Light Box

Say hello to my new friend Aurora :)

She's a light box, or should I rather say, a light TABLE, since she's enormous! 

I have been looking for a light box for a while, even considering making one by myself (or by my-Love). And suddenly I've found a Polish company that provides plexiglass but they also make  light boxes. Cheap ones. For my monstrous Aurora I've paid 360 PLN (about  126 USD or 91 EUR). And she's 60cm x 60cm (23.6x23.6 inch). Other light boxes I've found were 1/3 smaller and twice as expensive.

She'll be a great addition for my atelier when I will have one eventually :) Gosh, I can't wait to start making some huge sketches on it :D

A.

Gift from me to me

It's important keep oneself happy. And for me it means tasty coffee, sleeping as long as I can and buying books. Books with pictures mostly. And this is one of them :)

A collection of chosen Arthur Rackham's illustrations. Gosh, I adore his works *__*

This book worked as it should - I want to draw and paint right this second! :D

Little update from my silly cat :3

*I don't know what you are talking about... And please clean this mess, it looks horrible*

A.

Racing - Illustration Friday

'Big feet are the best way to be good at racing' said the hare.

And some sketches of the characters:

This is an illustration to a nursery-rhyme by Ignacy Krasicki entitled "Lew i zwierzeta" (The lion and the animals).

A.

Daily Sketch - 103

A sketch to this week's Illustration Friday's topic 'spooky'. I will finish this later on because I feel I can make more of this idea than just a sketch :)

You can see the process of making this sketch on my LiveStream Channel.

Here's my friend's intake on this topic --> click.

A.

Ancient - Illustration Friday; Daily Sketch - 102

When I thought 'ancient' a picture of goddess came to my mind but it was a too complicated vision to put it into canvas in 30 minutes, so my version of Bastet goddess must do it :) She looks nice, doesn't she?

You can see my friend's daily sketch on this topic on her blog.
As usually you can see the process of making this sketch on my LiveStream Channel.

A.

Daily Sketch - 101 of IF's topic 'magic'

This would be a nice picture when finished :)

My friend's version of this topic.

A.

Vintage - Illustration Friday

First old IF topic that's on their list. Good excuse to make it a more completed piece :)

Have you seen your old hat lately?

Few sketches fir this piece:

I've recorded the whole process of making this piece on my LiveStream Channel. I've made it in 6 parts (stopped the recording when the paint needed to dry and when I needed to sleep ;P). Here's the last part:

adelaida on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Would you like to see more live recordings like this? But maybe with a better camera.

A.

Cling - Illustration Friday; Daily Sketch - 100

One hundred Daily Sketches! Wow :D

I was trying to make it as simple as possible. Hope it worked :)
As usually you can see the process of making this sketch on my LiveStream channel.

My friend's version of this topic.

A.

SketchCrawl

Have you ever heard of SketchCrawl? I found out about it today. And took immediate action :)

The 29th edition will take place on 16th October, so it's almost no time left to organize a great bunch of people but facebook has been invented for cases like this, hasn't it?

Visit the SketchCrawl web site to find out if your town takes pa2rt in it. If not - organize it. It sounds like a great fun.

A.

Regal - Illustration Friday; Daily Sketch - 99

I've decided to change my daily Sketch into Daily Dictionary (I have been doing this some time ago - you make a sketch on one specific word). But because there are so many Illustration Friday themes I have not used before I've decided to do them - from the oldest ones to most recent. First one was 'vintage' and I'm changing my sketch of it into a watercolour piece (you can see the process on my LiveStream channel; it's not finished yet) and the second one is 'regal' and that's what came out of it :)

Regal manners :3

You can see the process of making this piece here:

Watch live streaming video from adelaida at livestream.com

My friend Kamila and my sister are making those Daily Sketches too!

A.

Videos on illustration

3 videos I came across by accident but they are really interesting and worth seeing.


How to illustrate a book - Part 1 from Open College of the Arts on Vimeo.


How to illustrate a book - Part 2 from Open College of the Arts on Vimeo.


Lynne Chapman on Sketchbooks from Open College of the Arts on Vimeo.

Gosh, I miss illustrating a book - it's time to be found for a new assignment :3

A.

Transportation - Illustration Friday; DS - 98

 

The best transportation is a free transportation, don't you think? maybe you need a ride? Meow? :3

A.

Beneath - Illustration Friday

Occupied with everyday life we sometimes don't see our true selves. We don't look beneath our own skin.

I wanted to make this piece watercolour but since there's no time left for that the ink version have to do it. Unfortunately, there are no as many details as I wanted to make (because this piece was intended to be a final sketch for watercolour). So you have to imagine that:
- most of the leaves on the tree are visible and quite detailed
- those bruises and sparkles on the water are well drawn too - you can see that it's a water already but in a better version you'd also think that it's a damn pretty water :D
- the thing on the girls hair is a bird's nest and there are little birds inside it and bigger ones flying nearby
And that would be the main point of this work - in everyday life we only hear that those noisy little birds are living in our hair and making it a mess. We can not see that we are like a home tree for them.

