Jannicke Mjelde

Year of birth: 1978.
Where do you live: Bergen, Norway.
Your education: I`m an educated dentist, but I had to stop working due to Multiple Sclerosis.
I have no art education, but I have had a few oil painting classes, and I use Patreon to learn and to improve my soft pastel skills.
Describe your art in three words: Smooth, lifelike and touching.
Your discipline: I`m an animal artist working in Soft Pastels.
www.artbyjc.net | Instagram

What inspired you to transition from painting landscapes in oils to working with soft pastels and focusing on animals?

I never really knew what soft pastels were and had never seen them in real life until just a few years ago. I came across some videos of the great pastellist Emma Colbert, and I got very fascinated by her art and about the materials she used. I have always loved animals, but I had never dared to do that kind of detailed art, but seeing Emma Colbert`s videos made me search for more soft pastel animal art on YouTube, and I found great artists like Grace Murray-Rowley, Jason Morgan and Zara Toms. The fascination turned into an urge for wanting to feel the pastels in my hands and under my fingertips, and it didn`t take long before I purchased my first set of pastels and Pastelmat paper, and I haven`t regretted it once!

Jannicke Mjelde | Molly | 2023

How has living with Multiple Sclerosis influenced your artistic practice and choice of medium?

I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2018. The disease is not very visible on me, but it has an enormous effect on my life. What affects the way I do art most, is fatigue. Fatigue takes up a lot of my day, and my energy levels are very often low. When I painted in oils, I found that the long sittings I had, became more and more exhausting, and the cleaning of brushes when I was done for the day, took too much energy. I wanted to do art in a way that created less mess, and I wanted to do something where I could have shorter sittings on low energy days. With pastels, I can have my equipment nearby, and if my energy levels are low, I can just work an hour and then walk away, and there`s hardly any mess to clean up, or at least it can wait to do it until I`m back on my feet an hour or two later.

Jannicke Mjelde | Halia | 2024

What do you enjoy most about creating animal portraits, and how do you connect with the subjects you draw?

The wonderful thing about drawing animals, is that I can almost feel their personality when I draw them. Even if I rarely meet the animal that I draw, I still feel like I know them a little after using 20-25 hours on drawing them, especially if it`s a pet that I draw. I love to draw their eyes; it truly feels like they look back at me as I work. It`s important to me that I know the name of the pet that I draw. It makes me connect to the art piece on a more personal level.

Your works exhibit a high level of detail and realism. How do you achieve this level of precision with soft pastels?

I know many artists print their reference photo, but to achieve the level of precision that I do, I need a high-resolution digital photo on my pc, so that I can zoom in on every detail. Even if the eye of the portraited animal will be less than an inch, I zoom in as much as I can, until it gets almost too blurry to see details. Then I see all the colours and reflections better, and it`s easier for me to make the eyes of the animal look alive in the portrait.

Jannicke Mjelde | Poison dart frog | 2024

Has your experience as a dentist influenced your approach to art in any way?

Dentistry has a lot to do with precision, down to 1/10 of a millimeter, and also with esthetics. Being used to focus on details in a smaller scale may have helped me bringing the details into my art. Two teeth are never identical, just like for example to black labradors are not identical either. Each new animal needs full focus, even if I have done the same breed many times before. Also, giving full focus to one certain object at a time even if the workload can be massive, is a skill that is important both in dentistry and in art.

Do you have any favorite animals to draw, and if so, why are they special to you?

Since I started with soft pastels a bit more than 2 years ago, I have been drawing mostly dogs. I have just done a few other animals until recently. There are two reasons for this, first because dog owners tend to want a portrait of their pet more often than other pet owners. Second, it`s because I love dogs and have a dog of my own, so dogs are more familiar to me than most other pets. However, lately I have expanded into wildlife, and there are so many cute and cool animals in the world, so I will never be out of objects to draw!

Jannicke Mjelde | Kingfisher | 2024

How do you balance your time between family life and your passion for art?

Having a family and having some time on my own can be a challenge sometimes, but my kids are growing up, my youngest is now 11, so they spend less time around my feet now. Since I started with pastels, I have moved my workspace from a separate room in the basement, and into the living room, which makes me able to do art without hiding. I am still right there when the kids need me, which is nice. I must admit that sometimes, when I am very into a drawing, some of the housework gets neglected, because it`s like I am in my own, little bubble. I guess most artists know what I`m talking about when I mention this bubble!