March Art Newsletter

The season of change

Chloé Cashew
March 31, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

Hello friends !

As we have entered springtime here in the Pacific Northwest, this month has been bringing a lot of changes (in what seems to be becoming a trend in my life?). The biggest change being, I have found a full-time job, yay ! 🎉

This very welcome change brought a shift in pacing and energy that inevitably led to less art than I had planned for (*ahem* I had very boldly put twelve big ticket items on this month’s to-do list), but I do hope you will enjoy this edition.

Let jump right in !

Shelter project

One of this month’s items was to work on some of the elements I had started for the Shelter project this winter. They were fun little to work to, bit by bit, putting to use some random felt pens.

Those are mainly flora/fungi oriented but there are some animals hiding in there.

Gouache & pen on paper

They were crafted from random little gouache marks and blobs (to use my leftovers up), then just carving some shapes in. This is what it looked like before :

Gouache & pen on paper

I also have these little guys that I had totally forgot about ! Some little grubs and weird lifeforms :

Ink on paper

One of the main elements of the planet these life forms would be inhabiting is a two season climate, with regular floods in the first area we’re focusing on, leading to a lot of symbiotic life forms to allow different species to close up and resist the harshness of elements. Similar to these trees that I whipped up during the winter, bending and developing some protection against the intense storms one of the seasons brings.

Sketches

Here are some little sketches from this month ! Some hare studies for a still quite late Lunar New Year image.

Felt pen & ink on paper

A landscape of strange pools inspired from boiling eggs, that will need some color !

Pencil & ink on paper

A fun little spread :

Some more WIP sketches

These are the things I wanted to be finished images this month before life happened 🙂
A redo of an old doodle:

Pencils on paper

And the infamous Lunar New Year image I shall get to one day:

Pencil on paper

What else ?

I’ve had the pleasure of doing some storyboard for a really cute and fun project ! It had been a long time and was very rewarding.
Another one of the big March changes was adopting a teeny tiny fur ball named Inky ! She is currently hanging out with me as I finish writing this newsletter.

She is 100% perfect, loves people, has no teeth and waited for a home for one year.

What’s next ?

Settling in with the change of pace and keep working on projects outside of work.
I will be on releasing a short story next month — it will hit your inboxes on April 15th.
Do art always 🙂

Inspirations

Playing this “Employee of the Month” mix on repeat.
I’ve been watching Hannibal again so I returned to a mandatory moody classical mix.
I’ve received my copy of Bearly Anxious, a wonderful little booklet from Sina Aline. Check it out here !

That’s a wrap for March ! Enjoy the spring and as usual, feel free to say hi or share this with your landlord 🙂

See you next month,
Chloé (and Inky)