iran part ii

The remaining sketches from our Iranian adventure...
Below is the coolest looking local bus I've ever travelled on (it looked particularly fun from the outside but it was too hot to make a sketch). It was a six hour journey through the desert with no air-con. It was hot! (wearing the hijab didn't help much either).

 However, it was all worth it as we arrived to the lovely Ateshooni guesthouse in an oasis village Garmeh. For some reasons I find the idea of an oasis in the middle of the desert very exciting. I think it has something to do with the adventure stories I read as a child.
Maziar, who owns the guesthouse is also a musician so we spend the evenings listening to his music.

 As the temperatures were really high we would spend most of the day in the guesthouse chilling, drinking tea, eating dates, reading books and chatting with other travellers. Above is Bernardo who is on a trip around a world.

trip to Poland in July 2012

Ok...it took me a while but here they are - the sketches from our trip to Poland in July 2012.

We arrived to Łódź and here is a sketch of myself (wearing far too many layers for the Polish summer)
and a brave woman who stopped the whole bus and helped to catch a thief.

In Kazimierz Dolny. Konrad is doing his presentation about synagogues and then chilling out
in the garden (slightly overwhelmed by the warm weather - over 35C and
the abundance of plants, insects and other creatures).
 
Chilling out in a coffee shop.
 
Some quick sketches of the architecture in Kazimierz and extreme sketching on an overcrowded
 minibus from Lublin to Kazimierz.

Iced coffee!

More landscapes and more architecture. I guess this is what Kazimierz is about.

Ola chilling out in the garden. Lots of chilling out and relaxing but it was the only wise thing
to do in these temperatures.
 
...

On the way back to Warszawa. Warszawa is cool!

Mada and John's flat and and a map documenting our alternative tour of the city.
(I always find Mada and John's flats very inspiring)

Some random sketches.

More random sketches.

This is when I thought I needed a proper break and decided not to do any sketching for the rest of the trip:)

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...

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!

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.