home decor

paper cut outs + ink

I feel like, sometime in the last couple of years, maybe even the last five years, between getting lucky with editorial gigs, then being unlucky, and then starting a master’s program, I started to dread making art.

For me, drawing became about building a portfolio that could land me editorial gigs. It made me afraid to sit at my desk and begin anything because I was always trying to answer: why am I making this, who’s going to see this, and what could this get me?

I was still making work, assignments, and projects for uni that even got on a shortlist and were exhibited somewhere (and I’m obviously happy and proud of it). Still, I didn’t derive much joy from creating them, and I had almost entirely stopped drawing for myself (except my travel sketchbook, which gave me a spark of joy here and there).

A couple of things made it difficult for me to find that joy in drawing. One possibility could be that the process of making it was laborious. While in the middle of it, I started questioning why I was making it, who it was for, and what would come out of it before I got to the finished illustration. So I thought I could get over that hurdle by creating more on the page, all of it, in a single motion rather than first drawing by hand, then coloring digitally, and then further tweaking the composition millimeter by millimeter on some adobe tool.

These are some illustrations I made using paper cutouts, ink, and pastels. It was fun, and I loved seeing it come together on the page, imperfections and all.

These are objects I drew from the Met’s online collection. Things I looked at: silverware made by Myer Myers (except for the coffee pot, which is British) in New York sometime in the late 1700s; a sofa made by Filippo Pelagio Palagi in Bologna; and an ornamental sofa made by Jean-Baptiste I Tilliard in Paris.

it felt great to put ink down without any pencil lines underneath, and i loved creating the wiry texture and patterns

couldn’t help but recolor them digitally (why green, I don’t know)

trying out different compositions

trying out different lids for the coffee pot

the entire Myer Myers coffee set: milk pot, cream pot, sugar bowl, and tongs

an ornamental sofa made by Jean-Baptiste I Tilliard in Paris

and a sofa made by Filippo Pelagio Palagi in Bologna

I recently read (in a friend’s newsletter) that “a fast illustrator is a happy illustrator.” And I’m starting to sense that in my work too.

Thanks for reading :)

—Yogee

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