Category: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

New scarves!

Ok, I spent over an hour trying to create a poll elsewhere, because I’d really like to hear your opinion about which patterns you like best. And then I was like, oh – I actually have my own page and most likely it’s able to do something useful in this regard 😀 So let’s see – will I manage?

One eternity later…

Nope, WP wants me to update the plan to do polls. Thanks, but no thanks. Google, as always, is helping me out.

By following this link you can share your opinion with me regarding the scarves you like best. It would be very-very helpful, as I’m preparing a bigger order and would love to be able to tailor it to your preferences. The quality is super-yummy and I’m very proud of the products, but testes differ, and I’d like to take it into consideration.

The latest patterns in better resolution are below.

Thanks again and happy coming holidays 🙂

Uncategorized

fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra 

I am used to thinking about myself as a reasonable and sensible person. Well, I’m used to.

The events of the the last 8 days show me that the anxiety I’ve experienced before was very mild and insignificant. Now I’m angry, sad, annoyed, irritated, anxious and tired all at once.

And the scariest part is that i feel I literally cannot do anything. I can watch, I can close my eyes, the picture won’t change. So I am going to live the life, as long as I can do it. Do your duty and let what should happen happen.

About 2 weeks ago I started drawing fun shapes over random pictures. The mood has changed, but this exercise really helps me relax. So I will keep doing it.

Uncategorized

Inktober in Procreate

A complete set of Inktober works this year – my first illustration challenge ever. I was drawing every day all October. There was new keyword or “prompt” every day. Feeling accomplished 🙂

What is Inktober challenge? “Jake Parker created Inktober in 2009 as a challenge to improve his inking skills and develop positive drawing habits. It has since grown into a worldwide endeavor with thousands of artists taking on the challenge every year.”

I did all the drawings in Procreate app. I really wanted to learn the software and start drawing more on iPad. It was totally worth it! I was posting picture by picture on Instagram and received a lot of positive feedback. Now I am looking for another challenge to participate in.

In the end of November I start an illustration course in Procreate, I think now I’m really prepared to begin 😉

Below is the collection of my Inktober 2021:

Uncategorized

Oil pastel, gauche etc.

For many years I was so faithful to watercolour, it was my true and only. In the last couple of years, though, I tried more materials than in a whole decade before that. I started with acrylic paint and oil, then there were printing experiments, and now I went on to pencils, crayons, pastels and even gauche. Yes, gauche, that I painted with last time when I was maybe 6 years old 😀  

What can I say? New materials a very liberating. It’s like moving to a new place where no one knows you and starting all over again. And it’s easy to make mistakes, you’ve never done that before, it’s okay to mess up.

Plus, stuff like oil pastels are good for quick sketches, so if I don’t have many hours, and lately I cannot find time for a proper painting session, sketching with some dry materials is quick and not too dirty.

These small (a4) random sketches I’ve accumulated since Christmas. I won’t call them “finished works”, but I like some elements and maybe will use some parts in digital projects or print as posters, haven’t decided yet. But l like this abundance and variety, I’ve been missing it since corona started 🙂

Uncategorized

Putting together a small exhibition

I have a small exhibition in Aalborg University library right now. Despite corona social weirdness and limitations, it feels great to see my pictures hanging on the walls in this nice space. I really wanted to show my works in 2020 and it’s happening! It will last till the end of January.

It happened quite unexpectedly, even though I was talking to the art union representatives for several months. Their sudden call was a nice last moment 2020 surprise.

Now to a few technicalities of putting together a small exhibition 🙂

It is the second time I have my pictures presented, but this time it was much more difficult to put it together – mostly due to the grown volume and difference in materials. Today I paint not only in watercolor, there are many pictures in acrylics and oil. I wanted them to play nicely together, and I think it worked in the end, even though the pieces are rather different in mood and contrast. I took some pictures of the ready exhibition and of my “casting” at home. 

A separate challenge was to hang frames on the walls nicely. I’ve never tried hanging a bare canvas frame before. It turned out to be quite difficult for a newbie like me J  I spent like 3+ hours putting them up. I needed to figure the order first, and even though I had a vague plan of my grouping, I had to change it a lot on the way. Make them hang on the same level was also “fun”. With my lack of experience in the field, it was quite an exercise, but learning was exponential)). Now I think I’ll have far less trouble with a similar task 🙂

At the same time I felt a bit under the weather because of corona situation. Exhibiting at the moment when not even half of the potential viewers can access the pictures is not feeling exactly great. So I was a bit hesitant to share the news on social media. But then I finally pulled myself together and made a small post on personal Facebook. I think I’ve never got so many positive reactions and comments on social media before, it was awesome – I am very thankful. So now, when the exhibition is almost over and almost no one can see it due to a harder lockdown, I still am writing about it. Because every step matters 🙂

Have a nice day and stay safe, everyone.

Uncategorized

Danish Højskole and printmaking

Sometime in April this year, I realised that travelling abroad was very unlikely to happen to me this year, so I had to think of some local options for summer holiday. Trying a Danish Højskole was on my sort of “bucket list”, so I saw it as a good opportunity to tick it off.

