This is my last post on this blog to let you know that my blog has moved to my website www.oksancia.com.
From now on I will be posting my new artworks, projects, news, reviews and tutorials over there,
but this blog will remain as an archive for my posts created during the period of 2007 - 2009.




Thank you my current friends on livejournal for following me here!
I hope you'll use my new RSS Feed to subscribe to my new blog and stay in touch! :)

 

While preparing to winter celebrations I've decided to make a couple of illustrations about Tigers - the symbol of year 2010.
Two cute tigers - Mother Tiger and her sweet Baby Tiger decided to take a nap right here on my illustration...

RESTING TIGERS




While they are asleep I quietly put them on my one-page Calendar-r-r 2010 available at my Zazzle Shop ;) 


 

My first Twitter giveaway is over now and I'm happy to announce a winner! :)
It is Mario Ruiz (mario9999)! Congratulations!




Mario is designer and illustrator from Guatemala, currently living in the Netherlands.
He liked my ''Happy Cat" vector illustration so he will receive a small print of it with my signature.



Congratulations once again to the winner
and a big "thank you" to all the nice people following me and taking part in this giveaway!
Stay tuned for the next giveaways on my Twitter Page!

There is still some time till winter holidays, but I'm already getting ready ;)
I've made a couple of new Christmas vector illustrations
and created holiday cards and postage with them at my Winter Holidays Shop at Zazzle.

SANTA CHRISTMAS CARD
(istockphoto & flickr)




RUDOLPH REINDEER CHRISTMAS CARD
(istockphoto & flickr)



There are more holiday illustration to come! :)

I dedicated yesterday the whole day to sketching at Emmen Zoo.
What a great place! It is a big beautiful park, where animals have their territories and playgrounds. No cages... At some parts of this zoo you are walking among animals like at the Casa Americana and in the Birds and Butterflies Gardens. I love it!



I just took  two sketchbooks, a couple of pencils, some water and a bit of snacks and set off to Emmen.
The weather was gorgeous!!! :)

I did a couple of small drawings of elephants, but curious Dutch kids , who were looking over my shoulder, got them as presents :)
I also discovered that people stopping to watch me draw and commenting on my drawings don't bother me. It was kind of cool to chat with them from time to time :)

So here are a couple of drawings I made:

TURTLES
These were the best models ever ;)
A4 drawing, pencil on paper.



( More drawings... )

I recently decided to take more care of my Twitter. 
It is a great tool for connecting with like-minded people,
to find a lot of inspiration, useful information  and, of course, to promote your art.



I've been using Twitter for a while now, but only now do I start putting more effort in it :)
Apart from sharing information and my blog posts, I will also feature interesting people,
share some inspiring links and try to make new friends!

Yesterday I redesigned my Twitter page to make it more personal:



So come and follow me on Twitter! :)
[And please say "hello!" I would be happy to chat!]



OKSANCIA'S TWITTER GIVEAWAY!

I would also like to celebrate the "birth" of my Twitter with a little giveaway!
 On 1st of November I will randomly choose one of my Twitter followers,
who will receive one of my Illustrations of his/her choice as a small print! :)


How to participate:

1) Follow me on Twitter :)

2) Go to my Flickr portfolio and choose an Illustration you would like to get as a print.

3) Post a link to it on your Twitter page till 1 November 2009 using "@Oksancia" label, so that I can find you :)

Starts now! (14 October 2009)

Good luck and see you on Twitter!


* The little Blue Birdy is from my vector series of Twitter Birds.

Two little pieces I did recently with colored  pencils and ink: "Fruit Tea" and "Mushrooms" both featuring a little sweet Gnome. 
The drawings are on their way to participate in the Anonymous Drawings exhibition in Berlin.
I hope they get there safe :)

MUSHROOMS




FRUIT TEA



 

Practicing digital drawing in Photoshop.
For this one I made a quick pencil sketch and based on it my vector outline in Illustrator. 
After that I experimented with digital coloring in Photoshop.
I like the sketchy texture :)

FLYING BIRD
[postcards and merch on Zazzle]



Detail:

Great news!
My "Happy Cat" vector illustration has been selected as winning artwork at the Catcards (Котокарточки) contest! :)
There are also a list of other winning entries that together will form a set of postcards with the main topic "cats".
As a prize I am entitled to one of these beautiful sets... ;)

Yay! My "Happy Cat" is twice as happy today! :)


 

Playing with cute farm animals :)
Newest vector:

HAPPY FARM

Some time ago my friends asked me to make a vector portrait of Meike and Martijn,
a cute Dutch couple, who had been living and working in Ukraine for some time.
The portrait was printed on a gift puzzle and presented to them as a memory of their time in Ukraine :)
I incorporated Ukrainian landscape and traditional Ukrainian blouses "vyshyvanky" in the picture.


