background colour turned out much more flashy than anticipated, I still like it a lot and it’s standing right behind me as I write this. The frame really helped it coming together and gave me a boost to use up the ones I got in November. At least I have to produce some for this year’s art shows that I’ll hopefully be at, so there’ll be plenty more like it, just have to find the right ideas.
With this portrait, I felt I got a bit better at picking the right colours. While I don’t want to disregard the ref, there should be some vibrant interpretation in what colours to choose. Like with Mlice, I saturated the muzzle color and gave more lightness to the hands to help the sense of volume. Still got a lot more to learn but I think character portraits are the way to go.
Here are a couple more paintings I did this month to practice:
The left one was a gift for my ex-flatmate, who has become a very dear friend to me. His affinity to egyptian mythology helped me lots to portray the figure Horus. I did not have much time with it and I feel it shows in the skin tones and hands, but he was very happy with it regardless.
The right one was my first painting like these. As you probably noticed, I switched to a lineless style as that was slowing me down quite a bit and working without them forces me to focus more on shapes. An issue I had with it was that I finished with a color and cleaned it off just to find a spot where I needed it later. Sometimes I remixed the coor, some other times, I went with what I had, like with the blue glass bottle here and the scarf on the llama’s neck.
There’s definitely much more to practice and I’ll try to at least work out some birthday portraits whenever possible. At least once I got my desk for traditional works.
I will miss Stuttgart. It’s a great place to get connected with creative people. Almost every week did I go to a creative gathering and almost every weekend, I had something to do. Though in the end, I yearned for simpler times to focus on relaxation that often was neglected. With nicer people iny my flat, I think I could have lived there for a long time. So far there hasn’t been a place that could hold me for long and I’m intrigued to find out when I’ll be caught to settle down, because after 7 moves in the past 5 years, I’ve had it with makeshift accomodations, though I have to tell I got lucky more times than I didn’t, so I had it fairly well.
At least I was able to go to the Mercedes Benz museum that was surprisingly interesting or someone who isn’t into cars that much and I got to the Museum of Arts for the first time as well and did some sketching there and could have stayed for much longer to appreciate the details of one of my fav artists Carl Spitzweg. But you know what they say, you gotta stp when it’ most fun, that leaves you yearning to come back. And it’s true for the city. I’m yearning to return once I find some work place there. Now I have people I know there, to help me find a new suitable home if it comes to it. But first I have to look what’s right ahead of me. And that’s finishing up my work for the festival, arrange what’s needed for my bachelor’s and get some furniture in. Again, more on me settling in at the end of April.
Have a splendid time!
~Souvillaine