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.

From my sketchbook #17

My sketches keep on appearing in an enormous amount. Here are some selected pages from my January sketchbook with the cat character.

 First sketch of him. Looks pretty neat but is quite boring too. So I've decided to make more reference sketches (of wildcats and lynxes).

 Now I was ready to go further. Firstly, I've decided what is attitude and character is like. Then I've tried to show it in those simple sketches on the left. I've chosen a pugnacious and "glamorous" pose - I think it shows his vanity the best ;)

Yes, that's totally him!

Enough of the cat for now. Next week I will show you sketches of the cat's girl companion (which you might have already glimpsed in my Daily Sketch post).

A.

2013 in photos - Personal Thursday #10

I've done this sort of posts in the past and I thought it's good time to bring them back :) I have not blogged too much this past year, even though lots of things happened in my life. I've been busy all year long and here's a glimpse of that:

January

 My bosses' dog (Tina) is my working companion. She's spoiled like a little brat!

February

 National Forests in Poland has got online cams which show birds' feeders during day and European bisons' (and other forest animals') haystack during night. My cats got quite frantic while watching the birds. They constantly checked if they can catch them from behind the screen ;) 

Forest cams website

April

 A super neat embroidery I've designed, prepared and supervised (aka I was standing next to a machine when it made it and I was sticking felt shapes in the right places and the right time). It's inspired by Polish folklore art.

May

 My love for corgis continues as I went to see a dog show just to stare at them :)

 I went on an illustration course to Kraków held by Fundacja Sztuki Nowej ZNACZY SIĘ and taught by Joanna Olech (a well known Polish children book writer and illustrator). It was great and I learned a lot :)

June

 This is IK (Idaliński Kot), a cat that often accompanies me to and from work/bus stop. She's super friendly and quite stinky ;) When I took this photo it was just after rain and she was totally wet. Which of course didn't stop her from jumping on my knees and trying to head bump me!

 It's someone's lost key/phone charm that looks absolutely as if I've done it. It was so weird to see it.

Painted new cat sneakers for myself to wear on a music festival.

July

 Music festival + beach = loveliness

(oh that background photobombing)

 You shouldn't see this photo because we were forbidden to take photos. Anyway - here's a human body from The Human Body exhibition (and there's me in the middle!).

In August I was working tirelessly on book illustrations. They were incredibly cute so it was a pure pleasure.

August

 Well, if you find this position comfortable then I'm not complaining...

 Preparing my cornflower tattoo design. I still haven't got it ready but I'm not in any type of hurry.

 I went on an art camp with my sister's art school. We went to Bieszczady Mountains and I went swimming every day (look at THIS and you'll understand). That's my youngest sister next to me in the photo :)

October

 The book I've been illustrating in June-August is ready! It looks fabulous. I will post a review + some WIP pictures for you to see soon!

November

 My silkscreen designs got into the next level. That's how I feel about them anyway :)

 Since some time (July 2013?) my Love and I have been a lot into craft beer. We decided to make a small "beer night" for my family. You cannot only drink popular European lagers all the time, can you?

 December

 Here's a size chart of all illustrations to one of the books I was illustrating in December. Illustrations were made traditionally - I would trace the shapes (and numbers!) onto watercolour paper and then paint.

I started Daily Sketches (3rd edition!) on the 1st of December. Right now I'm on my 54th sketch and it's as much fun as I've remembered it to be :)

Hope your 2013 was great but your 2014 will be awesome!

A.

Daily Sketch III - Day #21-30

Here comes the next 10 sketches I did. I have started with two done on my phone and then I had a bit more time so I got back to watercolour ones. Because I adore watercolours :)

To move my brain even more than I do through daily practice, I've decided to do some quick splash art. "What's that?", you ask. Here comes an explanation. First I leave some watercolour marks, dots, splashes, strokes, whatever on paper and leave it to dry. Then I take the paper and rotate it in my hands to see if the shapes formed by splashes remind me of anything particular. It may be a thing (a tree) or just a feeling (sunny afternoon). Sometimes it's hard to see anything, sometimes it's really easy. Try it yourself, just for fun :)

To make things a bit more complicated I use colour schemes randomly selected by Color Scheme Designer - click "random -> randomize palette" on the top menu to see how it works. Some colours it selects are pretty wicked but they always go well together.

Enough of the talking, here are my sketches:

 Day 21 and 22 done on my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 in SketchBook app by Autodesk (totally worth buying).

 Day 23 - painted while listening to The Civil War's new album. It's amazing as always.

 Day 25 - This is a cat character in which I put great expectations. But since it's a secret project I cannot tell more yet ;)

Those "splash sketches" vary pretty much from what I usually do. But, because of that, they are quite a relief to do - no one expects anything particular from them, not even me. Plus, it's really a lot of fun to force my brain and imagination to work harder and differently than usual.

A.

Reflect - Illustration Friday

That was quite a big coincidence with this week's Illustration Friday's topic.
I paint my Daily Sketches each morning and since for some time I've been painting in a splash method* I don't really have much influence in what I will paint. And my Friday's, 27th Daily Sketch's, splashes reminded me of a lake :) So here it is - a peaceful reflection.

I will post next bunch of sketches (#21-30) tomorrow so you can see the rest of the splash art. Also, I think I will add photos of how the splashes looked before I got down to them :) It's quite interesting - everyone or anyone can see something entirely different in them.

If you can't wait for those photos you can check my Instagram, where I show them daily.

A.


* I splash some paint on paper and when it dries I try to find some sense in those strokes, dots and marks.

Daily Sketch III - Day #11-20

Here's a next batch of daily sketches. I didn't have much time this week for watercolour ones so I had to sketch digitally while commuting to and from work. Which was really good - I never knew that you could make such nice pictures on your smartphone (Samsung Galaxy Note 2 with a stylus + Autodesk SketchBook app).

 First went 2 more postcards I needed for Christmas/New Year purposes.

All those were made on my phone.

Here's part   #1-10

As I've mentioned before, I post those sketches daily on my Instagram (I'm alexadelaida), Tumblr and Twitter :)

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Daily Sketch III - Day #1-10

If you haven't already seen it on my Facebook profile, nor Facebook fanpage, nor Instagram, Twitter or Tumblr - then I have to announce I have started Daily Sketch again. It's my 3rd edition and I'm full of willpower to make this one longer than the previous ones :)

Here are my first ten days:

They all are quite small (two last ones are the biggest - postcard sized). I start making them every morning before I go to work then finish as soon as I get back home. It's about 0,5h for each.

A.