Meike and Martijn Portrait



And here is the puzzle...
[red text is not mine. I suppose it is a standard one at that print house]


 

Meet new and adventurous Street Keds Shoes designed by me :)
They are the newcomers in my keds shoes collection!
These in particular do not have an owner, so if anyone interested in buying them, please email me.
You can also order them in your size on my Zazzle Shop.

STREET KEDS SHOES
[Size men/women: 40 EUR, 6.5 UK, 9 US]
FOR SALE WITH ARTIST'S DISCOUNT!




I made this vector drawing for the design:




( More Keds pics... )

I am back from my short trip to Ukraine and have already visited my first art course class.
I've never taken any serious art courses before (except one at the age of 7), so I was really looking forward to see what is it all about. 
I chose to try an Art Center in Groningen BK050.

The course is about model and portrait drawing and painting and includes 16 lessons.
During the first class we were drawing a series of quick 7 minute charcoal portraits of the classmates.
It was a new experience for me already to draw with charcoal, let alone so quick, but I loved it! :)

Here are some of the portraits from my first try:

Antoinette
(charcoal sketch)



( Two more... )

  There is a nice vector challenge for the month of August over at Istockphoto with the theme Public Transportation.
I decided to take part in it this time and created a new vector illustration Road Meeting especially for this event.
Hope you like it!

ROAD MEETING
[print & vector]

Recently finished an interesting book by Michael Fleishman

Starting your career as a freelance
illustrator or graphic designer.




I found it to be a comprehensive source of information for anyone, who wants to enter the world of freelance graphic art. There are chapters covering the topics from making up your mind about freelancing to organizing your own studio.

Personally I liked the descriptions of different markets, where an illustrator and graphic designer may find projects and clients, for example the magazine market, book publishers, advertising agencies, etc. I also found a chapter with different forms and templates for managing your business very interesting.

This book is definitely a nice read.

Just finished a new vector illustration. I'm really into ginger cats, though I've never had one... I hope one day I will;)
They are so wonderfully bright and cute!
This time I wanted to portray a cat who looks so comfy having a nap on his pillow after a nice day of playing and a tasty dinner :)

HAPPY CAT


Here is also my pencil sketch for this illo:

I'm finally back from my vacation. It was a very busy month of traveling and spending time with my family and relatives. In the beginning of July my husband, my parents, my brother and I went for a big car trip and visited a lot of great places: Brussels, Paris, Luxembourg, Munich, Salzburg, Vienna and Budapest. And all that in 1 week! Though we've seen a lot of great cities, the whole trip was exhausting... I prefer a bit more relaxed way of traveling.  Still we managed to make a lot of nice photos that sill wait to be developed ;)

After the trip we stayed 2 weeks of summer with our parents in Ukraine.
I had huge plans for drawing and sketching, but managed to make only a couple of drawings. One of them is this colored pencils drawing of white orchids form my mother's house.

WHITE ORCHIDS
Colored pencils on drawing paper.

 

I have also a new pair of Keds shoes to share with you.
I designed these a while ago for my best friend Ira to go with her new summer handbag.
They turned out pretty nice :)
You can find them for sale at my Zazzle Shop.




( 2 more pics... )

Last week I submitted my last "Mountain Village Landscape" vector to Istockphoto.
It got rejected the first time with the rejection reason:

"Please crop your file more closely to the subject, or submit the file in its original size.
The composition of this file contains an unnecessary addition of negative/blank space."

I thought, Ok, they don't like my artsy uneven shapes of this landscape, so I cropped it to almost a square and added a thin frame of white space around it.
It got approved this time, but with the following note:

"Very nice illustration! In the future, you may wish to consider adding a small amount of white space around your JPEG preview.
This will stop your illustration from butting up against the edge of your preview, giving it some 'breathing room'."



Hey, Istockphoto, make up your mind! ;)

Wanted to make a couple of landscapes for my Istockphoto portfoilo.
This is the first one. I really like how it came out.
This scene exists only in my imagination. I would really like to live in a place like this, though ;)
I experimented with a quick sketch, but this time I colored it first with colored pencils,
and used it as color reference later, while creating my vector. 

Latest vector illustration "Asleep".
Born out of a small quick pencil sketch of a face (too small to show here) :)

ASLEEP