Meet Fanny Blanc | Illustrator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Fanny Blanc and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Fanny, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
When I started my activity of illustrator, I used to work about all the time, frequently evenings and week-ends. As I worked at home and my partner so, it was very hard to keep distance between life and work. When things did not work as I wanted, it over effected me.

I was very slow in the realization of my pictures, so I needed to work a lot, but as I had long working day, I also used to procrastinate a lot. So I was often loosing a lot of time, and I used to feel guilty to take real breaks, for doing something else I like to do. (And I like to do many things else than drawing!)

Nowadays, I try to offer me real breaks, half a day, or a day, sometimes in the week when I can. Because my working time is more limited after that, it forces me to be more efficient. I understood these breaks are also very important to feed the energy and the wish of working !
But it is a long trainship and the learning process is not yet totally achieved !

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I started working in illustration after a 5 years diploma from an art school in Strasbourg (France). I mostly have worked in press illustration. But I did also various things in this domain. I did illustrate adult and children books, execute mural painting, create characters and backgrounds of an animation short movie… And I also draw for me when I have time for that, and edit silk printed posters from time to time.

It is sometimes uncomfortable to do something you never did before, but after that I often feel proud to do well with these challenges.

As my artistic work is quite precise and detailed, and as I am quite exacting with myself, it is often hard to be profitable in commissions. I had difficulties to live only from my illustrations incomes, and had part time jobs. Sometimes you have too much commissions and you are obliged to decline some, sometimes you have nothing for several months.
But making pictures is still what I want to do the most, so I keep the hope of living only from illustration sometimes !

Commissions comes from diverses ways. For press I used to send my portfolio to artistic directors, but for other jobs, it is often a mix between internet display and real life networks !

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I live since one year and half in the country side, in Corrèze french department. If a friend visites me, I will bring him first in my workshop, which is a little castle in a medieval village called Uzerche, and make him meet my studio mates. I have the chance to work with a violin maker, bow maker, archeologist, and several other artists. I will bring him see the impressives folk art sculpture from Antoine Paucard in the village of Saint Salvadour. I will bring him hike in the beautiful countryside an forests around home and pick a lot ceps and other mushrooms. And maybe make him canoeing or swimming on the Vassivière lake !

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
In any creative work we owe many things to others. First of all I had the chance to grow up in a family which encouraged me to go professionally toward what I liked, even if they were a little bit worried about if I could make my living of that.
During my illustration studies, I met my partner, who is a drawer too, and whom I owe a lot. We liked each other works a lot, and we share so many artistic interests, so it was very stimulating for my work to be with him. Sadly he doesn’t like commission works in drawing, so he actually has an other work which deprive him from time to draw, and I miss a bit this energy of working together.

Otherwise, the list of what I like regarding pictures (painting, illustration, movies…) and what feeds my work is huge !
I can quote on this list italian primitive painters like Giotto, Della Francesca, Di Filippuccio. Max Beckman or Henri Matisse for the 20th century. Many painters considered as naives, as Horace Pippin, Dominique Peyronnet, Ellis Ruley, Camille Bombois… And folk art in general (sculpture, drawings, toys…). I am particularly found of wooden engravings of french popular imagery from 18th and 19th century. Especially one almost unknown engraver called Garson.
In all these references there are a particular work on drawing lines, a fascinating way to consider perspective and to place humans in it, like theater scenes, that I try to approach in my pictures.

Website: http://www.fannyblanc.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blanc.fanny/

Webshop: https://servalcroquette.bigcartel.com/