war and peace

ahoy there

lots of stuff is going on right now

not sure how to put it all in words. not sure if i should at all bother…

well lets start and then see how it goes

the war, people. the war is real.  the air raid sirens are real. the mortar rockets are real.

my ever strengthening faith is real too. the faith in evil.

the ninth month of my pregnancy is real.  the kicks and pushes to my insides are real.

isn’t that weird…

 

part of my man’s colleagues are recruited so he works double shifts now.  which is hard.

even though, we slowly prep and organise our flat, and do a ton of crafting, fixing, organising progects. which is awesome.

as for the couple-quality-time – it’s long gone.  that’s why i so smartly use the air-raid-sirens-hiding-in-the-bathroom-time as an extra hugging-time.

(officially we should be going to the staircase or a basement every time but we don’t)

 

other things i’m up to:

cooking efforts still going strong. kinda.

redoing and upcycling some of our furniture, all found on the streets or been given by friends and coworkers still going strong.

drawing…. going pretty weak…   🙂

here’s another sketch for my dad’s poem about an old sailor, where he tells picturesque stories about his adventures to kids

 

 

 

 

p.s.   people had been really amasing and just won’t stop giving me all sorts of baby stuff. loads of it. i love it.  i love that it’s all second hand. love that it’s eco-friendly cause i don’t buy anything. love that it’s free. love that people i barely know care enough to do that. and i have so much of everything now i might start regretting i don’t have twins or something.  i was thinking when the time comes and i don’t need these things anymore i’d pass it to new emigrant single mothers or something.  russians are always so confused and smitten when someone is nice to them just because.  sad really.

p.p.s. latest film recommendation – ‘boyhood’.  haven’t seen it myself yet but looks like something extraordinary!

 

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festive flapjacks, beer bread and a sea dog (or a sea wolf) and a theatre backstage. a mishmash really.

my dad’s poem about a sea dog (wolf)

 

so my dad’s a poet. a children’s poet. writing in russian and living there.
he asked me to try to illustrate a couple of his older poems, both sea themed.

although my drawing skills r a bit rusty by now i started straight away. well, not straight away cause i did this before.

note: in russian a sea dog (an old experienced sailor) is called a sea wolf, so this whole poem is based on a play between the words wolf (animal) vs. a sea wolf (person)

and the poem goes like this:

i’ve heard lots of stories

but this one is weirder than most

a peculiar wolf lives in a seacoast village

never saw a rabbit

but often times whales and sharks

he swims crawl and breaststroke

otherwise he’d drown

and it’s not spooky to meet him on the street at night

since its known

that the wolf is completely tamed

he hangs out with a couple of monkeys

and his cap is askew

a bunch of boys running after him all day

is his tail

(be warned: translation mine, rough, lousy and not precise, but the main metaphors are all there)

that’s the half of the poem that u see on the sketches and there’s another half i don’t have sketches for yet

the cookies are my take on nigel slater‘s  festive chocolate flapjacks

i think i like the guy and his easy recipies being a girl who grew up in a family where the mother didn’t cook (AT ALL) and the father cooked just really basic stuff (since he had to). i like how he talks about cooking as an expression of sympathy and appreciation. of love really. i think it puts me in a right mindset and keeps me motivated. most of the time.

and this is what i baked last weekend, a beer bread: bottle of beer flour salt some sugar, that’s it. so easy to make i almost didn’t believe the outcome would be good. but it was.

beer bread. if i can do it and it’s edible – anyone can!

 

 

and lastly a photo of me at work for your viewing pleasure.

love location photos. or should i call it environment or setting photos, i don’t know.

yours truly backstage

 

i work in props and costumes department of a local national theatre, remember?

 

until next time,

be well and exercise,

me

 

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truck drivers and a secret skill

so i’ve been feeling a little under motivated and all in all in different levels of blah lately, what with all the latest events in kiev, ukraine where my partner’s relatives live

but! i made this little collage as a gift to my partner’s semi-trailer-driver friend who is also a passionate jeep trips enthusiast.

most of my partner’s buddies are semi trailer drivers.  so if for some reason u r guessing what he does for a living – u guessed it right.

u can’t imagine how much russian cursing i hear when he takes a work related call from his colleagues. but that’s ok. as long as u don’t tell my dad  (a children poet) nothing about it.  🙂

it’s a view from a wind shield of a car. used old map, postcards, some fabric scraps. and it looks prettier in real life.

