snow

I know we are a minority but both Benjamin and I hate the snow.

Also, click here if you want to read an interview with me and see a picture which was giving me nightmares when I was a child. Lovely Jess from Alice in Baker Street invited me over for a chat about sketching, illustrating and inspiration. Thank you Jess!

Mongolian sketchbook

It took me ages to scan and post these sketches but here they are. Sketchbook from our trip to Mongolia earlier this year. I decided to go for a horizontal journal this time, which was fun to sketch in but it is not so good for blogging so you might want to see the whole album on my flickr.

Our trip started in Istanbul - my favourite city ever. Istanbul belongs to cats!

Then, after an 8 hours flight we landed in Ulanbaatar, capital of Mongolia. Ulanbaatar turned out to be less exotic than I expected (with all the rather familiar Soviet architecture and urban design). However there was a beautiful buddist monastery, totally unfamiliar. Inside:

And outside:

After a few day in the capital we went to the horseriding camp.

We spend a week in this beautiful place (no electricity, no running water, no internet) Amazing landscape and 30+ horses to ride.



Half way though our stay at the horseriding camp we were taken for a trip to the Terelj national park. Here are some sketches made on our absolutely packed minivan. The roads in Mongolia are not roads really (at least not in this part of the country) so the sketches are rather shaky.

Some very sad animals we met on the way and the ger we stayed in for the night. There was a mouse staying with us two.

And horses!

Lots of horses!

Even more.

After a week spent in the camp we came back to UB (took the longest shower ever) and set out for Kharakhorum. Some sketches from the long bus trip there:

And our very cosy ger in Kharakhorum.

There is an amazing monastery and Kharakhorum and ruins of an ancient city. I loved the wall paintings:

Erdene Zuu monastery and a spontaneous lesson of Hebrew alphabet.


Here is us chilling out in a lovely hostel in Tsetserleg. They had flat white coffee, English breakfast and stuff - at this point of our trip I would pay any price for something which is not a mutton stew with noodles.

At the centre of divine enlightment in Tsetserleg. There was a huge statue of Budda and people were going round and throwing all sorts of food as a religious offering. And the pigeons were going in circles too...

Oh, I forgot to mention that I received some very good news when I got an internet access in one of the hostels we stayed in - I had been selected to take part in the Picture Hooks mentoring programme. It made me very happy!

We stayed for a few days with a nomad (his name was Bogi)  in his ger, sourrounded by huge and spectacular landscape and herds of yaks and horses. Nothing more really. With the only facility being a nearby stream (not very clean as it was also used by the yaks). I think these few days there were the most extreme of our Mongolian experiences.

Bogi making fire in the morning.

Yaks are cute and silly.

The horses we were riding:

And one of the most surreal moments during our trip. We are having breakfast (a snickers + some coke) outside our ger while our host is killing a bull.

3 weeks in Mongolia were quite exhausting.  This is all I was dreaming about while on the flight back to Europe:

I am afraid it is never going to happen though...

if: explore

A little sneak peak of an illustration I am working on at the moment. Work in progress really but it goes well with this week's Illustration Friday topic.

we don't know!

We organised a little private view of my exhibition at Golden Hare bookshop. It was a lovely evening and it was great to see everybody. Thank you all for coming!

And the cool illustration above... this is what happens when you invite a talented comic book artist to your exhibition! My mice are very happy that they feature in this tiny comic and it is also first time they actually have voice. To be honest I didn't know they could talk!

The artwork is by Ticking Boy. Here is his original blog post and his website. Check out his stuff - it is really cool. He is also doing 30 days of comics this month and he creates and posts a comic everyday.

Exhibition!

Come and see my exhibition! It's in Golden Hare, a lovely bookshop on Grassmarket in Edinburgh.
I've got some new pieces there, limited edition digital prints and greeting cards. Perfect for early Christmas shopping! It's up till the end of November.

Here is some more details:  http://goldenharebooks.com/

Journeys
1st - 30th November 2012
Golden Hare
102 West Bow
Edinburgh

Updated website

Have a look at my new website!

work in progress

I am having a little break from drawing cute animals. Here is a sketch I've just been working on. It is not finished yet and it needs a bit more playing around with colours etc but I thought I would post it anyhow.
It is actually a nice change to draw something that doesn't have any facial expression or very strong emotions to express. And no whiskers!

good to be back

I am back home after theree amazing weeks spent travelling in Mongolia. I wish I could write something more and post some sketches from there but I am still in the process of readjusting to normal life and it is taking a bit longer than it should. For the moment I feel like the inside of my head is a bit like on the photo above. I am happy and full of new ideas but somehow I am just too tired  to do anything. I will give myself another week and see what happens.

I posted some photos from Mongolia to my tumblr and will be posting some more soon.

Otherwise new exciting things are happening. I am back to Edinburgh College of Art as an Artist in Residence which is great fun already.  I am particularly excited about my new studio space which I share with very talented and very inspiring people!
There is also some good news regarding the guy from the previous post. I'll post more details soon!

busy

 

Last few weeks were rather busy for both me and Stockton the Cat. He is trying really hard to get his new sweater done before the winter comes but it is not as easy as it seems. And I was busy getting the illustrations ready and mostly torturing poor Stockton. But don't worry - he'll be fine. 

Otherwise, ten sleeps to Mongolia! Which reminds me that I've never posted the sketches from our trip to Poland (not to mention sketches from a lovely birthday trip to Aberdeenshire two weeks ago).

Black Beauty is published!

 

 

Black Beauty I illustrated fo Ladybird Books is published and I can finally post some pictures. Yay! I am very with pleased with the way it turned - they did a really great job and the book looks lovely. You can get it directly through Ladybird Books website or through here. It is part of a series Ladybird Classics and other books look amazing too.

I posted a few of my favourite illustrations from the book. Most of them are rather sad and dramatic but Black Beauty is not exactly a cheerful story (even when retold for smaller children).

Before I started working on this book I had no idea I could draw a horse and was always too scared to try. It turns out they are not as difficult as people think. Slightly more demanding than mice though;)

back from holiday and exciting news

I think it is going to take me a while before I post all the sketches and photos from our long and not very relaxing (at least not in a classic way) trip to Poland. Here is just one. Two German guys sitting on a bench and chatting - the one on the right looked like 36C was too much for him.

Back to Edinburgh now and a lot is happening. First great news is that Black Beauty I illustrated for Ladybird Books is published!!! There will be a full post about it soon with illustrations etc. They did a great job and the book looks really lovely. You can see it here. More pictures soon!

all is good

A little sneak peek from one of the projects I am working on at the moment.
The cat is happy. All is good.

Jessie the Crocodile visits Stockholm

No illustrations today. Very much delayed photos from our trip to Stockholm instead. I already blogged my sketches from the trip and some random thoughts. Jessie the Crocodile enjoyed the holiday too.