Artist Focus: Burcu Güdücü

Hello, I’m Burcu. This week I’ll tell you about myself, my working process and my projects. We live in Toronto, Canada as a family of 4 with my daughter, my dog and my husband. My working environment is often my home, sometimes a cafe, sometimes a park. I do all my drawings with an ipad. When choosing where to work, I try to take advantage of the opportunities of working completely digitally.

I can work mainly during daylight hours. When everyone goes home in the evening, my shop is closed 😊 As you know, working as a freelancer involves some loneliness. I can say that I alleviate this loneliness to some extent with the podcasts I listen to regularly. My favorite podcasts; Teras Noir, Thriving Women Artists, Fularsız Entellik, Nasıl Olunur?, The illustration Department Podcast.

I can say that designing characters is my favorite step in illustrating children's books. After reading the text a few times, I take note of the personality and physical characteristics that are emphasized in the story or that the character in the story makes me feel. I prefer to sketch the character with different poses and facial expressions by thinking about the texts on the pages of the story. After deciding on the character, I start the sketching step. In order to have harmonious transitions between the pages, I try to plan an equal number of pages with backgrounds, without backgrounds or as vignettes. I see the sketches of all the pages on a single page and make the final decision. After deciding on the color palette I will use, the coloring step begins.

I've been experimenting with ink drawing lately, I'm at the very beginning, but the variety of objects I can use instead of a brush (sometimes a toothbrush, sometimes a tree branch) and what comes out excites me and at the same time it's very relaxing.

After completing a project, taking a break for a few days (if possible) is very good for refreshing. I try to go to museums, ride my bike and see new places.

I am lucky that the beginning of my career and the birth of my daughter are at similar times. What she learns and discovers is often my source of inspiration. Trying to see through her eyes is really impressive.

Another hero of mine is our dog Oreo. I think the bond we have with him has changed my outlook on life and I feel that this feeds my work. Besides that, taking care of my plants, hiking, cycling, reading, watching and most of all getting away from my daily routines nourishes me.

I love, love, love Miyazaki movies, my favorite is "Kiki's Delivery Service" which I can't get enough of 😊 Some of my favorite illustrators/writers are Benji Davis, Oliver Jeffers and Sydney Smith.

The character in this video was a character I drew for a personal project. My inspiration was a girl who wore a dress over pajamas and made a cape out of towels 😊I prefer to work with warm colors and use textured brushes. I love to create intense light and shadow effects in my drawings. My favorite brushes are procreate charcoals series and 6b pencil.