Inktober Challenge

Happy Wednesday!

So, it's that time of year again - Inktober. If you've never heard of it: "every October, artists all over the world take on the Inktober drawing challenge by doing one ink drawing a day the entire month."

I decided to give it a try because I love inking! It's always one of my favourite parts of completing an illustration. My personal objective is to encourage myself to sketch more random things for fun outside work, without getting OCD about details. And I've given myself a theme: tokens and characters from my favourite films. So far, I've been keeping up, sharing my little ink drawings on my Instagram and Twitter pages each day. I've been drawing pretty small on some scrap watercolour paper and here's what I have so far:

Fawkes from "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" | 3.5 x 2.65" | micron pens

The Leaf of Lorien brooch from "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy | 2.75 x 2.75" | bamboo pen +microns

The Key to Hamunaptra from "The Mummy" | 2.75 x 2.375" | micron pens

The element stones from "The Fifth Element" | 2.125 x 2.5" | micron pens

A scene from "The Third and the Seventh" | 3 x 4.5" | ink wash

The subway butterfly from "You've Got Mail" | 2 x 2.45

The Mayan dagger/map from "The Fountain" | 2.5 x 3" | microns, marker + gouache

Elsa's sovereign's orb from "Frozen" | 2 x 2" | pencil + microns

Are you also doing the Inktober challenge? Share a link to where you post your drawings!

Have a great week!

August Sneak Peeks

Over land, by the sea

He walks silently

Through the ancient forests green

He navigates unseen

Hi!

Today, after scanning some new paintings and removing absolutely all the dust specks from them, I've decided to share a few sneak peeks. They're of a magical, ghostly lynx character. I've decided to go with green colour palettes for these illustrations because I've missed painting with green so much. I've spent most of the year working with blues, whites and purples depicting winter. And now that the warm weather might soon be over - I thought I better get some summery imagery into my projects. Anyway, have a look:

As you might be able to tell - I've used the same pose of the lynx walking. I was playing around with scale and different environments. I painted the lynx in the green and white forest setting first, and then I had an urge to paint him again but TINIER! So, I ended up making a miniature painting that is 2.5 x 4.5 inches. I get a certain kick out of drawing as small as I can. This isn't the smallest I can do, but for I'll save that miniature mindset for another time.

Here is a work-in-progress photo of it for scale. (I have small hands, for the record.)

Media: coloured waterproof inks + watercolour paints + gouache + microns

That's all for now! Thanks for visiting!


All images are ©Mariya Olshevska and may not be used or re-purposed without the artist's consent.

News from November

Oh wow, it's been quite a while since I've last posted. November has been a busy month, however. Along with the secret, collaborative project that I've been working on (and still am, which is why I haven't posted much new art), I've also had to produce work for a local gallery show and art sale.

On November 14-16, 2013 I took part in The Postcard Show, Volume III at the Hot Art Wet City Gallery, Vancouver. I contributed five 4x6" artworks which went up for a silent auction. When I stopped by I saw that a few of my pieces had bids on them, but I'm not sure as to what happened later - if they all went to happy homes. I'm sure the details will be available shortly thought. 

Here are the scans of them however:

"Northern Knot Trees"

"Silver and Ivory"

"Tea Tag Time"

"Duali-Tea"

"Walnut Tree" (not a new piece, but it was the right size, so I included it)

And here's a photo of them hanging at the show, right next to Seth Rutledge's work. (Thanks Seth for telling me about show!)

P.S. Prints and products from my postcards are available at my Society6 shop. =)

Then from Nov. 22 to 24th I took part in the annual Emily Carr Student Art Sale. I mostly had postcards and unframed prints for sale, but there were also a number of framed prints, a couple of acrylic paintings, and three patterned boxes up for grabs. I'm happy to report that most of this merchandise got sold, with only a few pieces left for me to take home. I'll be making an illustration-based Etsy shop soon - so stay tuned!

Here are a couple of photos from the sale where some of my works can be spotted:

And now I'm off to work on all sorts of things, both secret and not. I hope to post again soon!

99% Self Made

Here are some quick photos I took of my Book Media class final project. The project was to make a book, any kind of book really. I've made a mini - 5 x 7 inches book. It was an illustrated poem about a snowflake=) And the book is almost entirely self made. I wrote, illustrated, printed, cut, stitched, sewed, and bound the pages and the cover myself. (sorry the images are small, but I've got to protect my hard work I suppose)
You can read the text better on this post though --> http://mariaolshevskaexpressions.blogspot.com/2010/11/today-ive-decided-to-share-some-more.html

book cover - embroidered/cross stitched design

close up

back cover

back cover detail