Although having only recently graduated from her university in Denmark, Josephine Kyhn has a unmistakably distinctive style and strong sense of direction in the work she creates.
She handles multiples of colours with ease while creating her dreamlike, fantastical worlds.
It’s exciting to hear Josephine talk about her interest in children’s books and writing her own stories as it would be the perfect area for her work to really come to life.
Her illustrations have a captivating, magical quality that would really fuel the imagination for children or anyone else reading her stories.
She tells us about the story she wrote and illustrated for her final project on her course as well as her preferred ways of working.
I am a newly graduated illustrator from The Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Denmark. I’m currently working and living in Copenhagen with my boyfriend and two cats.
Within illustration, I work with editorials such as magazines and newspapers, and some more personal and artistic projects.
I have also done a bit more commercially related work, and right now I am working on something for children’s books.
For my thesis this summer, I also wrote and illustrated a story for children in a project where I experimented with developing text and illustrations alongside each other.
In my illustrations, I am mixing analog with digital coloring and layering. I usually make a pencil drawing and paint details on top of it on a new piece of paper using ink and a light table.
I like that my pencil drawings are a bit dirty with structures, and the randomness in dry brushstrokes and ink washes. Then I scan everything and put it together in Photoshop experimenting with colors and layering until I get a result that fits me.
I like how some settings and tools can make different effects and expressions I didn’t think about before I started, and how the digital process can change and develop the analog elements.
My universe is filled with people, animals, nature and a lot of color and structures. I like using some kind of storytelling in my work.
© Josephine Kyhn, 2015