if: boundaries

I love drawing silly dogs. This one is inspired by my favourite character from film "Everything is illuminated".

sketches from berlin

I am not sure if I mentioned it here before but I fell in love with Berlin. The same way I fell in love with Rotterdam and other cities which are not beautiful in a way some of European cities are but they definately have huge amounts of energy hidden under not-particularly-renaissance surfaces.

For some reasons I didn't feel like sketching when walking/running/jumping/flying through the city (definately not Edinburgh scale). This is why all the sketches are made at our friends's place during our nice and calm evenings that were at some points even more inspiring Berlin itself!

(Sketches nos 4 and 5are made in cooperation with Franek.)

IF: mysterious

So we went to see the famous fireworks at the end of Edinburgh Festival; for the first time since we came to live in this beautifully cold and windy city (it was the first time when it was not that cold and windy and we managed to see the whole thing). Anyhow, I don't really understand the idea of standing in the crowd in the park and watching some small lights flashing far away. What's the point?
Konrad said something like: "Don't you feel like all of that is like from the Moominland?", which I had to agree with and make this Moomins inspired picture.

Done!

It looks like I don't need to draw horses anymore! All the illustrations are finished and submitted to the publisher and the book will be published in July 2012. I hope you'll like it. It has been a busy summer but fortunately in Edinburgh we don't get anyhing like summer at all so there is nothing to complain about.  It was a fantastic experience to illustrate something which is completely different to what I usually work on. I learned a few things:
1. I can draw horses ( a big surprise).
2. I can draw human characters (even a bigger surprise).
3. Digital colouring is actually fun.
4. I love my tablet.
And now I feel like moving on to other projects featuring smaller animals - mice, shrews, bats, squirrels, weasels. Hooray for rodentia! The only problem is that I don't feel like drawing at all and I might need to take a week or two off with my sketchbook and pencils hidden at the bottom of a deepest drawer.

portuguese

And some photos from our trip to Portugal. Graffiti, cats and dogs mostly.

lazy lazy lazy

A few sketches from our trip to Portugal.

 

IF: Asleep

Ok...it was supposed to be a dormouse but I think it resembles more something between a bear and a fox. It is rather frustrating that everything I draw looks like a bear or a fox. I will have to have another go on a dormouse soon. Anyhow, this one is quite content - a pre-lunch nap on a tea towel somewhere warm and comfortable.
I am experimenting with my new set of drawing inks which is quite challenging. I love the colours though. This one is the Sunshine Yellow - very much needed now in cloudy, windy and rainy Edinburgh.

horses dogs and penguins

I've got internet now and the carboard boxes are gradually dissapearing from our living room. Our new flat finally looks like a place to live and not a messy storage.
Back from short holiday which was not a proper holiday as I have been busy drawing horses for Penguin (the photo above shows how busy it was). I was drawing on the plane, in the garden, in coffee shops, in the park and on a beautiful meadow by the forest (there was a stork on the meadow too so I had a good company). There was this little boy sitting next to me on the plane and as soon as he's seen me sketching he started crying that he wanted to draw too. I think next time I should take an extra set of colour pencils. Anyhow...I've got a brilliant job - even 5 year old kids are jealous!
I made some dog sketches too - kind of reward after each horse drawing fiinished. Dogs are fun to draw!

new place

Last weekend was far too busy and too exciting and I think we will need a good few days to recover. Moving flat, a wedding, a very successful craft fair and an overdose of good news is kind of too much for one weekend. My studio is a mess and I there is no internet at our new place yet. Hope it is going to change soon. In the meantime I am using my mobile coffee shop studio.

moving home

I wish life looked like on the picture above. Instead I am surrounded by cardboard boxes, black bin bags and bubblewrap trying to find my way through. Moving in not fun!
The good news is that there is a cat flap in our new place! Which I suppose means that we'll be having all the cats from neighbourhood coming over for afternoon tea.