Irina Troitskaya

Make me think beautiful unexpected thoughts

It seems the season of presents isn't over yet. To be sincere I prefer to never end it and keep giving presents through the whole year, especially when nobody's waiting for them. The one above is from Malota. She sent me a beautiful set of her sketchbook drawings and a bunch of pocket calendars. I can recognize myself in that girl with blue hood - it's quite cold here right now. And the book above is from Smil.The drawings of Tove Jansson are just lovely and, oh, those cut-outs make me feel like I'm five.

Books from blocks by Natali Fortier
Vintage Fairy Tales

It's a surefire way to speed things up

Yesterday was the last day of our winter intensive illustration courses. We were running it together with Victor Melamed and Ivan Velichko.

Lectures and master-classes from Igor Gurovich, Protey Temen, Lena Plahtienko, Egor Larichev and Alena Smirnitskaya were combined with a lot of practice work and witty tasks. So much fun! For more images go here.

Told a story about a man who is too afraid to fly so he never did land

I've got this from Lena Nechepurenko. Just look at this dappled guy! He has an additional hand to cover his mouth which makes him weird and I love it. She's going to sell these brooches, so there's a chance to get one. Or two!

Some other presents of the new year:

PT Sans by Alexandra Korolkova

Diary 2010 featuring Pietari Posti, Masha Krasnova-Shabaeva, Bubi Au Yeung and Irena Zablotska

Collection a Day by Lisa Congdon

Left beneath Christmas trees in the snow

Wrapped all the presents and scanned all the films. It's time to make toys! Or paint matreshka dolls! By the way Russian Orthodox Christmas is on 7th of January. So I have some time!

Christmas tracing paper toys by Zu4ki
Interview with three designers from Moscow - Vera Evstafieva, Alexandra Korolkova and Elena Novoselova

Tell them a hookah smoking caterpillar has given you the call

I made a two-faced caterpillar the other day. Now it's on Craftzine.com.

Murzilka Magazine, #12, 1980

I've been through the desert on a horse with no name

Red horse prints came out lovely. I wonder how many times did I draw it already? Dozens at least.

Wetki
Alberto Vazquez

Wake me up and wipe the cliche from my eyes

Today I made some prints out of that sketch. To be precise I was printing at least half of the day. It's so good to make them tangible.

Allison Schulnik
Pencil Talk

And brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff

Lonely Elk made me a gift. It's a sealer! Will be very useful during upcoming season of presents and wrapping.

Clair Loder's ceramic faces

But the party is going to be over by the time I get over there

The exhibition was ok, though I didn't have much time to be there. Ten minutes of after-party all I could manage. It's nice to see your works printed.

Edition8x8
Andre da Loba
Anatomy of Japanese folk monsters

Like a wooden shoe in the windmill gear

Tomorrow there will be a group exhibition of patterns. I'm taking part. Finished one new a couple of days ago. Shoe addictive. It's getting cold and there's still nothing better than valenki I guess.

So if you're in Moscow, please, come by.