and then i made this little flower brooch for a colleague at work, an older eccentric Romanian lady notorious for telling dirty jokes. not that i’m a fan. hearing a dirty joke from an elderly woman brings a whole new level of weirdness to it, i think.

so she always wears this beanie (indoors) and i thought it was missing a little embellishment.

she seemed pretty happy with the brooch, kissed me on both cheeks and put it on her beanie right away where it proudly stayed all day. 🙂

and lastly as it happens i might be the only one who knows how to tie a tie at my department (props and costumes) at work (local theatre)

as u all know (lol) the dress code concept is almost nonexistent in my part of the globe. white collar job people rarely actually wear white collars. or ties. or long pants for that matter. so when i was asked if i knew how to tie a tie i astonished myself and the company present and…tied a tie! last time i did it was maybe 20 years ago in my early teens.

i guess, u just never know when and which seemingly useless knowledge could be helpful in life. or something.

i leave u with this ‘naglaya morda’ (‘brazen face’) as we call him who deliberately chooses wrong times and places to take his nap

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windows and balconies

“the possibility”

here’s a new sketch…

… and here’s a final drawing:

“the possibility”

 

and here’s a young lady spending some time by the window so as not to miss her daddy coming home from work:

“is it him?! is it him?!”

 

until next time

and take care

 

 

p.s. i thought i’d add something about the drawing.

i have like half a dozen dream scenarios i keep dreaming from time to time most of my life. most of them nightmares (but not all). like the one where i go visit the town i grew up in and miss the flight back home.  this one is the worst…
the drawing above is a contemplation on one of those dreams. and although it might not seem like it, this dream is one of the good ones…

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in the woods

here’s a new sketch  for the book i’m trying to illustrate

can you guess what’s he smoking? yep, you guessed right.  go read the flavia de luce series and see for yourself.
here’s a little research on the characters faces-

 

 

p.s. been watching some episodes of the duck dynasty and thought there’s something familiar about the robertson family but couldn’t quite put the finger on it. but then i saw it: my ukranian cousins-in-law share some of the same redneckness. minus the humor- MAJOR drawback. minus the beards- well, i don’t know, i like beards but beards THAT long? a bit much even for me. 🙂

boy do they love their meat….
oh, and minus the guns, thank God.

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first scene illustration progress

this is how it looks for now.  first scene.

nineteen more to go. jesus.

well, ok, maybe fifteen. we’ll see.

and then i’ll start painting/coloring them.

i intend to do at least two attempts

of each scene.

p. s.  thanks for all the kind likes, people of the world,

and have a great and productive day if it’s day where you are,

and happy night dreams (preferably flying over amazing landscapes- my favourite) if it’s night

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another illustration workshop

i took yet another illustration workshop with this painter.  we’ve learned some of his preferable illustration technics. i played a little with watercolors for the first time in may be 15-16 years…    in this little study i’ve combined watercolors with printed cutouts (the petals).  u basically smudge some gouache on to a plastic/nylon sheet and then press a piece of chromo paper (very smooth paper that doesn’t absorb paint) on to it, when u separate the sheets u get interesting patterns on the paper. u let it dry and then cut out the shape u need for your illustration (a leaf, a flower, an animal, ect.) and glue it on your painting  (i think i’ve explained it horribly but you can see it all on this painting if you watch closely)

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finally a finished sketch

well,… i think this was the most tedious sketch i’ve ever done. it involved loads of heavy googling for retro lab equipment and victorian interiors and such like (english garden, 1950s girls dress, victorian rug, microscope…..), cause you know i’ve never had any reason to know how these things really look like before.
hours of staring on late 19th early 20th century photos made me realize maybe it’s time to consider getting glasses more seriously. well, what can i say, the toughest part is definitely not yet behind me.

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new character and new sketch

i started to work a little on this children book illustration i mentioned before.

i’m starting off with a sort of trial painting to help me make some decisions about the style, color scheme and so on.

this is a rough sketch of it and some musings about the main character.

i’m pretty happy about the both of them

in the meantime i’m very tempted (and often give in) to work on some sewing projects instead of drawing

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“smoke break”

this is a better photo of the last drawing. it’s flipped ’cause that’s how it looks in reality and i forgot to flip it in photoshop. next thing i’m going to do: a simple illustration on one of my fathers poems  and then try to illustrate a children’s book.

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