Gone for two weeks to visit my homeland. My colleague Victoria Semykina made a collection of inspired-by-Russia foreign illustrators. Take a look and you'll get a feeling of where I'm going to.
© Anya Shiller
It's good people are still capable of doing something despite this heat. Last week in St. Petersburg there was an opening of Ding! Dong! Exhibition curated by Olesya Shukina and Artyom Ignatyev. Had no chance to be there in person, but luckily Natasha Floxy and Anya Shiller made a lot of nice shots of event: here, here and here.
When everyday things start to look a bit shallow and small, I tend to start loosing my inspiration. It's hard to see all the opportunities when you bound with the size of your place of work, which in my case is really a tiny one. I felt I need to see something bigger than my working table or sketchbook double page, something huge and monumental. Guess, yesterday's trip was exactly what I was dreaming of. I'm talking about The Archstoyanie in Nikola-lenivets village. It's a Landscape Projects Festival on the bank of the river Ugra. Impressive!
Feel free to check out the rest of the objects. Night-time Firebird and Gradierhaus made by Nikolay Polissky are my personal favs.
Last week we were busy with our Summer Intensive Illustration course curated by Victor Melamed. It's been our third time already. Have to say those days I had a feeling everything in its right place and the tempo of my life was exactly the one I like. Sometimes it's a lazy river sort of pace, which isn't that bad by itself, but it's so much better to plan and have to do more, then it was expected from the beginning. Was happy to work together with Anna Zhurko, Ivan Velichko, Protey Temen, Igor Gurovich and all the rest of our lovely company. And our students!
Ok, there's no intrigue left regarding my contribution to Ding Dong! Exhibition in St.Petersburg next week. They made it public! But there's a place for surprises! The bicycle ring (or do I need to call it bell?) itself is only one part of the contribution, A3 picture supports it. So, that owl story has a bit of development further down. Can't say more. If you're in St.Petersburg, just, hm, give me a call..? No, wait, ring the bell I painted. Twice. Tell them I let you do so!
One day you're in Moscow...
...and the other in London. Crazy world!
The funniest thing is I feel like I'm a resident in Moscow and at home in UK. Like I spent my childhood there, which is partially true - we studied English with topics about Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and Nelson's column. At these times it seemed nearly impossible to get there, like you're reading a book about wonderland - Soviet Union's borders were closed and there was no chance to see it... like ever! That's why each time I'm in London I feel like Alice in Wonderland.
Ok, may be it's because I wanted to have an imaginary friend after I watched "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" animation series (strongly recommended). On the other hand I like to revise Russian clichés from time to time. Haven't decided yet, but I think I'm going to make a traditional Russian puppet Petrushka or at least call this character with the same name.
Updated my site with some new stuff I made for Lonelyelk blog. Pictures look better on their place than inside of my portfolio by the way.
One little blog about handmade art toys called Reduced Figuration mentioned the toy hollow bear we made long ago. Named it Lord of Bears! A-ha-ha!
Alex Noriega's new blog Stuff No One Told Me
Was playing with my sketchbooks. The most challenging thing about making collages is to find a place for all that paper that left and should be utilized next time.
Be sure to check out Christoph Niemann's interview featured at Episode 38 of the Escape from Illustration Island Podcast. He's talking about editorial and children's book illustration. Worth listening!
Today I was cleaning the shelves and decided to make a small giveaway. As I'm pretty lazy and already had a successful experience of giving away pictures in my house I put them in the corridor and made an announcement on the first floor. 9th Floor Giveaway is happy to offer you a pic or two totally for free!
