The Spirit of the Forest

Hello everyone!
It seems like I am writing these posts one by one today, but you know me. I wether work like crazy or leave stuff behind and then have to start picking it all up :) Now is this exact time.

 This project has been a very special one for me as it was my first ever Kindle cover and then I realised I can do kindle covers too! Yay :)
I wanted it to look like brown leather as my client did send me the actual brown leather kindle cover. So it needed to match. Therefore I used Living Doll by Sculpey ( which is a dyeing dinosaur now and is not produced anymore...) and decided to create an wonderful, center orientated composition of a bird that is protecting the forest leaves with it's wings and is surrounded by all sorts of magical orbs, swirls and other elements. The main focus point is an absolutely gorgeous aqua-green labradorite crystal that has these amazing vertical lines that so reminded me of the pine forest. And so it goes that this wonderful highly decorated bird is keeping the image of the forest very close to it's heart.

I wanted to ornate the bird's chest with some wonderful swirls, aventurine crystals, little golden dots and curvy outlines. And I also wanted the face of the bird to be very innocent and cute, therefore I used a simplicity trick here.



To find a labradorite like this in supply stores is very hard ( at least I am finding it very hard) and so I kept this stone for a very special occasion.



Thanks a lot for checking in :) You can find 10 more photos of this Kindle cover in this JOURNAL GALLERY. Enjoy!

Love you, 

The Horse with a Fire Mane Journal

Hello everyone and thank you for stopping here today! :)

Today I will be happy to talk about my new journal "The Horse with a Fire Mane".
It is an A6 journal and it was ordered by a loving mother for her child. Her daughter loves riding horses and even owns a personal Pony and so the daughter says: "When we jump together, I feel like we are flying!". This inspired me to create a pegasus with a fire mane as and I made it quite stocky as a pony would be.

I wanted to experiment with incrustation technique and I used crushed freshwater pearls for that. And as I am not into clay swirls of any kind, I also added some little swirls to decorate the wing and the chest. I used fine gold paint to make it really sparkle with golden shades.
For the background I used Mandarin Duck Texture stamps (Blossom and Organic Mesh Inverted).

I especially like how the mane turned up. It is playful, airy, bouncy and looks natural to me as if wind is blowing at it. I also decided to add little golden decorative ropes to enhance the liveliness of the mane even more.  

The wing has a combination of purples, golds and pearls for that special royal style.

I hope you like it and you can see more of it in my  Gallery section or my Flickr Gallery.

Thank you so much for reading, 

The Nectar Dragon Journal A5

Hello everyone!

For the last week I was working on this newest journal "The Nectar Dragon". This journal was a custom order for my client's daughter. She loves everything dragon related and UK related. So finding an artist in London to make a gift for her daughter was a real treat and very exciting for my client and I am sure will be greatly appreciated by her daughter. 

My client wanted to have a tree, a dragon and sunset on the journal cover, but she wanted the dragon to be quite detailed, so we came up with the idea of having tree branches instead of the full tree. The main object is obviously a baby dragon who is drinking the nectar from beautiful flowers. He doesn't have wings yet as he is still a baby. Those will grow later.

I wanted to create a sunset on the background, but I wasn't sure how to do it, and so I decided to give the background a subtle feel of purple-pink colour change, as if the sun is about to rise or about to set.  The small leaf theatres on the background are to imitate the idea of some foliage in the depth of this composition. 

I always struggle to create full on 3D pictures, but I think this time it doesn't look very flat. Sometimes it is more important to remain on the safe side when you can't allow yourself to make mistakes because of time  or material limitations. Otherwise you should go and practice, experiment and succeed or fail. All these things are parts of one big activity called "learning curve". 

And so here is the journal!

The Bunny Family Journal

Hello my sweet honey bunnies! :) 

Today I decided to write about my newest journal, which I called in a very simple way "The Bunny Family Journal"( A5 size).  It seems like that the story of my bunnie's love for each other continues....

This was a custom order from an older client lady. She has a son and him and his wife are expecting their second baby in the first weeks of August. It's going to be a boy! 

So my client, as a very proud Grandmother, ordered this journal to give as a gift to her daughter in law. I thought this is so sweet and she particularly loved my bunny journals and so we developed this concept of a 4 member family having a little picnic in the park. She said they will end up living in Texas and so she wanted some flowers from that place to be shown on the journal too. That's why I places some Lupins and other flowers.

Ashley always tells me that I have to work on my background scenes more as sometimes my pieces look too flat and then one massive bulky character stands in the middle of it all. 

So this time I decided to properly sculpt all of the background first. As it was a park picnic scene, I needed to have the picnic blanket laying on some grass and to make the scene more intimidating and give a feel of a park, I added some Hydrangea bushes and a beautiful large tree on the background. Kinda made the whole scene look more zoned out from the rest of the world. This is type of spaces I like for the picnic. Little pockets of privacy :) 

First thing I always consider when making clay creatures, is their eyes. I believe that eyes is the mirror of the soul and most of my artworks are looking so alive because of the eyes. So I had to make them first. The whole family is blue-eyed in real life and so I had to stick to this hue. 

