[commissioned art piece] by theCecile

This is another post that has been a long time in the making. Cecile, ze maker of the wonderful art on review today is one of the artists most responsible for inspiring me to get into art and by extension begin this website. Big thanks to you Ceci for bringing me into this world, and giving me permission to review your artwork, I really appreciate it. Introductions aside, piggy-backing off of my interactions with another artist and article, which may get posted before or after this one, I’m gonna work to speak more about inspirations and what Ceci may have been going for in certain situations. While I was not able to get more behind the scenes directly from our artist as I had hoped, I’ll try to make educated guesses from background knowledge that I have. Since I’ve been following Cecile for a little bit of time, I can speak with a bit more confidence about common threads that I really love about her style. I may jump around a little bit more than I might in other articles but I’ll try to refrain from praising her piece in tongues.

One of the first things that has always jumped out to me about her work is the way that she makes lines and her unique way of drawing eyes. While this observation has been with me since the first time I saw her work, as I’ve progressed as a artist and analyst I have much more to say about why these details have such an impact on me. As the eyes are often called the windows into the soul, I generally look to the face and eyes of a character to figure out their intention, mood and of course direction of gaze. The eyelashes, eyelids and so on, outside of the irises or pupils, the center of the gaze, provide so much information. The high degree of detail and attention that Ceci gives to her character’s eyes in my opinion seems to suggest that she thinks a fair amount about striking a balance between elegance and detail, as well as simple and clean. Although I’ve seen Ceci focus on many fine details in some of her drawing/painting videos, she doesn’t simply overwhelm with complexity. I feel that she has a good intuition about when to add and when to take away.

The other thing that I mentioned as standing out to me about Cecile’s style is the way that she makes lines. Here I want to make a distinction between a line itself, sort of as its own thing versus linework as a whole. Meaning, there is the finished product of all the lines in a piece, or the border between space inside and outside a character or object etc, and then the art of a single line. This is a concept that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately and much of it was inspired by my first interactions with Cecile’s work. Before I really got into art, I hadn’t thought much about the “line-print” of an artist. Everybody uses different tools yes, but things like firmness, the way they hold their pencil or stylus etc, whether they make many small strokes or long smooth ones and so on gives everyone their own unique sort of line, kind of like a thumbprint hence my silly moniker. It’s rather hard to describe in a really precise way at the moment so I will ask you to feel it out and think about it yourself, but essentially I really love Ceci’s line-print. There is something about the combination of thinner lines, and a noticeable meticulous, yet smooth and confident quality to her lines and strokes that I really admire. I have a bias towards artists with a similar meticulous nature to myself with some amount of elegance to their style, but each artist I follow has a style that is very much their own.

The reason that I picked this piece of Cecile’s is because I feel like it’s a very natural and prime example of the signature components of her work that I really enjoy. The concept of line-print that I mentioned I feel is especially noticeable in the hair and eyes of the two characters in this piece. I like this piece because it has a feeling of a comfort drawing, the sort where the ability and fundamentals of the artist can be seen more plainly. I’m sort of experimenting with this article, so in the interest of not making this article 5000 words, I’ll mention a few major components without dissecting every atom of this painting. I find elegance in this painting when I look at areas like the neck, chin, nose and the silhouettes of the characters. The characters have just the right amount of detail, and an accompanying slender and kind of angular depiction. As for simple and clean (Hikaru for life!) when I look at the crease at the joint on Vei’s arm for instance, or the slight lines around Silvervale’s abdomen the line suggestion is just enough to hint at something more. Another good example is the folds and creases in Vei’s clothes. If you really zoom in some of them look like little letters or squiggly lines, yet they do such a good job of giving the clothes shape and texture despite being somewhat simplified.

Of course the concept behind lineprint can also be applied to other aspects of an artist’s style. Since I haven’t said anything about it yet, I just want to focus on color for a moment. Another big feature of Ceci’s works are her less saturated color selections, and more mild contrast. Although I am a huge fan of contrast and extreme lights and darks that an artist like Comuno might use plenty of, I also really appreciate Cecile’s color sense. Although this is actually not the best example of it, I feel like she uses color more as a highlight like you would a bit of zest to a dish or a faint scent to a candle. It adds a little something special that really elevates the whole thing, without trying to be an overpowering agent. To me, in many cases the focus of Ceci’s drawings is typically her amazing linework and the colors exist to accent and elevate it, by bringing in the dimension of color, as where some other artists create almost entirely using color sense and few lines.

Well as always I could wax on for another 30 pages but the punchline is, Ceci is awesome and you need to go follow her socials. So, uh, do it.