It was love at first sight when we saw the works of @agathesinger, a freelance illustrator who is currently living in Paris. Her bright and colourful works caught our eyes and we couldn’t help but wanting to know more about the illustrator, so we held a little bit of Q&A so you can find out more about her too!
CA: Hi, Agathe! Thank you for taking your time doing this Q&A. First of all, please introduce yourself. 🙂
AS: Hi! I’m Agathe, a freelance illustrator living in Paris since 14 years. I share my home studio with my husband, who is also an artist, and our young daughter. I work on various commissioned projects for perfumery, fashion, decorative objects or music. I also paint and produce limited edition prints for my online shop, and I’m currently working on several book projects. A Parisian gallery, Les Petits Collectionneurs, is editing a serie of my paintings for children.
CA: Do you have art study or were you self taught?Â
AS: I graduated from high school with an option in literature and art, before moving to Paris to study 5 years art and graphic design at two different colleges: École Supérieure de Arts Appliqués Duperré, then École Supérieure d’Arts Graphiques Penninghen.
I first worked in communication agencies as a graphic designer, but I didn’t like it much and I started to paint and illustrate on the side. I worked first with watercolor that I always liked to paint with, but then I started to try and enjoy gouache painting. I never learnt that technic at school, so I had to practice a lot before I had a nice result with it.
CA: What inspire you?Â
AS: I’m much inspired by nature, mostly flowers, birds and wild animals. In the city I love to walk arounds parcs and garden, or just looking at flower shops and plants on balconies. I take also a lot of inspiration for books, like that beautiful Atlas of Poetic Botanic I got as a gift. Frida Kahlo or Le Douanier Rousseau are my favorite painters, as they explored in their art the magnificence, magic and mystery of nature, both in a very imaginary and dreamy way.
CA: Why do you love to work with gouache and watercolor?
AS: I love them both for their beautiful and bright colors, thought I tend to like gouache much more lately. Watercolor is more transparent and delicate, when gouache paint mat rendering brings strength and energy to my work.
CA: Why are you interested in printmaking?Â
AS: I like how printmaking gives a new life or a new level to a painting. As I work with risograph printing technic, which is limited in colors, I have to re-interpret the painting into only 3 or 4 colors, playing with the mixes and transparency. I can play with different versions of motifs or color harmonies. Also, each print tend to be slightly different from the others: when the layers of colors don’t perfectly match, it creates a very thin white line or a dark superposition that I really like. It sometimes looks like to is paper cut. I like also that more people can enjoy a painting, though I produce only limited editions.
CA: The best piece of advice you’ve been given?
AS: To practice and to work a lot, and to try do to do always what I love.
For more info, go follow her Instagram: @agathesinger
