I've painted almost all of my animations with the acrylics and gouache. The exception was made only for "Winter and Lizard" I used watercolor instead. In that case I wanted to tell a delicate story about a girl and her grandfather. To demonstrate the sweetness of the connection while also hinting at nostalgia and melancholia. And also I wished to try some new materials after using acrylics for years.

It was a nice creative experience, very different from working with the usual colours. The pace of work probably was less impulsive and free. It's challenging to control the water on paper.

At the end, I returned back to my favorite acrylics. I am drawn by their mellowness, density and brightness.

I care a lot about the energy around the place where I work. It should be a cozy space, and I need to see a slice of the sky from the window. And for sure there should be music. I can't paint in silence.

All I need is my working table full of colours. There's no empty space on it anymore. Over the past years I've filled it with various objects that are important for me. Drawings, little gifts from my children, the photos of my cats, and colors, colors, colors :)

I just love acrylics and gouache so much. Painting and mixing them together to create that rough, pasty surface on the sheet of paper, makes me feel good. And also, I think those colours perfectly blend with the zooming movement that my animations are famous for.

I also like oil pastels, but it would be really difficult to keep them in control while painting the frames.

When I paint the frames, it's crucial to have good lighting. I never work late in the evening, and try to get advantage of the daylight.

I use a scanner to capture each frame of my animation.

I don't paint in large sizes. I simply cannot work on A4, because it will take me years and years of painting. Keep in mind that the format of my frames is similar to that of a small postcard.

And despite the small size, I manage to paint just around three frames a day. All of my animations are self-produced, so I also need to consider the costs of materials, and try to reduce the amount of work as much as possible.

There is definitely something magical about transforming one thing into another. It reminds me of our dreams, that mystical space in between. I find it very thought provoking to tell the story in that particular way, in a continuous movement towards something undiscovered and then unfolding it. I'm enchanted by that constant movement, to discover and turn one thing into another.

The process of making music is something difficult to explain, it's a mysterious journey. When I play guitar, it often happens to me that I get out of reality. You enter outer space, where time does not exist.

Yes, I learned the basics of animation from my husband. It means a lot to me when people discover that my works and paintings have a bit of Chagall and Van Gogh influence. I admire those two great artists. I love the way they used the colors. Vincent's paintings hold a special place in my heart for their sincerity and innosence. The dreamlike characters and spaces in Chagall's paintings are something that inspire me a lot.

I pay close attention to the hues I use in my works. Before starting to color any sequence of my animation, I always prepare color tests. Each color may evoke a specific mood and feeling. I try to convey the story through the colors I use.

The initial preparations include the storyboard and color test. Then I proceed with making a pencil test animation, and if it works, I start coloring each frame.

In total, there would be around 1500 frames for 3-minute animation. The typical workflow was pretty redundant. I could only paint two or three frames a day, and each day they were very similar. In some way, that was a period for improving patience and endurance.

Yes, I was lucky to meet many talented animators in the past. It was a nice and important experience. I am always curious about how other animators utilize colors and the metamorphosis of one thing into another.

I think I just had loads of enthusiasm and passion towards telling my stories through the animation. That was like to discover new worlds and experience new emotions. During those distant years, I had all the time I needed to make my animations. I could plan my working day as I wanted.

It's normal for everything to change after the birth of my children. Animation takes up all your time if you really care about the process and put all your effort into it.

I definitely feel that it's much easier to tell my stories through the music. The process of writing a song needs less time and efforts. More skills you acquire, more faster you become.

I always had a wish to make an animation that tells about my childhood, the old memories about my father, the time I passed in his church while being a kid. If now I start to imagine how much work it may require, I give up. Also because my technique is very, very slow, and I will need years to make a few minutes of animation. Instead with the songwriting it's different. And the final result is similar.

In the end any kind of art is a therapy. Artists try to let go something that they bottle up: the fears, the worries, the happy moments that can't turn back. Usually pain and struggle give life to the beauty. I feel like it's true, even if the happy moments of joy and solace are significant as well within the creative process.

I think a person who chooses a painting animation, is already aware in some way about the difficulties and challenges he'll have to face to. Having a lot of passion, patience, perseverance and that magical and powerful creative spark that guides you is everything. And of course you should believe in what you do.

Handmade poetic animation is a "marginalized" form of art in Italy. It's rare to find a production for this type of cinema here.

I love a lot the scene from "The Azure Soul", where the red cat turns blue. I feel very connected to my first animation.

Also I love the scene from the animation "Flood", where the man holds the cherries in his hands and then it starts to rain.

I really like this one—the variation of painting animation styles and the feeling of zooming in: "Inverno e Ramarro" (Winter and Lizard)