Marcel and Luna

Custom pet portraits are back. You can find them in my Etsy shop (^・ω・^ )

Here are the latest ones I did for Natasha and Kristin.

(scanner ate all the blues as usual, but as my professor once said - traditional art should be viewed in galleries and on walls, not through a monitor's screen)

A.

Enchanted alley

Long story short - I'm fighting depression. No point in phrasing it differently. I'm on a good path now but there were times which I'd gladly erase from my memory.

Here are illustrations to the book I wasn't able to finish (and lost the whole gig) due to total lack of control over the way my brain works.

And I loved this book. Loved the stories and it hit me hard that I had to give up on them.

Finished+almost finished illustrations:

Blue Dog and his fluffy tail

(like a bottle cleaning brush)

I really wish I could be a part of more books like this one.
Pretty please ・:*(〃∇〃人)*:・

Book is about children/animals with issues and a Blue Dog that helps them cope (I cried a river while reading it + two lakes while painting the emotional parts)

First try outs of a style. I drew with pencil + coloured in Photoshop. Later on I decided to stick to Photoshop only so that all necessary changes won't be too painful and time-consuming

☆ more pictures under the cut ☆

About a puddle

Some time ago I was asked to create mock illustrations to a children's book. The story I've decided to illustrate was about a sad small puddle that was not enough for kids to play in but appeared to be just perfect for birds.

 I didn't get that job though :( Maybe next time!

A.

So you'd like to teach?

This month I will start to teach art to kids :) I don't know if you know, but I'm a trained art teacher though I never really wanted to work at school. Art classes in Polish elementary/junior high schools tend to be treated, by both teachers and students/kids, like a prolonged break-time, where you can additionally mess with paint. There's nothing wrong in messing with paint, truly, but the attitude where art is thought as something unimportant has always taken me aback from the idea of finding a job at school.

However! Now I will be teaching art to kids who want to be taught - during after-school art classes. They will held at my sister's Drawing School and I can teach whatever I want. There are so many ideas and techniques that can be shown to kiddos that are just perfect but unsuitable for school's art classes.

I'm super excited!

Here's a poster image I did. It's all around town now and in all elementary schools.

Four sketches from which my sister chose number 1 and 4.

 Getting things done. My computer, Kalliope, was struggling with the size of this file. 

*That's Tina being helpful*

Final image without course info + logo. The text says "art classes for kids".

And here's my sister's Drawing School "Kreska" (="line")
- Website
- Facebook page with lots of students' drawings!

Keep yours fingers crossed for me, please!

A.

From my sketchbook #14

Wow, that was quite a long time since my last post! But although nothing new appeared on blogger, lots of new things appeared in my sketchbook (or rather on those thousands of sheets of paper stuffed in every possible free space on my working desk :P).

Just kidding, in reality I'm a very tidy person so those sketches are quite organized. At least in my point of view!

Here are just a few of my sketches done at work:

 This one is already changed into a silkscreen print. I think I have shown some snapshots of a finished vector illustration on my Twitter or my Facebook.

 This little skater boy is also a silkscreen print already ^^

 Mr. Unicorn will be my upcoming week project.

 Hanging doggie is a remake of something I did earlier, but this one turned out super cute ^^

 And there's also a fishing fox, of course :)

 All those projects were made while I was looking for an idea of a simple print on toddlers' clothes and onesies. It still hasn't hit me.

 Victorian fox. It seems that those two on the left are begging for something; don't remember for what though..

I have a ton of drawings like this - warm up sketches made before drawing something which actually presents an idea. Almost all those warm-ups are cats ;P

That's all for now :) But I still have photos of some custom illustrations I did during this holiday season.

A.

From my sketchbook #11

 Here are my newest sketches. This time I have even few from my work to show you ^^

First page: a project for my Personal Thursdays - I did something else this week but the kitty lost in the woods is still waiting for its turn! Second page: Purr on a boat. It could be a short story of how boring fishing can be ;)

 First page: sleepiness! Second page: secret project :3

And here are bits from my work :) Some flowers and cute animals. They will be changed into embroidery or a silkscreen print. We'll see.

 And here's Purr (again; oh Purr, you're everywhere!) explaining how to print printables from my Etsy shop. The final instruction looks super cute :)

A.

Personal Thursday #4

What, wait! But where's number 1, 2 and 3?
Will get back to that in a minute, promise! :)

Some time ago I've decided to dedicate one day of a week to my personal stuff. That would be one day that I would do absolutely nothing for my job, for my shop or for my customers - just personal projects. It's a time to try new things, new techniques or just watch movies all day without guilt and without this nagging feeling of everything being more urgent than myself. 

So let me introduce my Personal Thursday blog posts, where I'll show what personal projects I'm currently working on :)

***

It appears that those four Thursdays were just a warm-up for the true PTs - getting used to doing whatever I want, no matter what's on my to-do list can be quite tricky!

PT #1 - I went to sleep. That was exactly what I needed :)
PT #2 - I was reading 'The Magician's Apprentice' by Trudi Canavan. It's so hard to find time to read! Then I finished this cover illustration. I know it's not my personal project but after reading for about 4 hours I felt ready to do something not-personal :)

  
PT #3 - I was on a watercolour workshop that day - painting just for myself.

And this week it was Personal Thursday #4 and look what I did!

Some photos' quality and colours are dramatic - they were taken during night and there was not much I could do to rescue them...

This is a wedding gift that my school friend assigned me to create. It's still not a personal work but I could paint almost whatever I wanted and however I wanted. And it was totally new for me to paint with acrylics on a canvas, then add soft pastels and coloured pencils. Loved the effect, though!

That's all for this Thursday - I will show you new projects next week :)

A. 

From my sketchbook #8

A bit of new designs. Wonder which of them will end up on a children's clothes <3

A.

DS II 50

I've been offered a job :) Or rather - a monthly commission. But first I have to make three outfits. Here are some first ideas.

The are supposed to be painted in a very (I mean VERY) delicate and detailed way. It's so not me. But, well, there's always a good time to learn something new :)

I have already done one outfit as the first try-out. It got me further in the competition :)

The model-lady on which the outfit was done is probably not to be seen by the third party, so you'll just have to imagine her ;)

And now let's get back to my outfits!

A.

DS II 41

Sometimes it was hard to draw at work but, as you can see, not impossible ;)

A.

DS II 10 - Arrival - commissioned work

I guessed that, since those French cats suit the theme so much and I have made them today, they actually can be treated as today's Daily Sketch :)

Here are some sketches from which they were chosen. M and S are capitals of their names and the pictures are relevant to their nature :)

I could paint cats every day!

A.

Happy New Year!

Here's a brand new illustration I've made for F My Life.

Its story:
Today, I went out for New Year's. When I got back, I found my house had been broken into. I found a note saying, "Happy New Year, sucker." FML

But I wish that your New Year will be happy indeed :)

A.

Girls

There are 4 girls, except me, working in our coffee shop. We spend quite a lot of time together while working almost every single day, so it was quite obvious that I should give them something pretty this Christmas. And here's what it was :) (I can show you already because they haven't waited and unwrapped their presents as soon as they got home yesterday...)

 Monika

  Justyna

 Agnieszka

Marlena

And here are some photos from our Christmas Eve meeting yesterday :) It was fun!

 My muffins, they were great :)

 Pierogi.... Do you have pierogi out there in your country to eat? If not, you must be really unhappy ;)

Those drinks were delicious *__*

All the pictures were in white frames like this - I have totally forgotten to take photos of them all together so this is the only thing I have now. Picture taken by the new owner, Justyna :)

Merry Christmas to you!

A.