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Mélanie, watercolorist and designer

Discover the portraits made by Mélanie

Melanie's Happy Life

Melanie is a freelance illustrator. Her main activity is to realize portraits on order. She collaborates with companies, brands, communities, but also professionals of the press, publishing and associations.

As a child, she became interested in drawing by watching her mother’s drawings. Then, in high school, she tried watercolor, a passion that she never let go of (even if this artistic bubble only became her profession much later). Although she is primarily self-taught, she did attend a school of applied art.

Besides her job, Melanie loves to bake, hates cleaning (although she wants everything to be clean and tidy) and secretly dreams of a greenhouse where she can grow flowers.

She has a husband, two children, a cat and a goldfish that make a lot of mess (yes the fish too, what’s that jar of food lying around?) but bring laughter to her life every day.

Melanie's Happy STYLE

Melanie has always drawn with pencil, which she finds natural and comforting. To darken the blacks she adds felt pen or pen. Above all, she likes her drawings to look like drawings: she keeps the pencil line, its imperfect grain. But she also likes to bring joy and positivity with a touch of color. For this, her medium of choice is watercolor, to which she sometimes adds a little pep with inks. Depending on the project, she can also incorporate digital retouching.

Why portraits? She has had a crush on close-ups since she was a teenager and never gets tired of them. She loves to start her drawing with the eyes because for her, it is what makes a portrait successful. The faces are all different and as she spends time on them, she feels like she knows each person she has the chance to draw.

Why we LOVE Melanie

Melanie is a modern watercolorist! We love the accuracy of her felt pen strokes and her colored outlines that highlight the silhouettes of her characters.

Her portraits are truer than life, the resemblance is striking and we top Melanie adds a supplement of art to her achievements!

Finally, there is nothing more moving than these bust portraits that focus on the eyes and the smile to increase the emotion felt. In short, we love it!

The Happy Funky PORTRAIT of Mélanie

♥ Do you remember your first aesthetic shock?
Of course it’s engraved: it was a charcoal drawing by my mom, a doll with braids and freckles.

♥ The artist you would like to meet? What would you say to her?
Frida Kahlo. I would definitely be too impressed to talk to her!

♥ What is your favorite color? what does it inspire you?
The flashy pink that inspires me to be happy, to laugh.

♥ Which museum gives you the greatest emotion? Why?
I love the exhibits at the Museum of Playful Arts, which always amaze me by taking me back to childhood. There are immense talents behind the creation of cartoons, and their facetiousness touches my heart.

♥ What piece of art would you buy without hesitation if you had an unlimited budget?
A gigantic, colorful painting of the equatorial forest. Displayed as a groundwork for the Blue sky studios Rio cartoon universe, it is 20 feet long. It will look great in my studio!

♥ In which city do you feel happiest? Why or why not? Share your 3 favorite addresses.
I loved Montreal, New York, Lille, Barcelona, Le Havre too, but my favorite place remains at home in Laval. There is the Jardin de la Perrine which is so timeless in the summer, the Halte fluviale to have an aperitif in the open air while the kids play on the lawns, and my favorite tchaï latté is at the Etienne corner café.

♥ What book keeps you up all night?
Thrillers and cosy mysteries are my current favorites. I’m finishing Julia Chapman‘s series , The Yorkshire Detectives. And I also read a lot of children’s books with my kids. In paper, e-reader or audio, I always have a book with me. Those who know me will tell you, I even read while walking.

♥ What are your biggest sources of inspiration?
TV shows, movies, books, cartoons, naive painters or abstract art too. And everything that is very colorful in everyday life.

♥ What’s the funkiest thing you’ve done in your life?
Buying a run-down cabin in the country and knowing that I’ll be able to make it my dream studio.

♥ What is your definition of happiness?
A cat of course! Coffee and a small pastry. My watercolor palette comes in a good place too… Oh yeah oops my kids and my husband obviously 🙂

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