Entre nous

I am back from my visit in Poland! Every time when I arrive in Warszawa I direct my first steps to Miedzy Nami Cafe for their delicious food and friendly atmosphere. At the airport I bought a January issue of Twoj Styl with my latest illustration for an article about...lash extensions!

Merry Christmas!

I am going to spend Christmas in Poland this year, this time my trip is for more than just three days. I am going to visit my friends in Warsaw, stay with my mum for a week and fly back from Krakow just in time for Hogmanay.

A very Merry Christmas to all of you from The Illustrious Illustrator!

Interviewed!

I came across a very well written Polish fashion blog Fashion My Passion whose writer, Ania has a section there about fashion illustration. I have dropped her a short email (ah well, shameful selfpromotion but one has to find people somehow!) and the result of our correspondance is a short interview with me published on her blog this Monday. It features some of my favourites fahion illlustrations I did last year.

Thank you Ania for this very nice experience! It is always a pleaure to talk a little bit about Paris :) When I get my hands on these Chloe shoes I will definitely draw them!

http://fashionmypassionash.blox.pl/html

December girl

St Andrew's Girl

Last one this November:

All year in Zwierciadlo magazine

I got a very nice offer from Zwierciadlo magazine (a Polish glossy magazine directed at readers interested in psychology) to prepare a series of illustrations for one of their ongoing series of interviews. This particular series is going to be featured in next 12 issues so my illustrations are going to be present in the magazine throughout all of next year! The first one for which I have prepared a drawing deals with the subject of female leaders, women who leave their past lifes to start a new career for example.

Here is one of the proposals , another one got chosen by the editors so I will post it when I get a copy of a magazine.

Glamourous eyelashes for Twoj Styl

I got luckily inundated with new commissions this month so my blog had to go into a minihiatus but I am back again and you can see now what I was working on during last couple of weeks.

I must say that like doing these very feminine illustrations for big glossies because the whole challenge lies in delivering the material as beautiful and as effortless looking as possible. Think Rene Gruau, think David Downtown, think Tina Berning.

P.S. Just to balance things out I also got commissioned to do a series of illustration on some more serious subject than ways of achieving super long eyelashes. However it of course depends where your priorities are. I like the balance between important and girly. So I will post these other illustrations later also because editors still have to make their decisions.

P.S.2 I am reading at the moment a brilliant comic novel 'Gemma Bovery' by Posy Simmonds. The main caracter is a girl illustrator.

Rest of my beauty illustrations

Here are some of the illustrations which were not used in the publication.

Beauty in the internet - a close up

Please do click on the image to see it bigger!

Beauty in the internet

I am myself an avid reader of beauty products reviews in the internet so it was a real fun to be commissioned to illustrate an article about this subject. My copy of the magazine has just arrived in the post, managed to squeeze past the postal strike.

Dea with poppies

My friend Dea, a supertalented violinist from Berlin, who very patiently posed for my portrait project and now has been turned into one more attempt of mine of combining my photograph and drawing. My previous attempt is here.

Next week I am again completely piled with work. Yay!

Kak mag

Every husband should bring his wife a nice gift on the way back from a business trip. In case of a graphic designer/ illustrator/ photographer wife the best solution is to bring a coveted Russian design magazine that is impossible to buy in UK!

I came across KAK magazine years ago when a friend (who is one of the people in charge of a Polish magazine of similar profile 2+3d) asked for its latest issue to be lugged from Moscow. Kak is not exactly the easiest publication to get hold of, it is usually available from museum's bookshops and these were not omnipresent in Moscow ten years ago! His issue is probably a collector one by now!

I am going to flick through the images in the magazine as my Russian is very basic, I can barely decipher the letters and even that takes awfully long time (Simon might just oh so kindly translate some titles for me as his Russian is fluent after years of living in Russia). I am also going to stroke the clouds on one of the covers as they are made of a nice, suedy material, extremely pleasant to the touch! No wonder that some issues of this magazine can cost up to £20!

Oh, I did get some gorgeous perfumes from the duty free too!

Beauty on line

Another illustration comissioned by Twoj Styl magazine came out this week in their November issue. Cannot wait to see it in print!

Posessions

Last one from the series - it depicts a story about marrying a wealthy, older man. Something that I sort of did, especially if you skip on the 'wealthy' bit!

