Art & Inspiration letters from NIGHTEͶ (Nathan Guilhot)
My personal magazine documenting my creative journey :)
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Hello Reader!
I hope you had a great start of your week despite the heat wave that's continuing.
On my side, I'm still technically on vacation, so I have a lot of free time and I'm really enjoying it. And I might as well, because it's coming to an end very soon, because I'm starting a new job this week!
Today I'm super happy to show you my new finished illustration, as well as many things that inspired me this week :)
Let's dive in!
My first iPad illustration is finished!
If you missed the last edition, I talked about my first time using iPad and Procreate to make art. I started working on a full illustration in my style, and now it’s completely done!
You know, now that I went through the entire illustration process with Procreate, and I have some additional thoughts.
The finishing touches, ie adjusting specific colors, correcting small mistakes, shadings, turned out to be quite a pain! Because of the layer limits, I only have 26 layers to work with in total, which is very limited.
I usually like to have one color per layer so I can adjust them easily, and I couldn’t really do that, especially when I went into the shading. I often had to merge or delete layers to continue; in short, it got more complicated than it should be.
So In the end I’m still not convinced to fully switch to Procreate, but as I said last week, it’s still was great to try :)
Someone pointed out that my style looked a bit different using this software, and I think that’s very interesting. Do you think it's the case?
When I started using Procreate, I had this idea that there’s a “Procreate style”; not literally, but a lot of artist using it share common traits: pastel, cute colors, soft shapes, etc. and I was a bit worried about it. But now I can tell that it was a bit overblown in my head.
Whatever tools you use, they make it easier to achieve certain effects, and for me, it might not be exactly what I need to do illustrations the way I like to do them, but I think it's still good enough!
Once again, I’m very grateful for the learning opportunity. And it was also a lot of fun to change my workflow for once!
Fun fact for the final stats: I spent around 10 hours drawing on this illustration, for around 10,000 strokes. Pretty good numbers :)
By the way, the price for Apple products just increased, including the iPad, so kind of funny timing since I’ll probably not be in a hurry to upgrade and get my own iPad and stop using the one I borrow from my fiancé!
Stained glass in Kraków
This weekend I went to a friend's wedding, and despite the fact that I finally had to learn how to tie a tie, it was a great time!
My tie game still needs some work haha
But the reason I talk about it is because of the location were it was held: the ceremony was inside the Church of St. Francis of Assisi in Kraków, which is a pretty church to begin with, but I decided last minute to share the stained glass with you :)
The stained glass were made by the artist Stanisław Wyspiański, and the main piece is called "Bóg Ojciec" (meaning God the father); and I really love how creative and singular it looks:
It's especially impressive in context, because the sun was shining right through it, and it's more than 8 meters tall!
Wyspiański himself is a very fascinating artist; his Wikipedia page describes him as "a Polish playwright, painter, poet, and interior and furniture designer"; in short, stained glass is far from the only thing he did haha
His work is very iconic and influential in Poland in general, but especially in the polish branch of Art Nouveau.
But I really wish his work was more well-known outside of his home country. Sure he's not completely obscure, but Alphonse Mucha is well-recognized now for example, and before moving here I never heard about Wyspiański, even though his work is truly incredible. I love his beautiful stained glass and its very unique vision, especially for sacred art.
So if you’re passing by Kraków, I really encourage you to visit this church or go see his art in the National Museum :) we can also have a coffee together if you want haha
YouTube updates!
You know now that I’m posting a YouTube video every single day for almost two months now.
This week was a bit funny because I had to downgrade the quality; first because I don’t have my usual laptop anymore, but also I made a mistake with the new setup and recorded in 360p!
I guess it gives a very retro YouTube vibe if you're into this :) This will be fixed in a few days!
If you don’t know PeerTube, don’t worry about it -- you can still continue to watch on YouTube. But if you’re curious, and if you follow me on Mastodon, you might be more familiar with it.
PeerTube is a YouTube alternative built on the same type of technology as Mastodon, and what it means for you is that if you use Mastodon or equivalent software, you can now comment, like, and subscribe to the channel using your own existing account. So that's a handy way for you to follow along!
But if you just want to click on the video on YouTube, it’s totally fine. It’s just another option, because more than one person asked me to mirror my channel on PeerTube. Now it's finally done! :)
Cool links of the week
Feeling like doodling something yourself? Head over to this tool made by Morusque, doodle something simple and wait a second or two ;)
I didn't have a place to say it in the main newsletter, but recently I learned about the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, who has an exhibit insanely similar to my recent aquarium illustration :O I wasn't aware of this place while drawing it, maybe I came accross an image without realizing? In any case, I wanted to show you!
I've been enjoying Milla's daily doodle on Mastodon recently :) Go check out her work!
Alright, thank you so much for reading! As I said at the beginning I'm starting a new job this week, but I hope to have plenty of time to also make art for you guys and show you something new now that the new illustration is done.
Have a great rest of your week, stay fresh, and above all,
Take care! - Nighten
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