Artist Focus: Sinem Halıcıoğlu

Hello everyone! I'm Sinem. This week I'm going to introduce you to my little world, welcome! This little world contains lots of cats and lots of drawings, let me tell you in advance. I like this desk to always be tidy, but one of my cats is always curled up on one side of my desk. As soon as I wake up in the morning, I like to plan my day and doodle something. Sometimes I can lose my inspiration here, in which case I throw myself into a cafe or a park. Sometimes on a ferry. I am more productive when I get out of my comfort zone and get involved in life.

The first thing I do when preparing for the book I’m going to draw is to read the text and underlining. Before I start the project, I try to get to know the main character closely. I try to understand how they look, what they wear, how they behave.

It is very important for me to ensure that the backgrounds are living spaces.

I try to capture a humorous language in my drawings, hoping that they will be memorable and warm the heart of everyone who sees them. I carefully choose my color palette to create a cute composition.

As an illustrator who draws digitally all the time, I try to keep my distance from traditional techniques. I spend most of my free time with pastels and gouache paints. Meeting with paints is very good for me. I love the fact that an original product comes out every time.

Since I turned my hobby into my work, I've become a person who only draws. To break this, I embraced the ukulele. I love that we don't have to get along very well.

Besides all that, I love making clay models and then coloring them. It really develops three-dimensional thinking and you can come up with wonderful products. I made these little hedgehogs as a gift for my mom and dad :)

My biggest source of inspiration is nature, but also people and everyday life. Even in the boring flow of everyday life, there can be elements that inspire me. While riding the bus, waiting in line at the grocery store, walking on the street or my cats etc. This is actually how I gather inspiration for my characters. Who knows, maybe one day you can find yourself in my drawings.

Besides, I look through a lot of illustrated children's books for inspiration. I love to study other illustrators' styles. For this, I visit bookstores a lot and read as much as I can.

Let's draw a child character jumping off the scaffolding :) I like my characters to have rounded features, so they look more cute and friendly. I especially pay attention to this in child characters. I care about capturing a clean and clear pose in my characters.

I start by coloring my character after I have cleared my sketch. I prefer warm tones more in my coloring. I find it important to give a clear shadow for sizing. I like to pass some of my contour in white. I recently discovered this little touch and I love to use it.

When I paint puddles like the sea, I try to capture the most eye-catching shades of blue, so it becomes a striking element. I also use a very textured brush when painting the scaffolding. I love textured brushes, I especially try to choose textures that take the drawing away from digitality.