A Højskole is an interesting phenomenon. If extremely simplified, these days it’s a summer camp for adults 🙂 You usually stay there for one or two weeks (mine was one week), and spend time practicing the subject you choose. The subjects are different, but there are many sports and art schools – so I went for art, ofc. My course was called “from sketch to a graphic print”. Two years ago I was at the Art Academy London for a week course in photo-etching. Since then I developed a special fondness for printing on a press. Unfortunately, there is no workshop with a press in Aalborg (yet, hehe), so I could not take a course or experiment during the year. So, when I saw a course in printing on a press – I said “Yes, please!”. And I totally didn’t regret my decision to spend a week this way.

It was a wonderfull environment, where I had a pretty unlimited access to the workshop, nice guidance, aaaand…I didn’t have to think about mundane necessities like figuring out meals or a place to sleep – yes, they fed us three times a day plus some cake at 9 pm (hmm)) and we lived there the whole week. So I think I spent about 50 hours over 5 days experimenting. And in my opinion, I was quite productive.

We tried relief (woodcut), intaglio (etching on plexiglass and carving carton), and planographic (lithography with gum Arabic, I think it’s also called xerography). So, pretty much the whole spectrum of printing techniques, if you look it up on Wikipedia. 

I tried relief before, so didn’t spend much time on it. But etching and planographic were really fun to try 🙂 I think I enjoyed most to work with plexiglass: it’s easy to do etching on it and I like drawing, so it felt quite natural. The results I enjoyed most, though, were on carton. And xerography gives infinite options for collages. 

Aalborg was quite well-represented at that course, so now we are talking about arranging a workshop with a printing press here in town. I really hope it works out and I’ll have access to a place where I can experiment more. 

I feel a little tired of colours these days, want simpler shapes and clearer lines, that’s why old-fashioned printmaking makes me feel so fresh.

UPD: it took me the whole weekend to figure out how to present the prints online 😀 Just scanning and cropping did not feel good enough. In the end I decided on some sort of coloured passe-partout  (oh, I love French words <3) 

Uncategorized

scanning oil paintings

The main discovery (or at least an aha moment) of this lockdown is scanning oil paintings. For some reason I was absolutely convinced it won’t work, so I even didn’t bother to try. Until a week ago – and, oh miracle! It’s working like a charm JSo now all my smaller canvasses can finally be decently digitalised. The problem remains for bigger formats. I really don’t think I can manage a 60×80 canvas on an a4 scanner 😀 I tried taking photos, but it is just not as good quality, and it is very hard to keep the angles right, not speaking of the lighting. I need to discipline myself and check properly what people out there are doing. Will make an update, if I figure out.

According to wp statistics, this page has been getting much more traffic than usually. I really wonder if they are real people or it’s just some bouncing. I want real people, but all promotion I have done so far was facebook ads three or four times. So is it time to take it more seriously? 😀

Uncategorized

Oil

A month ago I started going to a painting studio Monday (sometimes Wednesday) evenings to learn a bit about oil and acrylic painting techniques and just book some time for painting at least once a week. What can I say?

Oh..I enjoy oil paint so so much! My background is watercolor and most of the time it’s just a lot of stress: you have to be fast and you get only one attempt, almost no chance for fixing it later. Oil? It’s the texture, beautiful soft mixing properties, no change in color after drying. Downsides? It dries very slowly. So to get the next layer, you have to wait at least a day or two. For an impatient person like me it’s a little hell, but, on the bright side, I get a lot of time to think about the next layer, and planning is good even in arts 🙂

So, in a month I finished three paintings, sizes are 20×30 and 30×30. My personal favorite for now is the mussels :3

My goal was to get less figurative, and I told my teacher about it from the start, so today he said something like, “ok, I can see you can paint, so do you want to push it a bit further?” Yes, I do 🙂 so on Monday I’ll start my first big abstract, 60×60 or so. Looking forward to 🙂

Uncategorized

Flat brushes and a sprayer

I somehow came back to where I started – ballet dancers. Planning to make a few more for a small poster/postcard series. I really like these gracious shapes, and there is quite some room for experimenting with the materials. For example, this cloud of colour surrounding the figure is quite thickly applied paint further spread by a sprayer. Yes, I just paint on paper and then I spray on top, and it moves in funny shapes – will definitely try more of this technique.

And then flat brushes – probably the most irreplaceable instrument when it comes to painting architecture and cityscapes (I have 5 or 6 brushes in different sizes)). They are also very good for painting ballet dancers’ fluffy skirts (I love the word “tutu”) – makes it look really airy and quite naturalistic – I am very satisfied with the result 🙂

Uncategorized

silk scarves

I didn’t have much time to draw and paint this summer, so was mostly doing some work in photoshop. You know, the “fun” part, where you need to do scanning and cleaning of the original works.

At the same time, I got contacted by a Chinese company, who works with prints on silk and silk scarves. I checked the website and it looked legit. So I decided to give it a try. I ordered two samples of my designs on silk chiffon, and what I received was of a very good quality. My second order was 5 more samples. And here are the results. 

I tried different kinds and of silk: silk twill, silk satin, cdc, and chiffon. All are 100% silk. I needed to iron them to get rid of the folded lines and used a steamer, hot air and a bit of moist didn’t create any problems, so they are not as fragile as they might look J

I also got many good replies from my friends and followers on Instagram and Facebook. In the end I made a small bulk order or two patterns and asked to make new samples – I think everything will be ready in about two weeks, I’m very excited to see how it turns out. The plan is to put some on etsy. I also contacted one of the local arts and craft shop and they asked me to bring a few items when I receive my bulk order. The fact that they were so open for it gave me quite a bit of confidence JNow I’ll need to do some homework for the legal and visual merchandising parts.