The Barber of Pie-ville

Hi!

It's a shame I haven't been able to post anything in a while, but that's because I've been super busy with work. However, expect to see more frequent updates from me in the future.

So, here's the most recent piece that I've finished. (Well, actually I (always) think I could fiddle with it some more, but I'll step back for it for now) This work was for a sort of poster competition for an opera production called "The Barber of Barkerville", which is an adaptation of Rossini's "Barber of Seville". Haha, so no, not "The Barber of Pie-ville". That was just one of my silly jokes. But, pies do play quite a role in the story!

 

Finished piece

After making several roughs, I was drawn to this concept:

concept sketch

When I was refining the sketch, I separately drew out the two figures.

Rosie, with a note for Al

Al, in his disguise

After, I tweeked the sketch by reworking the pies, adding the town, and some mountain/hills. I scanned all the drawings, then scaled and added the figures into the composition. I printed the re-worked concept at size I as going to be inking and painting in.

pencils

Using a make-shift light table I re-penciled the image on to a sheet of Bristol Smooth paper, and then inked it with micron pens.

inks

Then it was time to paint...

a progress picture

And here's how the coloring ended up, but I wasn't done yet. I felt the green was too strong so I decided to calm the shades of green down in Photoshop.

Adjustments in Photoshop

Finally, I added a subtle paper texture as well. I decided to keep the sky light and simple so that it wouldn't compete with the title of the production. I didn't win the contest, but what can you do right?

close up

Size: 11x17"
Media: Waterproof inks + watercolour + gouache + microns

That's it for now!

The Nessie Award

Hi! Oh look - something not on paper!

Today I'll share my feeble attempt at making a 3D toy for a recent assignment. We were given 3 wooden parts - a rectangle, a rod, and a ball and we had to come up with a character and make a toy. We could change the parts and add to them as we saw fit. Imagination and skills were the limit. And Amanda Visell an Michelle Valigura were our class mentors, if the project wasn't daunting enough.

The way I went about this project though is by staying faithful to the given parts and letting them help dictate my character. (I'm also not that great with using my hands, and I'm quite weary of power tools. But I honestly did like the approach of keeping my original shapes somewhat candid)

At first I came with with some creatures like an ornately patterned giraffe, a fancy ostrich, a Loch Ness monster and a 'dragon-fly'.

Then I decided to go with the Loch Ness monster idea and sketched out some variations of what it could look like:

I picked the Celic Nessie. Surprise, surprise, as I have a deep fascination with the Celtic and Nordic cultures and art.

I also thought that by going with this option I could make up with painting knot-work that which I lacked with carving and molding. And if there were flaws they would actually work with the theme. You know -- if something was hand-made a long time ago, it's bound to have some bumps and scratches right?

So in the end I ended up with this, as I've posted at the beginning:

I give you my interpretation of the Celtic depiction of the fierce Loch Ness Monster, immortalized as the "Nessie Award".  Each year all the Celtic clans would gather for a great feast and award the Nessie Award to the clan who has sunk the most enemy ships at sea. Although the mystic Nessie was most frequently seen at Loch Ness, it was also rumored to be spotted roaming the salty ocean realms.

I created the general shape of character by trimming, sawing and sanding the provided parts. I then molded the muzzle, horns, tongue, scales, legs, and tail out of air drying clay. I also created some ships as accessories. I painted all the parts with acrylic paints and then super-glued them together.

And look - I made some tiny ships to go with it:

I'll see if I can fix it up some more later (for my own sake of mind) and take some photos with it outside.

*Now I'm off to relax and celebrate my birthday. I'm 22 today! I like the sound of being 21 better, but maybe this will be a better year nonetheless!

Happy Sunday to everyone!

Playing Outside With Imagination and Pride

Happy Saturday!

So, today I'm sharing with you a revisit of some ideas and themes I worked with last spring. My inspiration comes from my childhood memories of enjoying imaginative play-times outside. Currently I'm using those ideas and themes and reworking them into a collection of illustration + poetry spreads which will hopefully turn into a nice book sometime =)

"Little Lilac Ladies"

Ancient myths say mystic powers
Are given to some lilac flowers.
Those having five petals or more
Store magic wishes at their core.

This piece alludes to how my friends and I would comb through lilac bushes in search of 5 petaled flowers because supposedly they had wish granting powers!

 And some process steps:

Inked floral work

Painted floral work

Again, the finished piece

"Helping Hands"

When spring returns back to the land,
Little birds could use a hand
With making cozy, tidy nests
For themselves and for their guests.

This illustration reflects how in the spring my friends and I would build nests out of grass to help the birds out :)

(rhymes + illustrations are all by me)

Size: 11x17"
Media: Waterproof inks + watercolour + gouache + microns

Sophisticated Play Time

I've often said that I'd like to illustrate children's books and recently I've sort of had a trial go at creating art for a whole children's story. This was for one of my illustration classes. However, we didn't create dozens of finished pieces, rather we went through the stages of character development, story-boarding, making a dummy book, and only producing about 2 finished illustrations (or one spread). Lot's of work, I'll tell you and I'm not going to share all of my process because that's just too many pages to deal with. I'll just post process stages for my two finished illustrations. (Or as always, I hope they're finished.)

