Irina Troitskaya

Lost your portrait lately when the winter blew

I'm working with Level 2 student this year and it's exiting, but sometimes exhausting work. These moments I just need to take a break for a couple of minutes. I hide in the stuff room and... guess what? I draw there. The self-portrait above is the result of my Friday escape.

Also did you know you can bring your Faber-Castells back to life with tap water? I'm talking about PITT artist pens in particular.

Sarah Applebaum is exactly what I need during these gloomy rainy autumn days.

If you're a student, take part. This makes me regret my Master of Arts is over.

Your so called vendetta was light like birds feathers

Full of random good news. I mean it!

My iPhone wallpapers on Poolga.com. Actually, all the wallpapers I have now are from that site.

Took part in a competition, but yesterday found out Rodion Kitaev made it too. Now he's gonna win!

Ivan Velicko's collection of polish posters could help me to accept the situation.
Breath slowly! You're on Poolga now. Agrrrrh!

There's a bear inside your stomach

If you're laughing and look a bit surprised after you've finished your picture - be sure it's one of your bests.

But it'll take a lifetime to learn to draw like a child. Just look how they interpret works of mature illustrators!

My friend has problems with winter and autumn

It's ok to visit exhibitions again, means it's autumn. Today we've seen some of Vladimir Favorsky's illustrations for children's books. His engravings had a great influence on the development of modern Russian graphics.

Dreaming about Victor Pivovarov exhibition. He's stunningly perfect.

Also now I'm in the Luerzer's Archive "200 Best Illustrators worldwide 2009/10".

Take what you have gathered from coincidence

It was nice to find some of my drawings published during trip to St. Petersburg.

We had a lunch in Zoom cafe and accidentally saw Jaakko Pallasvuo exhibition. One of his drawings is right behind me. It was dark, I know.

Amazing book about easter eggs by Sonya Solonchenko

Monkey see monkey do I don't know why

Meet the new monkey set.

Look at the Ben Newman's Russian doll for Pocko

Fairytales of yesterday will grow but never die

The opening of my Matreshka's ehxibition was lovely - calm and easy. I met several good people I knew for a long time through the internet but never met them in real. One of them was Lyalya Vaganova, an illustrator. And the other one was Serge Kuzhavski from OPEN!Design&Concepts. That's what the exhibitions are for! Meet people! Thank you everybody who dropped in.

And oh I know they like the fragility of handmade

Preparing my personal exhibition of Matreshka dolls. It was too late when I've realized I have no business cards. So I made them myself. Each one is slightly unique now.

If you're in Moscow, I'll be pleased to see you tomorrow, Saturday 12th at 18:00. The place called Mesto and it's a ten-minute walk from Kitay-Gorod subway station.

Before they turn the summer into dust

The summer is nearly over and the one above was my last comics page for Kids magazine. Will miss it! Anyway nature abhors a vacuum. So let's hope a new project will be even more interesting.

My friends from Lviv Irena and Eugene launched their new site Keepa.

Everybody wants to look like a dude from a glossy magazine

Living my double life. Sketching patterns based on Russian embroidery and spending lo-fi dacha vacations I'm drawing illustrations for a glossy magazine.

Elliott Burford's Spam project