Colour is the main character in Isabelle Vandeplassche’s soft pastel illustrations of everyday space

Isabelle Vanderplassche uses drawing as a tool to document snapshots from the everyday, whether that’s the clutter that surrounds a bathroom sink or the ribbon that ties up a pair of shoes. Working mainly with oil pastel on paper, the artist’s buttery sketches focus on textiles, interiors and ordinary objects like cutlery or hair combs – things that make up our day-to-day rituals or fill the places we like to call home. “I’m drawn to these subjects because they carry a quiet intimacy and reveal the subtle stories of the spaces we inhabit,” Isabelle tells us. “I enjoy finding beauty in everyday things.”

While Isabelle’s artistic attention is often on things she collects and keeps inside, she also finds inspiration for her dreamy colour palettes just about anywhere outside – in floor tiles, shop fronts or in between the lines of a knitted sweater. Alongside her colour-catching expeditions, painters such as Pierre Boncompain and Milton Avery’s “thoughtful use of colour, form and simplicity” inspire the artist’s “approach to composition and mood”, she shares. “I’m interested in how colour suggests mood and presence without defining meaning too clearly.”

Texture also plays a key role in Isabelle’s pieces. The visible layering and density of her oil pastel marks make her compositions feel wonderfully naive and active, drawing you in for a closer look at her still life subjects. Other materials such as acrylic paint and colour pencil are used to outline Isabelle’s observations, and more recently she’s turned to foil embossing to craft some wonderful treasures. “I often choose the medium based on what feels right for each piece, allowing the material to guide the creative process naturally,” she shares. Working with this focus on the intersection of colour and materiality is helping the artist “capture details and atmospheres that often go unnoticed, inviting viewers to slow down and appreciate the familiar in a fresh way”.