First, there were the character sketches, which {this post} was all about actually.

Then, it was time to storyboard. And here's the snippet from it of the two illustrations I coloured:

After my story-board was approved, came the time to make the dummy book, which is a rough mock up of what the compositions the illustrator is imagining for the story. The pictures are often loose but understandable sketches.

As you can see, not that different from my little thumbnail, but I've made sure to leave space for text and rendered the characters in more detail.

And here's the line-work stage for page four (left page). I was in too much of a blunder to spend time scanning the line-work for page 5.

And then the finished pieces: And look - I actually painted a background. A light one, but I haven't done any backgrounds in my latest works so in case anyone thought I forgot how to -- I didn't!

Tea party time!

I made sure to leave plenty of room for text

Hopefully I didn't do a terrible job=)

Media: Microns, watercolors, colored inks + gouache

Mail Me Art 3 - Short & Sweet Hummingbirds (updated)

Good evening? Or I guess it's very early morning now? Anyways...

In January I was ecstatic to find out that I've been invited to contribute to Darren Di Lieto's Mail Me Art 3 Project - Short & Sweet.

Here's some info about the project, cited from the official site:

"Mail Me Art is a British-based project, run by Darren Di Lieto, the founder and co-editor of the illustration news portal The Little Chimp Society.
The Mail Me Art project is here for everyone to enjoy, both as artists and onlookers. It’s not about making a statement or rebelling against the establishment – it’s about having fun and connecting with other people around the world. If you’re looking for a history of the mail art movement or some serious mail art-driven political agenda, you’ve come to the wrong place. This is a celebration and archive of the artists who have taken part in Mail Me Art, plain and simple! We love mail art and we hope you do too!

Mail Me Art 3 has been a long time coming and this time around the project will be called Mail Me Art: Short & Sweet. MMA3 will be by invitation only and limited to 200 participants. There will be an exhibition in July 2013 and a new book showcasing all of the brilliant new mail art! Mail Me Art 3 will be short and it will be sweet."

At that time I was working on my Vanishing Canids/Stamps for a Cause project, so I was inspired to paint some endangered species. And with the theme of the project being "Short & Sweet" - I though - "what is possibly shorter and sweeter than a hummingbird?" So then I did what I arguably do best and put a whimsical spin on the topic and anthropomorphized the birdies.

And ta-da! About a month later here they are - the rare, the fashionable, the short and sweet hummingbirds! =)

The back of the envelope, which is actually the front in this case. I made my own envelope so that I could use the nice paper I found.

 So from left to right we have: Amazilia castaneiventris (Chestnut-bellied Hummingbird), Lepidopyga lilliae (Sapphire-bellied Hummingbird), Eupherusa cyanophrys (Blue-capped Hummingbird), Glaucis dohrnii (Hook-billed  Hermit Hummingbird), and Amazilia boucardi (Mangrove Hummingbird). 
 

The other side =)

And on this side we have: Selasphorus ardens (Glow-throated Hummingbird) and Eupherusa poliocerna (White-tailed hummingbird).

A close up of this gentleman -- he even has a monocle!

I just love hope I did the little guys justice and illustrated them accurately enough. I must say - it was hard at times to find clear photo references.

Size: 162 x 229mm
Media: Microns, watercolors, colored inks + gouache

Finally, here's the process work:

Some of my favorite sketches

Ink work -part 1

And ink work part 1 for the other side

Ink work part 2 - more details!

Ink work part 2 - more details + species names

So there we go! I'm happy to be done but I wish I could illustrate a few more envelopes honesty. It's so much fun!

On the weekend I'll pop this envelope in the mail and hope that I'm in favor with post-service gods and that it arrives in the UK safely and undamaged =)

Happy Thursday!

***UPDATE March 11th, 2013: I've received news this morning that my envelope has arrived safely and it seems without hardly any damage. From the confirmation of arrival image Darren sent me, it looks like there's a very small smudge at the edge around the right side, but considering the dangers of traveling as far as it did, it's hardly worth a fuss. It might even come off with an eraser, who knows. :) Thank you illustration gods!

*Update, May 8th: This image is now a limited edition print of 25 which comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and can be acquired {here}

The ‘Mail Me Art: Short & Sweet’ will be exhibiting at The Framers Gallery from 30th July – 3rd August 2013. The gallery will be open Tuesday to Friday from 10am – 5.30pm and 11am till 5pm on Saturday. All of the mail art will be on display and the new book will be available to buy and browse.

 

And the second show at the Factoryroad Gallery will take place from August 9th to August 12th.

{FB event page}

AND all original pieces are now available to purchase online, though they won't be shipped to the buyers until September, after the gallery exhibitions have taken place. Here's the link to my piece!  {Mariya Olshevska: Original Mail Art}