Meet the Artist : Coucou Illustration Part 1
- Mellow Days
- May 15, 2019
- 6 min read
Hello Everyone!
We are creating a series of interviews of talented artists! You might be familiar with some of them. Hopefully you'll enjoy discovering each artist as we did! To start off we are happy to present Cécile Metzger aka "Coucou Illustration".
To start off... Could you present yourself in a few words? (who you are, where you're from, and what you do in life)
Hello! My name is Cécile Metzger, 24 and a freelance illustrator. I live in a little village east of France (just next to Switzerland and Germany). Here, everything is green, so many trees, flowers, cows, and in the spring it smells wonderful of lilacs. I live here with my cat Marcel, who isn't a year old yet, and who particularly likes to shred all the boxes that he can find into tiny pieces.
Many know you under the pseudo of “Coucou Illustration” on the social media. How did you get that name?
It's actually quite silly! About 3 years ago, in the beginning of 2016, meanwhile the idea of trying to become an illustrator began to grow within me, I became aware that the first step would be to share my work online.
I then, before even subscribing to Instagram or creating a page on Facebook, opened a Blog. When it came to choosing the address, I went blank. The inspiration didn't come. Then I began to wonder what I would like this blog to represent, the sentiment I wanted to transmit. For a long time I've used the word "Coucou" instead of "Salut" when saying hello to the people I'm familiar with. I find that word funny, round and soft.
So after it was exactly what I wanted to transmit through my blog and my illustrations : something warming, that welcomed you to sit for a moment, a cup of tea in the hand, and a smile. Evidently in the moment of creating my Instagram account I chose to continue with the name for a coherence and kept the word "coucou". I was unaware that my account would grow so much and that certain people would confuse that word for being my name! It's maybe a word that sounds bizarre in other languages, but at least for everyone it's short, simple, and easy to remember. Finally I think it wasn't such a bad choice even if it was "just by hazard".
When did you start to draw?
Like many illustrators, I've always drawn a lot, ever since I was very young. All children or almost all draw, but life sometimes makes us push all that aside when we grow older, for lack of time, or because our interests change. I never stopped - when everybody was doing something else, I still had a pencil in my hand!
Meanwhile, I've always had a tiny thought in the corner of my mind to live from illustrating, even if I didn't believe it was possible. It seemed too good to be true! Finally, I told myself that illustrating would make me truly happy, and it'd be a pity to not even try. Since about 2016, when I stopped my studies, I really started to draw everyday, to try and improve several aspects of my work, and to learn on my own. Even though I've been drawing since a long time, it makes just about 3 years that I truly take it seriously!
I read online that you took French and English literature studies. What made you turn to illustration?
As I was telling before, I've always had that desire in my heart, to live from illustrating, to be able to draw everyday - but it was like a faraway dream, a bit unattainable. Perhaps because of fear and because I wanted to have a "safety net" I chose a field that I appeared
more "realistic" (if I can say that because there's actually no field that's more practical than the other). I then went for a license in literature.
I told myself that even if I couldn't illustrate the books which I admired I could still be working in the same area. I told myself I could become a librarian or editor. I then continued that path just until I obtained my masters. I enrolled for an editors masters at the University of Montpellier. It wasn't long before then that I realized what I really wanted, which was to be on the other side of the desk : not as an editor but as an illustrator.
After a few weeks of classes I started to leave that master and began to work at an artothèque. It's a bit of a funny word and we don't hear it often, but the artothèques are very inspiring and interesting places. We can borrow original works of art (drawings, paintings, photos, prints, and sometimes even a sculpture!) with a monthly subscription, similar to a book at the library. In this way everyone can have a work of art in their home, at a small price. Here where I worked, they offered art classes for children and adultes, temporary expositions, workshops...
I stayed there one year, and it was a wonderful year. It was exactly what I needed to help me definitely decide. It was truly in illustration and in the domaine of art that I wanted to work in!
Speaking of studies, I've recently seen on your posts on Instagram that you are self taught. What advice or tips could you give to others who perhaps wish to learn on their own?
It's difficult to give this type of advice because everyone learns differently. What maybe works for me, maybe wouldn't work for someone else and vice-versa. And then precisely being self taught I don't really feel comfortable in giving advice because I don't know if I did things as they "properly should've been done". In any case I think that drawing a little each day, as I'll explain later, really helped me.
Meanwhile I started to consider the idea of becoming an illustrator I bought a notebook, and almost every day I scribbled something. I noted and sketched all the ideas that crossed through my imagination, even the most far-fetched or least interesting. It helps to not forget anything and to sort it all out.
I felt that the more I sketched and noted all the ideas that passed through my mind, the more numerous they came.
While I have moments of difficulty, when the inspiration wasn't really there, the most difficult actually is to just take that first step and to put the wheels back in motion. You just have to push yourself a little bit which may not feel natural, but little by little the ideas will come. The more the ideas the higher the chances to find a good idea, a beautiful one.
So I don't know if it's really a drawing advice (I wouldn't know how to give one on how to learn to draw actually. I don't know much for the theory, but I just have the practice). The more we draw, the more desire we will have to draw, and little by little it all falls into place.
How would you define your style, and what inspires you in the creation of your visuals / characters?
"Many ask me sometimes how I found "my style". I don't think we really find our style, in fact what we call 'a style' is what corresponds to how we draw. It's linked to our personality, our tastes, and to the way we look at the things that surround us."
Then the more we draw, even the small things that seem a little silly to us, the more we get rid of what we like less to get closer to this "style" which is already within us. It just takes time to affirm it, and then affirm it some more.
It's really difficult to define one's own style (anyways it is for me). I think I'd even have a difficult time trying to define other's in fact. In any case, what I'm trying to do (I'm not sure I could do it, it's hard to have a perspective on one's own work, but that's what I hope to get to anyways) to find small pieces of poetry around me.
"I like to start from an element that we see every day (clouds, flowers, teapot, a little cat, or a paper airplane), and try to give it a little story."
What I would like to do in my work is to show that there is poetry and pretty things even where we do not expect them. That's what makes life pretty, and it can help turn a gray day into a happy day (in any case, I know a little flower that sways in the wind eases my dark thoughts).
So, I would say that my inspiration comes a lot from that. I try to look at the small details. Even if I can't always do it, because it's not easy. I try to take a little time and linger on the little moments of the everyday life that make one smile. A beautiful sunset, a familiar place that brings back memories, light on a curtain, or a hot cup of tea.
Then, for my little characters, it's a little similar! I like to draw animals and give them a personality, a story. I like to dress them with little old fashioned outfits, suspenders, hats, little loafers ... it makes me happy to draw them this way.
Thank you for reading! ♥
If you'd like to continue reading Part 2 of this interview with Cécile you can click here...
For those of you who'd wish to discover a little more of her world, you can find her on these social platforms :
Instagram : @coucou_illustration
Youtube : Coucou Illustration
Facebook : @coucou.illustrations
Blog : www.oocoucou.blogspot.fr
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