Stefanie Achenbach

Since November 2, 2022, I have rediscovered painting and drawing. Before that, these creative activities hardly played a role in my life. Working with wool and fabrics filled the creative void. But I’m so happy that I’m now creating with paints, pencils and paper again.

I quickly discovered digital painting for myself. I could do it almost anywhere: on the sofa, in bed, in the car… I made rapid progress.

One of my first digital illustrations was the picture “Band-Aid for you”, which I painted at the end of November 2022. I painted it again for a challenge in February 2023. My skills with the Procreate app were already much more evolved.

Now I have drawn the motif again, more than a year and a half later, and this time I did it traditional. I prepared the sketch in the middle of the night with Procreate. The next morning I transferred it to my favorite paper (Gerstaecker watercolor paper No. 3) and pre-colored the sketch with Ohuhu alcohol markers. After this step, I was very worried that I had messed up. But I didn’t: a few layers with the colored pencils from Caran d’ache (Luminance) later, the picture was finished.

I’ve learned so much in two years! I am much more confident in the composition of my drawings and my color choices. I have made so much progress with my characters. They really interact. I am so proud of myself!

Never give up! If you want to improve, only practice and believing in yourself will help.