Hi there Reader!

Yes, we are back on the regular schedule! Sorry about last week -- in case you missed it, I've been really busy recently, to the point where I couldn't make much art at all. Too bad! Thankfully it's a bit better now.

Today is still a bit special though, because I was on vacation last weekend! Maybe you were too; I hope you enjoyed your Easter 🥚🐰

This week I'll tell you about the art I made and the happy things I saw during the Easter weekend!

But before that, just a quick notice that one of you has been selected for our monthly giveaway! The lucky person selected is entitled to receive the print of their choice :D

If you are the one picked this month, you probably already got an extra email from me or you'll soon have one; double check your inbox!

Sketching on the plane

So to give you some context, this weekend I was back in France to spend time with my family :)

When I travel, I always love to take the time to draw or study, and here it was no different!

(pictured here: me starting to sketch as the plane is taking off)

One interesting page I did was a study of a picture we took in Tokyo last year. I recently went back into my archive once again, and found a few I wanted to revisit.

This one was taken in Asakusa on the side of the Senso-ji temple.

I wouldn’t do a full illustration out of it, but I love the details and the clutter -- that’s why I wanted to spend some time on it!

Oops, we didn't see the no picture sign 😇

It was fun to explore the overall composition but also the individual details and objects. I did much better on the bush than on the statue, as you can see 😄

Cats! 🐈‍⬛🐈

Alright, before we continue, I wanted to show you some pictures of cats I saw this weekend :)

Something tells me there are a few cat lovers subscribed to this newsletter haha

Well, I might love cats a lot, but I still can’t draw them for the life of me. Too bad!

Sketching in nature

In France, the tradition for Easter is to have a picnic in nature to celebrate the return of spring. And thankfully, we had beautiful weather while we were here!

A good opportunity to collect some reference pictures, but also try a bit of life drawing!

The one I want to point out today was this tree, for example: with the amount of branches and details, it was very tricky to get it right!

Here you can see here the difference between my fiancée’s interpretation and mine:

I love the energy and line in theirs! It’s interesting how we went in two different directions with the same subject.

Do you also do an Easter picnic where you live? What kind of tradition do you love at this time of the year? :)

The Boy and the Heron

Alright, and to finish, we also watched The Boy and the Heron, the last Ghibli movie that I’ve meant to watch since it was released!

As I usually do, I knew almost nothing about the movie going in. I was expecting a repeat of a lot of Miyazaki’s tropes at the beginning (it’s clearly not the first one with the kid main character moving to a new home haha), but I was clearly wrong: in fact, this might be the weirdest Ghibli movie I’ve seen so far! And I’m glad I went beyond my initial assumption.

This is a background I reconstructed from a few screenshots! In full quality, you can even see the texture of the paper that was used ❤️

I was imagining the type of parents whose only experience with Ghibli was showing Totoro to their 5-year-old, and their confusion seeing this movie in theatre 😄 But even if it’s not the most typically kid-friendly Ghibli out there, I’m still super happy I saw it!

The art and the creativity, both visually and in the story, were a very big highlight; it made me ponder for a while!

By the way, if you’ve seen this movie you might have noticed: I’ve only shown screenshots from the first part of the movie so far, in case you’d want to go in blind like I did :)