Underwater - Illustration Friday

Yesterday I received a fabulous package - even 2 packages! Both were presents I have bought for myself to celebrate finishing book illustrations and to celebrate a new career start. First was a brand new set of French watercolours + fancy watercolour paper (oh I love those); second was a brand new Wacom tablet. I've been using my sister's Wacom Bamboo for some time now and I thought it was high time to have my own professional piece of equipment. So I bought new Wacom Intuos Pro :) And it's great. I'm getting used to all those smarty-pants keys and thinking of the best way to place it on my desktop.

And creating! :)

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.

28 things on my 28th birthday

 *Gosh, I'm old...*

Because last year the list did not go as "used" as I hoped it would, some things will stay on it once again. And this time I DO HOPE that I will get down to them asap just to not put them on a list next year ;)

This year it is more about making me a better artist and using my skills to the full than just doing stuff I wish I would/could/might do/have done. I am starting a new job + working only half-time at my previous job and it really is a big step forward for me. I hope that in a year's time my ideal of creating in my home-office everyday will be closer to fulfilment than it is now.

1. Do charity work.
2. Illustrate 1 old fairy tale.
3. Publish 2 of my books on the Internet.
4. Make a 2014 calendar.
5. Resume  Daily Sketch.
6. Re-make 2 of my old artworks.
7. Study light and colour.
8. Paint on canvas again.
9. Learn how to make GIFs from my drawings.
10. Make a new avatar.
11. Get my blogs up and running again.
12. Plan posts for blogs and actually make them.
13. Introduce 3 new ideas to my Etsy shop.
14. Search for an artists' agency and maybe even find one.
15. Win a contest.
16. Plant flowers and watch them grow.
17. Go on a long bicycle ride.
18. Go swimming every week.
19. Finish reading everything I've started.
20. Read "The Witcher".
21. Read 10 new books.
22. Try out 10 new recipes.
23. Learn 3 new things.
24. Try 3 new things.
25. Visit 3 new places.
26. Practice yoga everyday.
27. Answer quickly.
28. Work harder.

As I am controlling my anger pretty well and doing something good everyday is quite obvious too - I've decided to push it a step further and really show my support to some charity organization; which will be a local animal shelter. I've been sending them monthly donations for some time now and I think it's time to do something more. So I've got a year to figure out what it would be and do it the best I can!

Let's get down to work!

A.