Love and business

Yes, I do work in the same business as my husband. It is great to cooperate with someone who does not need... words to communicate! I have learnt a lot throughout all those years of working together.

Real wifey

Actually I hate when my husband calls me that but I love cooking for him. He is away on his photographic assignment in Russia for next couple of weeks so I will have to do the dishes myself. Again - I simply had to put a dog in the drawing somewhere!

(Future) Bride in waiting

A little inquisitive dog and bride's shoes make this illustration my favourite of the series.

Warsaw lovebirds

As promised - here are some of the illustrations - please click on the image to see it bigger!

More of my illustrations in Twoj Styl

I will show you some of the original illustrations this week.

Of course another edition of the magazine is going to be out... next week! I am looking forward to it so much! These guys really know how to use illustrations to its best in a layout and are a real bliss to cooperate with. I wish all the illustrators could have customers like this.

It has arrived! It has arrived!

Omgomgomg!!! A copy of Twoj Styl magazine reached Edinburgh on Friday, so I have spent the whole of the weekend fondling it.

Layout looks much more impressive than in a pdf that I received from their design team - they decided to make the big illustration even BIGGER!

Sleeping

My copy of the magazine still has not reached me yet, but while I am waiting patiently, I will show you my latest drawing from my sketchbook. Goggie doing exactly what I would love to do - preferably throughout all Autumn and Winter!

I am all over Poland!

The latest edition of one of the biggest Polish glossies is out! And it contains my illustrations inside! Go and have a look, especially that the hard copy contains 5 drawings which illustrate an article about a procedure that Polish girls apply when they are choosing their husbands. A most interesting thing to read, I must say.

Another nice thing is, that the actress on the cover, Ms Joanna Brodzik is sporting exactly the same kind of hairstyle that I had when I went to receive the City of Krakow Award in 2002. Maybe I should go and get the same haircut again - it seems to be a lucky one not just for me!

I will post some more illustrations from this feature soon + some photos of the issue in print - my copy is crawling to me somewhere out in Europe and is about to reach me in Scotland hopefully very soon!

http://www.styl24.pl/twojstyl.php

Even more smoke

Some more of smoke and ashes

Smoke and ashes

Enough fiddling, let's go back to real work now.

Last couple of weeks were really busy - I was designing a new bookcover and recreating illustrations about perils of social smoking for a big women's magazine. You could have a look at some first samples here. Unfortunately images were bought but are not going to be published - I got another commission instead which comes out in November issue. Nevertheless I really like these images as they are a bit different than what I usually do and I am looking forward to creating some more ones in these muted colors and with irregular watercolour stains as backgrounds.

Praising my husband

It is great to share my life with someone who is also specialising in a visual aspect of life as seriously as I am. My husband is one of the best photographers I know, extremely talented, hard working, inventive and humble about it at the same time. So I should praise him a bit here as his photoessay about Ukrainian National Ballet has just come out in the Autumn issue of Intelligent Life magazine. He will be travelling in Russia again later in the year and even though I know that his absence produces all these spectacularly beautiful images I will be awfully missing him.

Simon's portfolio can be viewed at http://www.simoncroftsphoto.com/ and here ^ he is patiently modelling for one of my commissions.

My Foreign Life - almost over

I am taking the exhibition down on Tuesday morning (well, my kind of morning, so let's say I will be working away in Tea Tree from 11 am) so if you feel like popping in and having a cup of coffee/tea while having a last look at the works on the walls - come and meet me there for a chat!

I was extremely busy recently so I will have lots to talk about!

Elephant is downstairs!

The super talented elephant from this post, is on the wall, downstairs at Tea Tree Tea - and you can finally see the whole of the drawing!

Owl

This is one of completely new illustrations created especially for My Foreign Life exhibition - I have never seen a live white owl (they must have a more precise name as a species - no, not Hedwig - so please feel free to correct me!) until I moved to Scotland. Or a pinguin from a really close, for that matter! These white owls are absolutely beautiful, though I am not a big fan of predatory birds.

Exhibition

I took some photos of the exhibition after Drew and Jamie closed down Tea Tree Tea after another busy day!

Throughout the Festival the cafe will be open until 9 pm! Coffee until late in the evening -Yay!