Hi there Reader!

Hope you're doing well this week! We have some important housekeeping to do (boy, there are a lot of things happening recently), and of course, as always, I have art updates and inspirations for you. :)

Let's get started!

I quit my job

Alright, starting with a bang already!

No, don’t worry, nothing bad happened or anything :) And I’m not leaving to do art full time either (sadly), just changing companies. But I want to explain why I’ve been complaining a lot (or at least more than usual!) about being busy recently.

Some of you might know if you know me personally or follow me on socials, but these past few weeks I’ve been working hard on sending applications in order to get a new job in Poland! I finally came out of job hunt hell, got an offer, and now everything is official: I can finally share it here!

snapshot graph of my job application over time

This took a lot of time and mental energy, and maybe you felt it reading this newsletter. I definitely didn’t have as much time to draw, but hopefully it should be more stable going forward.

In other personal news, it was my birthday last week :D 🎉 I’m 27 now, which feels both old and very young depending on how I look at it.

Birthdays are a good time for changes, and in fact they always happen to me around this time of the year. Do you notice this on your end too?

We are 30% through the year exactly, and it looks like it has a lot more changes in store for me--especially because this summer I’m getting married!

Alright, that’s the personal update I wanted to share with you today! I’m excited for the rest of the year and the art and projects I’ll share in the future. Thank you for following my journey!

Back to art! Here is some illustration progress

Last week I finally finished the ink of my next illustration, and today I was able to spend time on the colors! :)

Behold!

I’m happy that, as I described last week, I’m so far able to preserve the amount of detail in the city. I’m pretty stoked about it!

I notice now that I didn’t draw any cars on the road haha, only the food truck parked on the port. Should I correct this? Maybe the tram line is passing by here actually; that would make sense.

There are still some parts I would like to adjust before adding more shadows and light, but I’m pretty happy about it so far. Hopefully done by next week, fingers crossed!

My art discovery of the week 🌸

Today I wanted to share with you an artist you might have seen before but not know by name; that was at least my case before. I’m talking about Kawase Hasui, a Japanese printmaker from the early 20th century!

My fiancée shared some of his art with me and I fell completely in love 🥰 I really love those colors and how serene those scenes look.

Those illustrations feel both traditional and modern at the same time. He apparently got a lot of Western influence when it comes to realistic light and perspective.

The best part is that there are so many of them! He made more than 600 woodblock prints during his lifetime.

And speaking of woodblock prints, do you know how those illustrations are made? I had absolutely no clue, and searching for more info I came across this article detailing the process. There are even some of his sketches, which I find fascinating! :)