girl with lots of hair

As I thought of writing this post I said to myself there must be another way to start it than saying I’ve been very busy. It doesn’t sound original or fun  but it’s true! I’ve been very busy working on various projects, some of which I’m not yet allowed to share and a personal art project that still makes sense only in my head and will have to wait awhile until it reveals itself to the world.

However, I did manage to steal a little time to work on simple creative ideas. I’ve been doodling on glossy 200gms photo paper, using colorful, sparkly rollers and expressing my caffeine addiction love for coffee.

I got some cheap coffee mugs at a local store and I’d love to draw something on them as soon as I buy paint for ceramics.  Now I’m just using  them as props.

i love coffee02

i love coffee 01

i love coffee

 For some reason I can’t remember right now I thought it would be fun to make a watermelon necklace. I really love watermelons  and pink/red/green color combo so why not? But, to be honest my every attempt to  make jewelry only reaffirms my decision  to stick to illustration because I kinda suck at  crafting  and lack patience to work on tiny details. I made this by cutting a round cork coaster in half, painting a watermelon on it, then making two tiny holes and putting soft wire through them. I’m using it a as decoration/some sort of mobile right now and will look for actual  watermelon themed jewelry on etsy one day :)

watermelon necklace

I had more fun painting bears on cork coasters than making a watermelon “necklace”:

bear coasters

As January is coming to an ending I’m still keeping my motto for 2012. in mind and keeping myself motivated , creative and , yes ,very busy. I can’t wait until I can share results of more exciting projects with you!

everyday is a holiday

 

So far 2012. has been very good to me. I spent December 2011. mostly planning, setting goals and writing so seeing my plans turning into reality so fast feels great! I’ve been very busy last couple of weeks enjoying new work opportunities, setting foundations for personal art project and redecorating my apartment.
I didn’t actually plan to redecorate my place, it happened quite spontaneously. On Monday I had a little incident involving spilled ink and pinkish wall which propelled me into some sort of redecorating frenzy and resulted with repainting walls (and some pieces of furniture) bright white, painting flowers on closets, cleaning like a mad person and rearranging art pieces.

redecorating01
As I mentioned before, on Monday night I spilled some ink on orange/pinkish wall in my computer nook and  naively wanted to wash it out with water making an ever bigger stain. You know how it goes, the more you try to clean it the bigger the stain so I thought well, I might just remove all the paint and repaint the wall.

Removing the paint was pretty tedious and messy but, I believe, totally worth it because white suits my little corner so much better and makes it lot brighter.I also rearranged art pieces and put them above my desk, I have quite an Alkaline collection, 6 original pieces by Alkaline Samurai, photo print by Isidora and two of my own pieces.

redecorating02

Also, I repainted my little cabinet white and painted some pink flowers on it, now I call it  sakura cabinet hehe.

redecorating03

Recently I made a little drawing of a bear on a round piece of wood so I thought it would be appropriate to display it as well.

redecorating bear drawing

Once I refreshed my computer corner I moved on to the living room and repainted my old wooden wall white. The whole room seems bigger, much brighter and more pleasant to be in.

redecorating04

I have a big, really old closet in my living room that I plan on kicking out very soon so I thought it would be fun to paint on it before it gets moved out. Years ago, on one part of the closet my Mom applied some flowery decoupage that I never liked so I decided to remove it. And I learned a valuable lesson, decoupage is hard and messy impossible to remove but also nothing that 4 coats of white paint and strategically painted blue flowers can’t cover up.

redecorating05

The rest of the closet got some new, blue flowers as well.

redecorating06

After that I painted my kitchen cabinets white as well and did A LOT of cleaning and I’m still in the process of cleaning and rearranging stuff just at a slower pace (it’s weekend after all).

Last weekend I felt like doing something fun yet simple so I played a bit with white watercolor and blue, lined paper getting subtle and understated drawings.

blue and white

Before that I experimented with dying plain, white paper with coffee and spices to get interesting textures to scan and use as textures for layers in PS. I found my old high school biology homework and though I might scan it as well to get some “objects” to use as PS layers as well.

making textures

I also made some simple notebooks to fill with photo ideas, I’ve been writing and sketching so much I already have 4 little notebooks overflowing with ideas!

precious ideas notebook

I rediscover how fun it is to paint on brown paper!

it's raining ideas

Other great things happened as well in first 2 weeks of new year. I got great news, my partner in crime art and all things awesome is coming to visit in early February and we’re planning to have amazing time together as always. I started looking for props for my soon-to-happen photo shoots and scouted some very inspiring locations. I went to much needed shopping for clothes as I realized my sartorial choices could be described by this. I started working on a wonderful commission and even though I’ve been seriously sleep deprived I’m having a blast! I have a feeling 2012. will be the BEST YEAR EVER!

How did your year start?

 

maja milinkovic03

When few weeks ago teacher Maja Milinković sent me cute and original photos of kids with my illustrations, I knew she was very creative.  But little did I know she’s super creative and imaginative  crafty lady who makes cute and whimsical jewelry and decorations.

