Six More Weeks of Winter

Welcome to Spring!

I am slowly defrosting from my hibernation with a new edition of this humble newsletter. I drew a lot this winter and I find myself with art spread over three sketchbooks and more! It took me a while to figure out how to return to a more regular newsletter, without dumping it all at once. I have a bit more energy now, a lot of ideas and things I want to do (as usual), and Spring looks very promising. So let’s get into it!

Today, I will be sharing the current contents of this sketchbook :

It is a very good summary of my current artistic journey and development, with some nice growth, experiments, and a lot of emotional topics, the latter of which are scary to share but isn’t that what art is all about?

The Contents

Sketching

Starting off with some of my usual art, sketches ! Those are always a big part of my sketchbooks, and I’ve also been doing some concepty sketches with story ideas alongside them.

I’ve also sketched a little comic page to return to my foundations - Franco-belgian comics and inking.

Experiments & Emotions

In order to get out of the rut and out of my comfort zone, I’ve experimented with some “ugly art” and collages. It was very fun to do and I highly recommend to anyone who likes to draw and doodle! The exercise is very freeing.

A lot of this experimentation also let to explore more emotional subjects, so I’ve put them all in this section. I often (consciously or unconsciously) integrate emotions in sketches and illustrations, and with my current journey recovering from burnout and anxiety, I’ve tried to dig a bit deeper into those subjects.

Some are raw, some are more polished.

This first one was done following a Youtube video on the subject to help get me started, and coincidentally explored a lot of the feelings we can pressure ourselves with as artists.

This one is called “Kitsungi”(the Japanese practice of repairing broken pottery with gold.
It has this caption written underneath) :

Painting!

Finally, I’ve been wanting to try and get back into painting, which has not been very successful, as I’ve only produced one painting (and spread some leftover acrylics on sketchbook pages). I am however pretty happy with it 🙂 

Stickers

I experimented with a small batch of stickers to gift my friends and family this Christmas, and it turned out amazing! I was really happy with the quality, and everyone seemed to love them. The pigeon is a favourite!

One of my main quests this Spring is to start getting more of my art printed to sell it — namely stickers and small prints. I have a running list of artworks that have been requested, and I’m looking forward to hold my pieces on pretty papers!

While preparing this newsletter, I received a small batch of fresh stickers that I’m planning on selling. I haven’t set up any kind of store yet, but if you’d like to get one, let me know! They will sell for CAD $3 each.

If you’d like to support this endeavour, you can also buy me a tea 🍵 (I’ve almost completely switched from drinking too much coffee to tea over the last year)

Photography

I have been dabbling in photography since 2020, first by teaching myself how to manually shoot film. I’ve never shared much of it until now, but my wonderful partner gifted me a fantastic little camera that never leaves my side when I’m out, and I’m very happy with a lot of the pictures I’ve taken!

On top of fuelling my creativity, it’s also a great way to keep building up my own set of reference pictures. I’m pondering creating a little gallery somewhere to share some of those pictures. In the meantime, please enjoy some portraits of my favourite subject!

The day this newsletter will be sent out is coincidentally Inky’s one year adoption anniversary 🥰 

What else ?

• I’m available for freelance work and am opening commissions soon, with a special project to offer a fresh take on pet artworks.

• You may have noticed a slight nickname change… I’ve been using the previous one for over 10 years now and felt like I needed a change, while still honouring the original one and its history. So kesshoo became Cashew :)

What’s next ?

• As mentioned, I have a lot of art to share! I may try to return to a monthly newsletter, with the next one focusing on the sketches I did while spending time in France this Winter.

• Keep an eye out for more stickers and some prints! If you feel like you would like to get one of the arts shown today (or previously) as a sticker or a print, drop me a note and I’ll be happy to oblige ~

Inspirations

• Lots of reading! Mostly non-fiction, with The Body Keeps the Score and Universal Basic Income currently in progress.

• I’ve been rebuilding my music library, recovering some old albums and buying new ones, with the latest Aurora and Radical Face’s The Family Tree among favourites.

I hope you enjoyed this fresh edition! If you made it this far, thank you for reading! Feel free to say hi or share with your friends. Happy Spring!

See you next (hopefully) month,
Chloé