Now.. I am quite ashamed to put the first appearance pictures of my Bunnies on this brown clay background, because I decided to sculpt all of their naked bodies first to see where she shapes go, how to position them and so on and then to dress them up in clothes. But because they were naked and very primitively shaped, this looked like a very awkward scene. So no, I am not showing it. We have under 18-teens here :) 

But here is the shot from the moment when I dressed them up! And it looks very descent. I struggled with positioning the father bunny and it was quite hard to make mother bunny's arms holding the baby. So I used some human realistic shots for reference to understand where which part of the body goes. You might be surprised hearing this, but I am very bad at human proportions. I think sculpting

human body is the hardest thing of all. 

So then I needed to understand how to blend the foreground and background together. I wasn't sure I will make it successfully with paints, so I decided to use my super set of eyeshadows which I love badly. It is, in my opinion, so much better than pastels. I just can't get hold of pastels still. But with these, they stick to your brush nicely, colours are very vibrant. You would always need to seal it after baking of course, otherwise some of the colour may still disappear. 

Anyway, I ended up here and I was very pleased with how the colours looked like. 

After adding up some details like flowers, more volume to the tree and picnic basket, I finally baked it! I knew that if I wash this in cold water to cool it off faster, the colours will fade, so I waited for it to cool naturally. After it cooled I started painting it with oil colours, first raw umber to enhance the outlines and small sculpted details, then other colours to make the grass brighter and so on. But I ended up messing it up a bit, because when I started rubbing off excess paint with wet whipes, the shadow also rubbed off. So next day I had to repaint it with acrylics. I regret that red flowers became much darker after the final painting was complete. I added some red colour, but still it wasn't as bright and vibrant as it was before baking. After all the paint was applied, I did a layer of antique gold in dry brushing technique to highlight the highest points of the journal surface and also did Guilders Paste patina effect over some places to add up more colour, definition and to brighten things up. I started to like the artwork so much more after that. It is always a big surprise what patina can do to your artwork. 

So this is what I ended up with. Please enjoy and let me know what you think. I am welcoming technical suggestions on how I could improve this piece, or improve my sculpting, decorating and colouring techniques. Please, don't be shy. I would love some positive criticism!

 

My client really wanted the moto somewhere on the journal... "Life is Good" .. As this is something their Grandfather used to say and so this stuck as a family tradition. As I cherish family traditions a lot, I couldn't resist to agree and write it. 

In any way, 

Thanks for reading :) 

Raven The Samurai Journal A5

Hello everyone!

I am very glad to show you some new artworks! It took me some time to find tome for editing these pictures, but the actual journal was made in literary hours.

The story goes.. Two month ago I received an order. It wasn't urgent but I couldn't start it for so long. Praise my customers who give me all this free time and trust me so much. Sending my blessings to yo you all for your patience with my extravagant artistic habits.

So one of these last days I was walking and walking around my work desk and couldn't start the journal. I found 1000 other tasks. I know I have them anyway, but I couldn't prioritise things the way they were supposed to. So that day I cleaned the whole room so that my room and my mind are less polluted with distractions. When that was done I sat down on my chair, went on Pinterest, looked for some studio inspirations, found a wall colour I liked. Went to local DIY store and purchased some paint. Came home, moved all furniture in the middle, painted the wall... at 10 PM in the evening everything was done and ONLY THEN I sat down to my desk in the middle of all this wreckage and created this journal in literary hours. I think I went to sleep at about 01:30AM that day. When I woke up I only needed to bake and paint it. So another hour and it was done. My customer was very happy with the result and she loved the story of my struggles. She said it was completely worth the wait and adventure.

Because this raven has metallic embellishments that look like some sort of Japanese armour, I called him Raven the Samurai. My client was very pleased with the name too and said she couldn't find a better name for it. FUN!

So here are the pictures. Enjoy and let me know if you liked the story. Sorry I don't have progress pictures as this one came out so fast, I couldn't manage taking photos.

New Journal: Trip to Amsterdam

Hi guys!

It is finally the time to reveal the Amsterdam inspired journal that I have to create for a mother of one of my clients. She loved the view of colourful houses she saw in Amsterdam while traveling and so her son decided to give her a memorable gift of a place they both went together. Isn't that amazing how caring some children can be?

I took this picture as an inspiration for a water reflection and the other picture you see bellow was a colour scheme choice of my client. 

He wanted the street view, but I understood that the only way it will work on a vertical portrait format is a water reflection. First of all this will make the composition right and second I was itching to try and make my very first water reflection on polymer clay. I knew it was possible so I challenged myself to do it!

