September is here tomorrow! I can’t believe how quickly summer went by. It was full of friends, adventures, cherries, birthdays, crafts. In the moment I’m busy animating my short film. I hope to be able to finish it before winter comes, let’s see! I know I keep missing months in my calendar initiative, but hey-ho! I’m doing my best. I still struggle sometimes to find right balance between my work and my baby-daugther. If you have children you know what I mean!
July is time for an adventure! Maybe that’s time to have a picnic in the night? Have a house swap with your friends from Sweden? Make a giant bunting? Send your neighbours a postcard wishing them a lovely day? Write a story together with your children? Camp in your own garden? Here is the latest calendar for the next month. Download it HERE.
Instagram is my favourite place to meet new people. A year ago I met there lovely Anastasia from Saint-Petersburg. She makes wonderful cookies and cupcakes – check out her Instagram profile. We collaborated a couple of times on creating cookies. First I just asked her to use my illustrations of cats for a series of cookies for my mum’s birthday. My mum promised to eat them, but she still keeps some in her cupboard. Too cute to eat! A month ago I was visiting my hometown and designed a couple of cookies for Anastasia to make – panda cookie, koala cookie, blue bear cookie and white cat cookie. I gave them to my dear friends and relatives. I’ve eaten one myself (they are absolutely delicious!) and I have one blue bear cookie on my desk.
Photographs by Anastasia Steshenko
This summer II’ll be doing an exhibition of my work during Warwickshire Open studios weeks from 27th of June until 12th of July in a lovely converted granary! The place is called The Ceramics Studio. I will be joining Rhian Malin and Leyla Folwell – both super-talented ceramicists ! Also i will be doing a workshop, have a look at the poster and feel free to come! You can sign up HERE.
Yay! My new cards arrived today. Just in time for my trip to Berlin to attend Pictoplasma this year. I’m looking forward to get inspired and come back full of new ideas! My style did develop a lot since I started my path as an artist and I find it’s very useful to see as much good stuff as possible to keep trying new techniques and looks for my characters. This time I went for very colourful range of animals! I love colour, I’m learning using it and trying new combinations.
Sketches for a character for a children magazine
My ideas are always born on pages of my sketchbooks. In the moment I have eight sketchbooks: tiny one for quick sketches, a couple of bigger ones for work related sketching, a giant one (A3) for brainstorming and a couple of handmade ones with lovely paper for watercolours and pencils. I can’t walk out my house without carrying pencil and sketchbook. You never know when the idea will come, so I write down every single one and draw a sketch next to it. It’s how ‘Jelly Jumble’ was born, it’s how I’ve written 15 episodes for preschool TV show ‘Yoko’ and it’s where currently are many more waiting to be made into things!
