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).

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From my sketchbook #16

I needed to invent a fox family (or rather - one small fox girl + her family). As usual, I started with sketching foxes from photo references to get used to their "structure". That way it's easier to make them more characteristic but still looking like foxes.

Here you can see a scale of their sizes. I've checked how big they can get on wikipedia so my cat character (the fat fluffy one in the upper right corner) is also properly sized in comparison.

That's a fox teenage brother :) The cat will be shown next time.

Next time - my cat character.

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From my sketchbook #15

As I've mentioned before I am taking part in Sketchbook Challenge 2014 - Victoria Ying's and Mike Yamada's idea for boosting artistic growth. And fighting free time - effectively! :)
It's all about filling an entire notebook with sketches in one month time. The notebook has to be A5 and 100 sheets of paper (200 single pages). I'm cheating a bit in that part - when I found out about the challenge on 6th January I went straight to my local art supply store but haven't found a proper notebook. It would take next couple of days to get one from some web store so I went with what I had - Moleskine sketchbook, which is A5 but has got only 103 single pages. But, well, better 103 pages of sketches than none, am I right? :)

(Anyway - I am right in the middle of illustrating a set of 6 books for kids so there's not that much time left actually!)

Here comes the first part of sketches. They were made for the 2nd children book I've just finished illustrating. It was about a pony so I had to practice drawing horses. No... sorry... I had to LEARN drawing horses. I have never ever drew them before, to be honest.

Next time - a fox family :)

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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.

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From my sketchbook #13

This week I've got a bit more sketches to show (+ plenty of super sketchy sketches in which only I can see some sense; they are not here).

 First I started with drawing myself as I warm up, then suddenly an idea for last week's Illustration Friday topic 'haunt' popped into my mind. I have not done anything more with it since. But who knows what I'll be doing on my Personal Thursday... :3

 Here's a set of Purr's sketches. I've named them 'Purr in college' ;)

 And here are few drawings I've done for a secret project I'm working on right now. Can't wait for the process to move a bit further than sketches!

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From my sketchbook #12

 This time only few sketches - I've been working on projects that have already been sketched in and out and had not much additional time to just draw aimlessly, and that's a shame... Hopefully this week I will draw more ^^

In one of Etsy interviews I've read this fabulous quote 'She believed she could, so she did' and I've decided to play a bit with typography. I hate typography. Yuck! But nevertheless I should be able to make/draw some decent looking letters, don't you think?

*I know that 'believed' is misspelled in some places but I finally got it right, no worries!*

Finally something that will end up as finished illustration! It's for last week's Illustration Friday's topic 'sky'. I know it's late but who said you can not use those topic later on too?

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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 :)

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From my sketchbook #10

I have shown part of my newest sketches in this post (about making a postcard illustration) but I've got something more going on here!

On Halloween my youngest sister is turning 12 and I wanted to create party invitations for her birthday party. Of course, they will be Halloween themed and probably everything at the party will be about ghosts, monsters, witches and black cats. I've started sketching and then I thought that maybe other people are making Halloween parties too and would love to use some cute party invitations! That's why those 4 designs will go to my Etsy shop as printable PDFs. Hopefully I will make them during this weekend so they can be up and running for a while before 31st of October :)

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You may not know it (I have no idea if I have mentioned it before) but for some time I have been making an illustrated diary. I've started drawing small and silly pictures on my wall calender back in the first year when I started dating my Love. On the next year I bought a notebook calendar and was able to draw more. Now it's always a spacious diary/journal/calendar and I draw my bunny story every single day.

The best thing is, when I start reading some of the old calendars, it's actually pretty funny to see what stupid things I've been making. And this bunny-me is quite hilarious! :D

Do tych, którzy są w stanie przeczytać co tam nabazgrałam - ja-królik używa sporo brzydkich słów. Na codzień nie posługuję się tak soczystym językiem, ale do opisywania moich przygód brzydkie słowa nad wyraz dobrze pasują ;)

 *yummy!*

 *cheers!*

 About making a spinach cannelloni: *Is it ready yet?* / *Not yet! Why are you in such a hurry?*

I was not in a mood to work that day ;P

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From my sketchbook #9

It's hard to scan from this spiralled notebook, so photos will have to do ;)

 Snot the mini cat :) Comic about her is on the way and will appear soon on The Meow Blog

 You will see more of those tea cup animals soon :D Oh yes, you will! And maybe some dachshunds too!

 Custom gift on the way. I think it will be a bookmark. The cat on the top is my Purr :)

 Sketches for this illustration. Of course I didn't do any colour sketches and really hated myself for that later on...

 In the past I was drawing fashion illustrations quite often. Now I make them only on rare occasions, don't really know why.

 I've written a short story about a bouncing bunny - to commemorate my topic being chosen by Illustration Friday as a weekly topic ('bounce'). The text is ready, now I only need to work a bit on the thumb illustrations. And then you'll see a mini dummy book, I suppose :)

That's all for now. My new sketchbook really gets me going with all my ideas. I just want to draw all the time.

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From my sketchbook #8

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

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