Recently she sent me photos of some of her  little handmade treasures and I couldn’t resist sharing some of them with you!

maja milinkovic07

maja milinkovic06

Maja makes  both cute stuff for little girls and cute and edgy, fun jewelry for grown-up girls :)

(Btw, how awesome is that sheep, hehe)

maja milinkovic04

maja milinkovic05

maja milinkovic02

I like her simple and whimsical art as well, I think that Burton-esque tree looks pretty cool, right?

maja milinkovic01

Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed a little glimpse into Maja’s imaginative world as I enjoyed discovering her talent and creativity.

P.S.: you can see the way Maja decorated little corner in kids  playroom using my illustrations here.

 

I made a zine! And it’s about bears!
You can take a peek at in a video below, or check out original drawings I used to put it together.

bears zine cover
bears zine 006
bears zine008
bears zine 005
bears zine 004
bears zine 003
bears zine 002
bears zine 001
bear zine007

 

Here are five little things that kept me occupied in lately:

asja and bear
I made a small bear painting (5×5 inches) on canvas using deco paint pens.

*****

flyers
Also, I made some new DIY flyers/business cards. they are hand drawn and then photocopied.

*****

pimpmymoleskine
My mini Moleskine cover got a little face-lift. I decorated it with moo stickers with my own designs and with kitchy stickers from a local store.

*****

paints
Today I kept myself busy cleaning my home studio. Here is a detail of a shelf with acrylic paints. It will probably get cluttered with other stuff pretty soon but for now it looks neat.

*****

deco paper
I sorted through my humble collection of decorative papers to see which one will get used a photo backdrop next.

 

new signature bw

 
Happy Monday! How was your weekend? Mine was pretty uneventful and laid-back (which I loved) and spent mostly making things, eating good food and listening to obscure 90′s punk rock bands! Yay!
Here is a little showcase of:
 

*stuff I made over the weekend*


*big doodle*

big doodle
Sometimes there is nothing more relaxing than drawing a big pattern! I felt like I needed to get rd of some stress this weekend so I doodled this big piece (it’s 30×40 cm) and it was very therapeutic.

 

*messy cards*

cards

In art, I love seeing accurately drawn, clean (and usually uninterrupted  ) lines and I’m always striving to better the quality of lines in my  work and to draw them with confidence. But sometimes, I also feel like  taking a break from accuracy and control and just want create messy  stuff : ) So, a couple of days ago I took a bottle of ink and dipped a  grill stick into it and started drawing and making messy lines on cards.  Later I colored them with crayons and ended up with fourteen messy  cards, different than my usual style.

 

ink and grill sticks

card, black and white

cards

stuff i made over the weekend

 

*gift tags*

gift tags
I also made some gift tags using mini prints of my illustrations and ended up turning one of them into a key chain.

bear keychain

new signature bw

 

I asked my Mom what would she like me to get her on a Mother’s Day, and she replied “Well, you don’t have to get me anything for the occasion but when you find the time you can paint a fox on a canvas bag for me.” And that’s what I did yesterday.
I even made a little work in progress video ( I forgot to disable the sound so can hear all the wonderful background noises like cars passing by, me zipping my hoodie, and water in the sink and all that twice the speed, hehe). I had so much fun shooting the video, now I’m thinking to do more clips like this, maybe better lit and thought-out more and less improvised.

This how a finished bag looks like:

bag with fox on it

asja fox bag

[gickr.com]_a32a89a9-ca36-49f4-3560-92df28649b41

My Mom really liked it and she’s happy with her new bag!

new signature bw

 

In lately I’ve been in need of some new business card so I thought it might be fun to make some of my own. First I made simple ones by using a stamp I carved out.

stamp for cards

stamped cards

stamped cards pile

Then I thought to make some printed ones as well that I like better and will end up using:

printed cards

pile of printed cards

new signature bw

Mar 312011
 

bear bag
I doodled a little bear on a tote bag today and it says hello!

new signature bw

 

streets of gold wip
I started this drawing (size 30x40cm) back in October but haven’t felt inspired to finish it yet. I think that is because of the questionable color combination I decided to use (hot pink+bright yellow+golden with a bit of of green and blue) but since I’m very fond of the idea behind this drawing (showing a street in an almost abstract way) I made a decision to finish it anyway and after that draw another similar image but color it digitally this time.

tote bags
Yesterday I’ve been painting tote bags (for sale) almost all day but these were only two I managed to take a photo of because all of them are already gone today which is a good thing of course. Oh, and sorry about low quality photos, haste and use of inappropriate lens took its toll :)

diy presents
A friend gave me some shabby pieces of plywood and I decided to use them in making some DIY Christmas presents, I decided to make holiday glass coasters. I only wish I sanded the plywood before painting it because the texture of surface is a bit coarse but otherwise I’m not unhappy about how they turned out.

In unrelated news, prints of my illustrations are now available via new German based, print selling website called artflakes.com and my spot (I’ll be putting more images in shop soon) can be found here.
artflakes shop

In even more unrelated news, can you believe it’s almost December?! Time flies and 2011. is almost here! Which reminds me of another thing I’ve been doing: printing these simple and cheap 2011. calendars:

dyi calendars

signature

© 2011 Asja Boroš Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha