All my current projects + Why I’m taking a relaxed approach to my work!

I’ve recently felt inspired to do more sketching. To capture the energy around me, and to keep drawing, even if it turns out bad. I haven’t felt that way in a long time. Perhaps it’s a summer thing. Overall, I’m prioritising mood over quality, though it’s also nice if the sketch turns out good at the end. 

I’m also working on this piece that I’m just calling “hot pot” for now. I have a thumbnail composition already, and my plan of attack is to do studies of the individual aspects of the image before hashing out the final layout. Oh, and I’m experimenting with dip pens + water colour, and I really like it so far! My favourite part is that you can draw kind of crappy and this medium will make it look intentional lol. 

In general I’m going for a more relaxed, imaginative and playful approach with this piece. I don’t want to always have to rely on reference images, and to check if every single detail is correct (my normal mode). It’s just so exhausting and really takes out all the fun. It’s hard to work alone because all I hear in my mind are those critical, perfectionist thoughts. I realised that I am a lot more easy going when I have someone to talk to while working. Just like in my personal life, I wish that in my working life, I had more of a balance between working alone and working with people around me. 

In the mean time, my  strategy is to be mindful – to notice when I have those extremely self critical thoughts, and then to let them go. It also helps to have relaxing music while working, here’s my drawing playlist in case you’re curious!

BTW, you’ve seen this already, but here’s the printed version of the feature illustration I did for Spectre Journal Issue 3! AD: Gabe Berlin, he was awesome to work with!

Finally, I signed a contract for another project with the Ban Ki-moon Centre in Austria. Here was the first project, in case you missed it. I’ll be starting next month, so I’ll keep you updated!

Finally finished this piece + does “correct perspective” make good art?

FKA the piece I never thought I’d finish because I didn’t like it, but – I recently got round to it because my agency was asking for “space themed” illustrations, so that gave me a lil kick in the butt. Sometimes in life you just gotta finish things you don’t enjoy. I look at it now and think “ok, this and this part* could’ve been better, but people seem to like it anyway and at least I finished it!” Yeah that’s all. 

Space Café, July 2021

* If you’re curious about what in particular I’m not happy with in this piece it’s: a) the skater’s right arm b) the seated woman in the front/right – her right arm, too c) then in general the sense of depth in this environment, I’m not sure if I nailed it; perspective is not one of my strongest suit but I’m trying to improve it.

On the other hand, I can also make peace with the fact that, in general, a more symbolic perspective is more important to me than realistic perspective, ie it’s more important to me to sacrifice correct perspective in order to show certain details. I feel like if I were to show everything in 100% correct perspective, certain aspects, like a person’s outfit, or the contents of a table, might get lost. I hope that makes sense?!

If we look traditional Thai (temple) mural paintings for instance, a lot of it is completely flat! It’s definitely not true to life, but there’s a charm to this kind of representation, because it tells a story. It literally gives us a full(er) picture of the environment and what is happening in it.

I’m definitely not knocking people trying to master 3-point perspective, OK. I just think there are different ways to art good, and that’s all. 

When your sketches are better than the final 😂 (Blast from the Past)

As I was just updating my website, I came across all the process sketches I did during my brief time illustrating for PurseBlog.

I was honestly surprised to find that some of the process sketches seem much nicer – with a lot more heart – than the actual final pieces?! I feel like there’s a lesson here but I don’t know what it is yet. Haha.

Anyway, let’s play a little game, I’ll do a side by side comparison of (L) the alternative sketch and (R) what ended up being the final, and you decide – via comment or simply in your head – which one you think is nicer.

alt. sketch

final

alt. sketch

final

alt. sketch

final

alt. sketch

final

alt. sketch

final

A new style / skill: Vector Illustrations

I’ve recently been working on a new series of vector illustrations for Craftview, a company which puts softwares for woodworkers, landscapers, construction workers, etc, all in one place.

Anyway, I never thought that I could do corporate-type vector illustrations or include that “style” into my portfolio somehow, but this project gave me the push to try. And, save for the line work that is normally evident in my work, I think it kinda fits with the rest of what I do? I mean, it’s people-focused and the characters look approximately the same, shape-wise. Let’s see what my agency (and the world) thinks. I hope this can open some new doors! 

