*Happy weekend everyone*

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.

 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

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

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!

I plan on using those textures as backgrounds for drawings.

This weekend, as I was looking for some things in my storage I found a box full of photos I took in 2007. with Lomo cameras. I felt I should use them somehow and not just let them lay in a box as they did for years. My first thought was put together a photo wall! but I don’t really have space for it at my place (already a lot of artwork hanging on the walls) so I put together a “photo door” instead, which is not very practical : )

But I will leave photos on the door for a day or two until I think of something better to do with them. After all they don’t look bad as a backdrop.

Some of the original sketches for my book. Some of them are already scanned, colored and used in final illustrations, some are still waiting for their turn.

Finally after feeling unwell over the last three days I’m much better today and ready to share a post about process of creating my illustrations. When I thought about that process it reminded me a lot of cooking so I decided to represent this post as if I were writing a recipe.
So here it is: a recipe for an illustration, a one in particular called:

Just as in a real recipe first we need to start with the main ingredients for our dish, in this case the main ingredients for an illo are wolf, tree and candy. Here you can see a photo of original drawings:

After that we put our main ingredients into a nice big pot i.e. we scan them into computer, into a software of our choice and start cooking them (coloring and then composing into one big piece.)
First I colored tree and Wolf and composed them into a 4000x4000px canvas in Photoshop:

I colored candy separately…

… and then composed into a piece as well:

Just like any good meal needs some seasoning so do my illustrations need that extra something by which I mean some extra patterns, textures or backgrounds. Usually when I don’t feel inspired to draw I sketch abstract shapes or make textures that I later add to my illustrations. For example:

After adding some textures and extra layers and maybe tweaking colors and contrast a bit , illustration is pretty much done and all it needs a little story to accompany it.

Wolf finds a Candy Tree

On one of his relaxing walks through the woods Wolf came across a real, genuine Candy Tree! You can imagine his surprise and overwhelming feeling of bliss when he stumbled across such a rare treasure. He starred at it in awe thinking: “Oh, a real Candy Tree! What a precious find! So much candy to pick and all for me, I must be the luckiest beast in the entire forest!” After enjoying this magnificent sight Wolf hurried to get a huge basket and a ladder so he can pick the candy and eat them all by himself share them with his friends.

I hope you liked my recipe for an illustration!
Bon Appetit

A page from zine, work in progress.

In love, one of the recent drawings.

Happy mushroom doodle still needs to be colored (probably in bubble gum pink and silver).

Have a lovely Sunday!