Daily Inspiration: Meet Vickie Pellouchoud

Today we’d like to introduce you to Vickie Pellouchoud.

Hi Vickie, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I fell in love with painting in college, but after graduating I had to put less emphasis on it as I pursued a career in illustration. I started work at Disney as a games artist and it really helped me because i was able to hone my craft doing background and all kinds of art, character art, props, and really learning a lot about technology too. I had a long career in games and really started to dig into oil painting at that time. After work, on my lunch hour, on the weekends, while kids slept. No matter how stretched for time i carved out pockets to work on my paintings and discover what i wanted to paint and how. The peers i respected were all working on their art too so i was very inspired to know that it seemed possible to hold down a job while still pursuing my art, with the goal of painting full-time, my life long dream. After many years the games industry began to fall apart and my final layoff gave me the opportunity to really focus on my art. Now i work as a painter and freelance illustrator, working en-plein air for landscape and leaning into my first great love, the figure. My greatest inspiration is the natural world and my family who I use as my models to explore all kinds of topics that I’m interested in. The human condition, my place in this world, nature and all its mystery and beauty and I like to show it with marks you can see painting in an impressionistic style with strong color and light.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I found it most challenging to maintain my practice while working a full time job and after the birth of my children. I love being a mom and there really is no greater joy for me but it took all of my time so I had to learn to feed my creativity along side toddlers. I began gardening and crafting, journaling and always sketching. Painting fruit and vegetable still life and flowers was a natural outpouring of my love of gardening and the kids could be right by my side for this. both in the garden and as I painted treasures from the garden. I had to learn to work with them and I painted them too. The challenges became evident in the painting. Someone said every painting is a self portrait and this would be very clear looking at my work.
I went to life drawing sessions too and it felt good to draw what i love alongside other artists. I gave me time to connect with my artist self. But at home I had to feed art in a different way. It just evolved with the people I love at the center. Working small with short bursts of activity and structuring and scheduling my art time was essential and made me appreciate any time I had. I think it made me much more productive too.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I think I have a unique blend of professional Illustrator and Painter. In my illustration work which is mostly for kids educational games, toys and books I can take a script or idea and translate it into sweet and charming images with an idealized cute natural look that demands a strong foundation of drawing, perspective, color, and lighting. My specialization at work became backgrounds and environments, so I was able to use my love of color and light and all my studying out in the field painting plein-air to create magical environments for ideas to unfold in games for kids. For this work I am mostly on the computer working. in Photoshop. I think some of the illustration work i did on PixieHollow is some of the work I’m most proud of that time in my life, all very natural and encorporating all kinds of plants and animals. And it’s so nice that it supported and dovetailed right into my personal work. Being able to strengthen my all around artist skills was so rewarding and made me feel as if it was all going to the most important place, my paintings, so I never felt as if my artist brain had to turn off between home and work but what was wonderful is that after all day on the computer I would just love to dive into my oils on my time off. Feeling the texture of the paint, mixing color on my palette, working from life. My professional illustration work and my painting just naturally complemented eachother. One strengthening the other.

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
The biggest thing that comes to mind in terms of risk would be becoming a mother. I remember painting while being pregnant with my first born and having a gallery lined up after much work and dreaming and knowing that I would soon become overwhelmed with all of the responsibilities of motherhood. and I had to let it go. It stung a bit but I knew I was on my path and it felt right. The gallery would have to wait. For me the sacrifice was a no brainer and the risk was yes I’m following what I love and that for me then was having my children. Maybe better to say I simply followed along the paths I was driven to take. Risks that have paid off have been being ok with a slower work flow while watching your peers putting out so much more work, working smaller when bigger might have been more impactful for some galleries, putting away the oils for awhile and dipping my toes into other creative things until they were older. Knowing all the while that time would allow me to go there again eventually, and fully with all the new knowledge I gained from other pursuits. I’m still sifting through all the treasures I gained from long years trying other things from my busy time being a mom, techniques from a journaling class that I’m now encorporating into my paintings, a deep love of nature that finds itself in almost all of my work and of course the humans in my life that I now can explore as subjects in my paintings. All creating a beautiful mosaic of a kind of self portrait.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://victoriapellouchoud.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vickiepellouchoud
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vickie-pellouchoud-a593731/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@vickiepellouchoud1736?si=m4EUAa44-08k7bRf
• Other: https://www.artstation.com/vickiepellouchoud9