Who is Papierzucker?

Hi, I am Laura, a freelance illustrator from Berlin who loves fantastic and surreal elements. My greatest inspiration is nature. Many of my works include animals and plants. I would describe my style as lively, colorful and suitable for children, but I also create simple and elegant illustrations. What I don’t do are hyper-realistic drawings or portraits. Apart from drawing and painting I also carve my own stamps and create patterns from my illustrations.

Have I sparked your interest? Do you have an idea or a project you want me to bring to life? If so, send an e-mailto info@papierzucker.de or message me via this form:

My Techniques

I also like experimenting with different materials and combining them. I especially enjoy working digitally or using alcohol-based markers, colored pencils and watercolor. Occasionally,  I also work with gouache,acrylics oradd little pieces of hand lettering to my illustrations.

Digital Work

When I need to plan beforehand or when I know I’ll have to make a lot of changes and corrections during the process, I prefer working digitally. It’s much more flexible, not only regarding feedback rounds but also the work location. Since I use Procreate on the iPad Pro it’s so convenient to just pull it out of your bag and start drawing pretty much everywhere – on the train, in a park or during lunch breaks.

However, even though these are some quite strong advantages over traditional techniques, I’d never completely quit using traditional methods. I just love how a pen feels on paper or colors flow into each other (sometimes unpredictably). Moreover, most of my digital painting strategies are derived from traditional drawing techniques. If I had never tried working with gouache, watercolors or colored pencils, my digital illustrations would probably look completely different from how they do now.

Dry Techniques

For my drawings I mostly use markers and colored pencils. Drawings that were made with alcohol-based markers are very even and vibrant. Because there are so many different colors available, I can create an unlimited number of shades and tones. Furthermore, marker groundings go perfectly with detailed pencil shading. This way, you get very saturated eye-catching illustrations.

Wet Techniques

For my paintings I like to work with watercolors and gouache, from time to time also with acrylics. With watercolor you can create pretty effects. For example, the wet-in-wet technique allows you to let different colors flow into each other resulting in different blends, fringes and shapes. The combination with other materials is also possible. Sometimes I even use silver metallic acrylics for special effects and a nice finishing touch.

Carving Stamps

A very special gift for friends and family are hand-carved stamps. I really like to give them away as a little present. They are so versatile. You can do lettering, images, background stamps and more. For my stamps I use unmounted blue rubber stamps and cutting tools for linocutting. Often these handmade stamps look a bit wonky, but that’s what I love about them. You can see that they are handmade and have a special  charm.

Patterns

Hand-drawn images can be turned into beautiful repeating patterns with image editing softwares, making them a perfect design element for different surfaces. You can print them on laptops or smartphone cases, bedclothes, pillows, clothing, book covers etc.