Illustration Friday - Jump

 

Jumping for joy.

I decided to just keep it light and quick today :)

Illustration Friday - Heights

There is nothing like free-falling to experience the true majesty and exhilaration of heights.

I love that I got to relieve a great moment in my life while working on this week's Illustration Friday topic - heights. Unfortunately this was not my most successful effort. I couldn't quite get the feel of height here. In retrospect, maybe I should have made the ground look like a patchwork of squares (thanks to one of my facebook fans for the suggestion!), or place the line of the horizon lower on the page. I also think that I lost something in the final version compared to the original sketch:

The bunny especially has a more carefree, open expression here. I lost it when I tried making the snout (Do bunnies even have snouts? What do they have?) more defined. Oh well. That's how we learn.

Illustration Friday - Puzzled

The bunny was puzzled by acupuncture but trusted her friend the hedgehog and was willing to give it a shot.

Happy Birthday from Winnie the Pooh

Made this for a friend's birthday today. This is a loose interpretation of what Russian Winnie the Pooh and Piglet look like.

Illustration Friday - Vocal

This hippo is very vocal about enjoying his bath.

I usually try to come up with a piece specifically for the IF topic but this week is proving to be too hectic. This is a quick sketch I just did inspired by a children's poem (in Russian) http://elenat.livejournal.com/153955.html. It wasn't intended for IF per se, but seems to fit, I think.

Ballet partners going digital

I've never really tried to do digital art before but finally broke down and bought a Wacom Bamboo pen for my iPad. It arrived today so I tried it out on my Ballet Partners sketch. I found the glide hard to control at first but got used to it fairly quickly and I haven't played around with all the features of the ArtStudio app yet. I only used 3 layers here: the original sketch, color, and black outline. Next time I will try out masking. I still feel like these dancers are crying out for some watercolor though :) What do you think?

Illustration Friday - Return (2)

We will build a plane and soar
Over woodland, sea and shore,
Over woodland, sea and shore,
And return to Mom once more.


Agnia Barto, translated from Russian by I. Zheleznova

I love that this week's IF topic is so open ended. Agnia Barto is one of my absolute favorite Russian children's poets so it was a great opportunity to illustrate one of her nursery rhymes. I have to admit that growing up with her books, the illustrations  become as ingrained in you as the poems themselves so the composition of this piece was heavily influenced by the Russian illustrator Svetlana Borisova.

Illustration Friday - Return

Special Delivery - Returns are NOT accepted.

I am dedicating this to 3 very special moms:

I - who gave birth to her second little boy 11 weeks ago and inspired the original sketch for this.
K - whose little boy is due to arrive in a little over a month
and last but certainly not least
A - whose little boy is celebrating his first birthday today! Happy Birthday M!