Julie Doumenjou is a 27 year old illustrator and motion-designer living in Pau, in France.

« My school career was a bit disjointed. Since I was 12, I have hesitated between drawing and audiovisual. I finally chose audiovisual, because this branch was more « reliable » for me and my relatives. So I got an audiovisual BTS in editing and post-production in Biarritz – that’s where I started to combine drawing and video and play between motion-design and animation – but I then wanted to do animation. I turned to the School of Animation and Cinema in Angoulême for a year in preparatory class, but after a few months, I completely questioned myself regarding my professional choices. After a week in university of Biology in Pau, I finally decided to follow my first vocation, the image, resuming my studies and starting a professional license in computer graphics and multimedia. I started practicing freelance afterwards. » she explains to us.

« I have always drawn and been sensitive to art. My mother being an art craftsman, I spent a lot of time in art craftsmen’s salons. I saw how to sublimate wood, how to shape metals to make lace… During my childhood, adults always had the good idea to offer me books, comics and drawing materials, because I was a little wild, I preferred to draw than to play dodgeball. Drawing has also become another language for me. I despaired my teachers because half of my lessons were illustrated. They did not understand that I take notes in the form of lines and not words… I was also very touched by cartoons, especially Disney. The decorations of Sleeping Beauty inspired by 16th century tapestries, the engravings of the scene of introduction of Mulan, the chara-design of Hercules which is inspired by paintings of amphorae… » she says.

Let’s focus below on her serie called « Spirit » that we can discover on her Instagram account named « lul.alilalou ». « It’s an idea that has been on my mind for a while. I’ve always imagined an invisible world that lives, without us being aware of it, but that we sometimes feel after all. It’s the famous sock thief elf, the monster who lives in the closet, the fairy who shakes the leaves of trees, for example. When I visit ancient places, I imagine and visualize the lives that once lived there. I try to bring life to photographs that do not seem to contain them. To give the project a little consistency, I invented the story of Louise, a little girl who discovered a camera capable of photographing Spirits and who wanted to show a world to others that they may have forgotten. Each photograph is therefore accompanied by a small text which could come from Louise’s diary. I try to put as much poetry in my illustrations as in the texts that accompany them. » she continues.

« When the idea does not come immediately in my mind, I do some researchs for my illustration (drawn in Photoshop) sticking to the place I photographed (with a smartphone). I’m looking for legends, anecdotes. I am also inspired by tales, the work of Miyazaki, the Japanese spirit with yokais, folklore, animals that I find fascinating and nature. » she specifies.

« I would like people take the time to look at my creations and rediscover their child’s eyes, the same people who were convinced to have seen Santa Claus in the sky or that the Moon followed them when they stuck their noses on the back window of the car. I wish they feel a positive and candid sense. » she finally tells us.

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