The artist of this week is a really sweet girl, happy to give positive feelings and sensations to everybody. Her touch and colors are unique and I am really happy to introduce her. The artist of the week is Estelle Lafitte, aka Ellfitte!
Hello Estelle. Could you tell me something about yourself?
Hello Chiara! My name is Estelle Lafitte. I live with my boyfriend in Montpellier, a big city in the south of France.
I am currently a graphic designer (freelancer) but I think I will not do this profession all my life. I would like to keep being a graphic designer and illustrator at the same time but not fully !
How was your passion for illustration born?
Since I am 3-4 years old I loved using painting and drawing. At school, teacher asked us to draw something that referred to a poem we had to learn. Then people and my family told me that I had something of very creative.
Later, we had plastic art lessons at school and I realized that I really liked it! So I tried to discover some new medium and then I ask myself what were professions about art.
I think so that school helped me a lot and also the support given by my friends and my family. At school indeed we also had creative workshops to give gifts to our parents such as mother's day! That was so cool and my mothers keept everything like if it was a treasure.
This is really sweet Estelle! What do you hope people feeling when they look at your art?
I want people feeling more confident and inspired, I want to give a little smile and have a better day. I don't say that I am able to do it now but I want to send good vibes and positive thoughts to people who are not well these days.
Quarantine is very hard so I also would like to help them to think about something else and travel with my drawings.
I have a lot of ideas to create this atmosphere ! I wish it will works.
If you had to describe with the words how you feel while drawing, how would you do it?
When I draw, I have different emotions. Sometime it is positive and sometime it is negative.
I always have a lot of ideas at the beginning and it is very exciting but then, I quickly start to doubt about many things.
Despite this, I try to keep the rhythm and don't give up because I like to draw and I want to evolve myself. I always feel good when I finish an illustration. It is something very satisfying.
Drawing create a lot of emotions and most of time it is positive. Yesterday a customer say to me that she was pretty happy about what I did with her order. She was crying on the phone and thanks me. It make me cry too because.. when you put a lot of love on your creation and give it to someone who take it as well.. I don't know but it make me smile a lot to see that I can bring joy to someone.
How does your mood affect the illustration you are working on? Could I for example, looking at one of your drawings, trace your emotions of that moment? Or do you try not to let your emotions show too much?
Mmh... I think that we can see feelings on my illustrations. It happends sometimes and people feel it back too as I wanted. I will show you an example:
When I did this one, many people told me they feel "calm" thanks to it and watching the drawing. It was relaxing.
I love giving positive feelings to someone but sometimes I am truly bad for this because I am learning how to put a feeling on a character and that's hard sometimes
Working on emotions is not easy so I am working on it.
I never give negative feelings (I wish) Because these months are hard for everybody and I want people feel relaxed by my works. I would like they could think about something else and be the open door for imagination and sweetness!
It also help me a lot to do it, because I am deeply touched by Corona and the consequences of it. Everything is not ok each days, so, doing it helps me too.
I don't know if I will ever draw illustrations with negative feelings because I am scared to make people bad or remembering painful memories.
I have a last question for you Estelle. How do you see yourself in the future and what do you wish yourself? Do you have a particular goal that you hope to achieve?
Well.. there is a big difference between how I can see me in the future and what I am dreaming for ! I would like to open a shop for selling my illustrations, trying some ceramic things or "river table" but I will work on it little by little ?
My ultimate goal would be to earn my life/living as a graphic designer, photographer and illustrator !
I am open for commissions and collaboration so I hope to still doing some collaborations with other artists!
And you ? I am curious ! How do you see yourself in the future Chiara?
Oh I hope I could live with my passion too! Working as illustrator full time.
Really thank you Estelle.
Thank you too for your patience and the interview. I am happy to figure in, it is very sweet!