Memorial Portrait

Hello there,

It's been some time since my last post, and I hope that everyone's summer has been a nice one.

I've been very fortunate in that the circumstances in my life had finally worked out in such a way that I was finally able to visit Iceland, which was a dream of mine for about 10 years now. It was definitely a much needed getaway and a very uplifting trip. Though I did not do any plein air sketching or painting, I took a large number of photos and perhaps in the near future I'll use these for a fantasy illustration.

In more sad news, a month ago, my beloved childhood cat Toma (nicknamed Tomcat) has passed away at the age of 18. Although she passed peacefully, it was (and is) still very hard to come to terms with. Rationalizing that she had a healthy and comfortable life did little to ease ease feelings of loss, regret, and pain. So, I just tried to do something nice to honor her memory. I was very nervous about how it would turn out, but in small steps I worked towards painting her portrait. In the end, I'm pretty happy with the results.

Looking through all the photos we had of her, I picked a reference which I thought would work best for the composition I had in mind and would come closest for the expression and mood I was hoping to capture.

As usual, I started with a pencil sketch. Then did some ink with my micron pens to map out the main features and stripes in the fur.

Next, I tackled the background. I wanted it to have an impressionistic feel; suggestive of some of whimsical, forested area, but keeping the focus on Tomcat's face. I wanted to believe her spirit lives on somewhere green, lush and happy.

Then, I worked at building up subtle layers of colour to illustrate the softness of her fur, finishing off with touches of white gouache for the whiskers, eyebrows, and eye glimmers.

close up

For the final touches, I added a little bit of gold paint to add some accents to the eyes, fur, and the background. It's by no means an addition that has a visible impact on the finished piece after digital reproduction, but I find it to be a pleasant, understated feature of in person viewing.

 (I apologies for the lesser quality images of my in-process work. Unfortunately, I did not have the scanner conveniently within my reach, so all the work in progress photos are made on my phone.)

1999-2017

Anyways, if you enjoy the piece, there are now art prints and post cards available for sale. Profits from the sales with will be donated to two local cat charities which I like to support - VOKRA and Katie's Place.

Please find prints available on:

-Society6
-RedBubble
-InPrint
-TeePublic
-DesignByHumans 

Media: Pigma Micron + Prismacolor fine line archival marker pens, Koh-I-Noor (waterproof) drawing inks, watercolour, Acryla gouache on Strathnore "Mixed Media" vellum surface paper.
Paper Size: 8.5 x 11 inches
Painting Size: 5.5 x 6 inches

Thanks for visiting! In farewell, I leave you with one of my favourite pictures of her.

"Outside seemed better from far away."

Wanderers of the North

Hello again!

Today I'm excited to share with you a mini series of black and white animals I've been working on. The inspiration for this series comes partly my love for illustrating various creatures in a naturalistic style, partly the positive response I've received when I posted the fox image, and partly the new story/book, based on Norwegian lore, which a new team of conspirators and I are developing. So far I have five images completed and I hope to add many more to the collection!

Brown Bear

Red Fox

Inspired by the Icelandic horse, but incorporated a more whimsical mane.

Gyrfalcon

Eurasian Lynxes

All pieces are roughly 4 x 6" in size and completed with ink wash, graphite and white gouache.

Yours truly, with some framed prints.

The image at the top, of all the pieces together isn't a photo, by the way. It's a quick simulation I put together in Photoshop, because the photos I took of the "real" works hanging on the wall all had reflections of people in the glass.

Cheers everyone!

Fancy a Fox?

Hello,

So, today I'm just going to be sharing a quick fox portrait I did over the weekend. Though rendering characters and scenes photo-realistically isn't usually part of my illustration style, I do think it's important to practice painting and drawing in a naturalistic fashion. I find that it helps me to better memorize the physical traits of different animals, plants, etc, which later translate much easier to more stylized works and spontaneous sketches.

I usually just like to work with ink washes for my animal portrait, but this time I played around with layering graphite pencil with ink washes back and forth to get the tones and textures I wanted.

Inari the Fox

I've named her Inari, after the Japanese fox spirit. She's a red fox.

Now, here are some process images:

Some ink washes and graphite texturing on the face.

Pretty much the finished version with a white background.
(Eye highlights are done with white gouache)

Played around in Photoshop to see how a sepia might look

Added the background with some more washes of ink and graphite shading and smudging. Also used white gouache to add some highlights to the fur. And some more playing around with sepia toning in Photoshop, of course.

My preferred version

 Prints available here on Society6

Original size: 4.5 x 6"
Paper: Strathmore 400 Series Mixed Media
Tools: Pelikan Black ink (17), Staedler graphite pencils, and Desinger Gouache - Permanent White (008)

Wishing everyone a great week, as always! =)

All images are  ©Mariya Olshevska

Losing Altitude - Northern Spotted Owls

 

Hi there,

Today I'm going to do a quick process post about my latest painting - "Northern Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis caurina)" It was a piece I did for Losing Altitude - an upcoming book about threatened/endangered birds. This collaborative art book will feature over 50 artists and well over 100 pages of beautiful, full-color art of endangered birds from the world over.

Check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/LosingAltitude

And now for the process.

1. As usual, I sketched out some thumbnails. to see what layout I wanted to work with.

As you can see from the finished product, the image ended being a combination of all 4 of these.

2. After getting my references together I went on to penciling. I like use the double penciling approach - where I first get the shapes and elements down more loosely with my blue pencil and then go over ad add more details with a graphite pencil.

Close up of the adult owl.

3. Then came my favourite part- the inking, using my black microns.

Adding even more detail during this stage.

After inking the whole image, I erase the pencil marks.

4. For this piece I decided to do a grey-scale values under-layer. It seemed like a logical idea since the owlets were mostly grey.

Almost fully rendered under-layer. I ended up darkening the adult owl some more later.

5. Then I got my coloured, waterproof inks out and finished up the painting, sprinkling some table salt on the background for hazy effect. Oh, and of course - for the final touch I used white gouache to add some shine and detail to the birds' feathers.

Here are some close ups:

 

-Original size: 11 x 17.7"
-Materials: Waterproof coloured inks, microns, white gouache, and salt on 300 series Strathmore Vellum Bristol paper

Prints available at my Society6 shop =)

Cheers for now!

Stamps for a Cause

Hello!

It's illustration time! Here is a my first project of the spring semester. For this assignment we were to illustrate a stamp (or a series of stamps) and a stamp sheet for a charity/cause/organization we feel passionate about. (If they were to hire us) I love wild animals and think they shouldn't be endangered so I chose the Canadian Wildlife Federation as my organization inspiration.
And since I'm particularly fond of predators I decided to paint a trio of stamps of vanishing canids - foxes and wolves.

Here they are:

And the stamp sheet:

After class critiques I'm making some improvements as we speak =)

And here's how it all came together:

Composition sketches. I was still deciding between CWF and WWF

Penciling. Originally I wanted a soft, blue wave type of sky background, but I afterward I thought it would be too distracting

Initial linework

Painting part I -- no background yet

Close up of my favourite portrait with background

 And again - the finished triptych =)

Save the wolves and foxes people!

And here's a different version of the triptych I just whipped up. I digitally removed the next animals' overlaps.

Info:
Each animal portrait is 3.75 x 4.25" (cute and little !)
Completed on Strathmore Bristol Smooth paper
Painted with watercolors + waterproof coloured inks + 0.05 micron pen

Art prints will be available by the end of the day =)

Happy Friday!