More sketches for this work:

My cat Marie Antoinette (Tosia) helped me too :3

*Oh, those silly drawings... Can't you do something more constructive?*

*Play with me!* It's quite hard to teach her not to bite paper. She already left her marks on my too-freaking-expensive-paper for traditional printing.

 *Booooring...*

 And now it's time for a silly face :D :D

A.

A random fact about me - free illustrations

For some time now I make illustrations for free for a children's web page wużecik.pl. There every month children can find stories, nursery rhymes, games, etc. connected with one theme. For example BATS:

All the stories and illustrations that can be found on the website are made for free, to entertain and teach kids, not to earn a fortune. It always makes me feel better inside when I share my abilities with others that can really appreciate it - I make children's illustrations so is there anyone better for appreciation than a child?
I don't know what will be a theme for this month's stories but what I've illustrated is about helping at home and not fighting too much. And cooking :)

Hope I'll do more of those charity illustrations. Sometimes it's better to crete sth you like for free than get money for shitty stuff someone wants for you for money *nods*

Gosh, Marie Antoinette is trying to catch my fingers while I type this ;P Silly cat.

A.

Daily Sketch - 97

Few people think I buy too many shoes. I don't really think that there is something called 'too many shoes' ;)

A.

Daily Sketch - 96

I still have few pictures made as Daily Sketches and don't know why I haven't shown them yet. Maybe I'll even colour some of them... Who knows :)

 

This is me (I'm sure you could guess that already :P) and my two creative spirits - Andren and Elaina :)

A.

Lately

I have few things and photos that I want to show you. Here we go:

Some time ago when I was surfing on the Internet (it's sad but I actually surf on the Internet without any particular goal sometimes... It's so time consuming but you can find interesting stuff by accident too!) I found an interesting item. A box with empty postcards made of watercolour paper. I thought that it's a nice idea to make your own postcards and, although there's no problem in cutting bigger watercolour paper into postcard sized pieces, I found the box very appealing :P See for yourself

The idea of making postcards seemed adequate to my latest membership - in International Union of Mail-Artists. It sounds like fun and it's very creative so I want to try it.

Far now I've tried painting envelopes :D
A tip for you - if you wonder what type of paper is good for acrylics I will tell you - it's not the one envelopes are made of.

Tip number 2 - if you just have to make sth pretty on an envelope don't use coloured pencils, paints are a better idea.

 Pencils like to make holes :/

Oh, and here are bunnies I won as a give-away from Pankimanki. The one on the left is Gaia and the one on the right is Hansel. They are sleeping next to my collection of Beatrix Potter's books :)

I still have few photos to show you. But I think it's enough for now :3

A.

Marie Antoinette

Some people already know about it but most of you don't. There's been a huge change in my life :3 And what other can it be than...

A CAT! :D

Say *hello* to Marie Antoinette (aka Tosia)

Tosia has been a little dirty kitten when we found her. She was scared and needed a home

Well, how anyone with a smiley on a tummy can not find a loving home? :3

Now she feels just right, loves to play and bite my plants ;]

And she sleeps most of the day (oh, how much I'd love to sleep for so long too! However, when I sleep, she is acting like a wild demon sprinting back and forth across my bed...)

She's a cutie, isn't she? :3

Some time ago a pair of little kittens appeared in our neighbourhood. They were motherless and were just walking around looking lost. Immediately kids from my block of flats arranged food, water, milk and sleeping box for them. They were playing with them everyday after school. I wanted to see the kittens too but every time I went out they were somewhere else.
I've got this excellent plan that I will take both of them home and keep as mine. There is a problem with my dad in this matter because, although he likes cats, he thinks they devastate furniture too much. So, oh naughty me, I wanted to bring them home on Monday when he's gone for work till Friday. Then my family would fall in love with the kittens and there would be no way for dad to change the situation (and he would just fall in love with them too). Unfortunately, when I came to find them on Sunday 26th September I saw that one of the kittens is dead. We think that one of the dogs living in the block has killed it. He, the kitten, was known for his friendly attitude so it was just a matter of time for something bad to happen. The other kitten was more shy and scared so stayed alive. When I told my mum about this death she immediately decided that the second kitten has to be taken home so nothing bad happens to her. We all think that it was so so so stupid to take action only after bad things happened. Kittens without a cat-mum are in danger all the time, we should have taken them home or to an animal shelter just after they appeared in the neighbourhood. I hope that next time we'll be wiser.

Later on we found out that a stupid kid from our block took the kittens from their mother and brought them to the block. Their real home was not that far away but there was no way for them or for their cat-mum to find the way.

But let's smile! Marie Antoinette is happy now and we are wiser too - it's a great beginning for better times :)

A.