Inspiration case study: Linnea Sterte

The first exercise in Tom Froese’s class ‘The Style Class: Work out your illustration style in a daily project’ (on Skillshare) invites you to deep dive into some illustration work that has made an important impression on you, focusing on a single artist. You may do several case studies though :) At this point I’ve done 2 and have gathered material for another 2 (and a few more who did not “make the cut”, not mentioning all the books I’ve flipped through and websites I’ve scrolled through – a selection process which took time but I think was interesting in itself and worth it :)).

I had no hesitation in choosing Linnea Sterte though, as I’ve been obsessing over her work since I found her latest comic book (to date), “A Frog in the Fall (and Later On)” (French version by Éditions de la Cerise) at the Angoulême Comics Festival last January (before she got the “Fauve Révélation” award, I have to say ;)). When I saw it I thought it was just perfect! (like, “That’s exactly what I want to do!” 😅️) I also have to give credit to La Cerise here, as they’ve done this perfectly suited fabric binding (that the English original does not have) featuring one of the delightful patterns used in the book. But that’s just the icing on the cake, of course (or as we say in French, “la cerise sur le gâteau”, which, appropriately, is the name of the collection in which the book is published 😊️).

Anyway, here are some things that inspire me about Linnea’s work!

I found the exercise unexpectedly powerful :) By my standards I chose the samples rather quickly, not thinking too much. Then, seeing them isolated from their context, and side by side, arranging them on the “page”, made me consider them more deeply, and maybe more “abstractly”. The first few notes were hesitant, but the more I wrote, the easier it got :)

So I think it is best to do this exercise concretely, by putting some pieces together, taking a good look, and actually writing down what comes to mind – not just thinking about it / doing it in your mind. At least that’s how it was for me!

The next case study will be dedicated to one of my all-time “artistic hero(in)es”: Claire Wendling ✨️