BTW, in order to keep the style somewhat in line with my other work, I did my thumbnail sketches the way I normally would, but then simply did a shape-based execution in illustrator (using mainly the pencil tool, not the pen tool, as this works with the organic shapes in my work).

What I appreciated / found interesting about this process: I felt like I was building dolls, but in 2D, and there were many instances where I could simply copy and paste existing shapes (heads, arms, legs…) to build new ones. Working with vector also means you can have the final output be virtually any size, but… that’s a given. 

New! Euro Football Championships Illustration

Euro Football Championships
June 2021
Mixed media / digital

I wish there was a better way to name this piece but… ah well.

Football is silly, hysterical, emotional, asinine, divine… I wanted to capture all of those emotions in this piece, while also creating a sense of togetherness (as usual). I really had fun with this!

I would say that it usually takes me about 2 weeks to finish a piece like this – as I am obsessed with detail – but since I only had a week for this one, time management was definitely in order. So I followed… my own advice, specifically some of the points I covered in my “How I finished 33 Illustrations in 12 Days” blog post, which you can now watch in a snappier, summarised audio-visual format (video)!

My FFP2 Mask Designs have DROPPED!

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to work with a Hong Kong-based company that prints beautiful designs on surgical masks, as well as Korean-style FFP2 masks. As part of the collaboration, I developed a food-themed series. My statement on the piece:

The idea behind this series was to combine people + food in a playful and surreal way. Food is not only nourishment in itself, but also nourishment of the soul, and plays a big part in our emotions, memories, and sense of belonging – this is a celebration of that.

You can check them out – and/or buy them ;) – here.

If you want to see a video/reel of my modelling the designs, check out my post on Instagram!

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A post shared by Kat J Weiss (@katjweiss)

(maybe) Getting Hearing Aids at 29 – my hearing loss story

I went to have a hearing test and it turns out that I have light to moderate hearing loss, which mostly affects high-frequency sounds/soft consonants. I wasn’t at all surprised as I have known about my lower than average hearing for pretty much my entire life; certain people just sound like they are constantly mumbling to me, I am known to ask people to repeat themselves multiple times, and the fact that I might not hear a phone ringing or someone calling me is a common occurrence. I think it’s genetic because it runs on my father’s side of the family…

If you have never noticed this about me then it’s likely that it’s because we were together, in close proximity + in a quiet place, and you weren’t whispering. Other ways that I have “hid” my hearing loss are: a) through educated guessing about what someone might have said or b) simply ignoring the person or nodding and smiling (LOL sorry if I did this to you). 

What I am actually pretty surprised about is that I am entitled to – that it’s actually being recommended for me – to get hearing aids. In fact, it’s recommended for even light hearing loss, which I suppose makes sense, because no one would ever say “Yeah, you could totally get by!” to someone with the slightest vision loss. Having hearing aids/hearing loss is still stigmatised, it seems. I think it’s getting better now, but growing up, I can tell you that not being able to hear properly was very rarely met with any kind of understanding or empathy. It was almost always met with annoyance and impatience – treated as if it was my fault. 

My audiogram results for a better explanation of my hearing loss. Any point greater than 26dB is considered hearing loss. More information on degrees of hearing loss here.

Once I get the chance to do another hearing test at a doctor’s, and they give me a proper prescription, I can get health insurance to cover a standard pair of hearing aids. If not, then, we’ll see… right now I’m testing a pair of hearing aids that the local hearing aid dispenser gave me to try for a week, and here’s what my audio experience has been like so far: 

• I can hear way more rustling and crackling in my surroundings than before, which is sometimes annoying and can lead to “sensory overload” (as I am writing this, I am feeling weirdly fatigued and unfocused, so I’m taking a “hearing aid break”)

• My own voice sounds like I am speaking through a metal box, kinda

• Children sound like robots 

• Any recordings coming out of a device sound extra metallic

• Overall, any high frequency sounds  have more of a “vibration” to them 

WOW, none of that sounds actually beneficial, but I think I need to test out speaking to people in noisy places, or speaking to children and people that mumble by default (also children, mostly). If I don’t end up getting hearing aids because $$$ or whatever, then I suppose the only message that I want to send with this is to please be more patient and understanding with people that can’t hear properly, or otherwise have more difficulty understanding the world than you do :)