This again was one of these projects that won't look right from the very beginning until almost very end. I did stress a lot and constantly asked for guidance from my trusted clay friends and Ash. He might not know a lot about clay, but as an artist he could tell me if something looked right or wrong. So as you can see, first I had a very childish beginning where my houses looked so funny and when Ashley came into the room he said : "Ooou! Beach huts scene! Nice".. I slapped myself on the forehead and told him that this will be a nightmare of a project :) 

 

I tried hard and I used textures, shapes, forms, vegetation, flower beds, but without a paint work this artwork still looked like a kids design. I decided that I will complete it no matter how it will look. I just have to trust the guiding spirit! 

It was nice to discover in the process some simple but very effective techniques for creating multiple windows with complicated frames and how to texturise a miniature trees. 

As you can see on the picture bellow, I used Dots & Scratches tool for the trees and I used some rectangular cardboard pieces to press them into the clay. When you pull the off clay, you get a lovely even square imprint. And to make it look even more detailed, I searched for something that has a square type section. It happened to be a simple match :) And so I pressed it into each window multiple times to create window frames and small window sections. That was a lot of fun and eased the process of sculpting very much!

I couldn't wait to start the painting as all my hopes relayed on it! 

And finally when the journal was finished I could see that it worked out well. Especially if you look at it from a little bit of a distance, it looks like a painting and this made me really happy!

And here are some larger close up shots. Click on these to zoom in. Especially the close ups as you will then see more details, like a little bike under the tree for example. I loved making it so much. It is only 8mm long.

Thank you so much for reading, 

I always appreciate your input and comments, otherwise why would I bother writing and showing all this? This if for you :) 

Thank you, 

Journal: White Shepherd Dog A5

Hello everyone! 

I've been quite busy working on custom orders and other projects and I said I will be away from social media and internet for a while, but it seems like this is not happening. I am here, writing this post :) 

I would like to show you some work in progress of my German Shepherd Dog Journal in A5 size. It is still not finished, but I managed to finish the front cover, so can show it off. Sorry for iPhone quality pictures. As I said, professional ones will come sometime later. 

So I begun with tracing the outline of the dog's head onto white clay. I used creaseproof paper as I didn't have a proper tracing paper. I figured this way it will be tidier than trying to draw, cut, smudge imperfections on white clay. You know how tricky it is!

Next I added up some volume to a flat piece and used rubber shapers and ball tools to even and smudge it all out. It was hard working with white clay that was put onto black clay surface!!! Such a dirty job! I was washing my hands but still clay got mucky! I wasn't too sad about it as I knew I will be painting over it!

For the fur I had chosen to use the Dots & Scratches tool, but it seems like it didn't work well on my white clay. It usually does work really well, but not on this chalky white clay. Did you know I really don't like white clay! :)

So after creating all this unnecessary crumbly clay fur, I thought I need to fix it, perhaps smudge and smooth some little hairs into longer and larger strands or hair. I used the tool you see in this picture and it was a great find. I never knew how to use this tool really and only used a needle tool on the other side of it. So it was a great discovery!

I also struggled with the background design. Sometimes I go into the artwork unprepared and make mistakes. Like this time, I didn't do the background properly first as I didn't know how it will look. I thought it will unravel  itself in the process. So first I tried to stamp some textures in the black areas but it didn't look right. I smoothed it all back in and decided to use these clay strands to make swirls. It worked, and so I continued and decorated the bottom of the composition with green leaves to make an appearance of some sort of place, space and perspective. 

The idea of this journal was quite unique. My customer wanted to have a magical white shepherd dog with some magical features. We found this picture online which inspired us both and we agreed to work from it. Unfortunately there was no author of this picture mentioned anywhere so I can't say who is an original painter of this artwork. 

Then came the happy times of Mica Painting! I love working with Mica powders and they create such a change. Couple of my latest artworks are a complete nightmare to me, as they don't look right until almost the very end. This is because they require paint job of mica painting, so you won't be able to see the final result until the very end. But in the very end, after all the tones and shades, colours and shimmers were applied, the dog finally turned out magical, with a smart look in his eyes. I don't like praising myself and for some reason I always see flaws in my work, but I am very pleased on how the look on the dog's face ended up being so realistic. I love his face, I love the avatar-like surroundings and all the magic atmosphere that there is around.

I guess this is it. I will post up some good quality pictures later on next month when I am finished, when photos are taken and I have a chance to edit them to a quality standard I always provide.

Thanks a lot for reading, 

Have a wonderful day, 

Red Eyed Frog Journal by Mandarin Duck

Hello Everyone!

Thanks for popping in :) Today is a simple preview of a wonderful red eyed, green skinned frog from Amazonia rain forests. I love how vibrant are the colours and how jolly this little froggy looks like. My customer is in love with these red eyed frogs and he was especially desperate to see the blue striped belly on his frog's body. So I made sure I painted it properly as close to the original as possible. Also I decided to keep the whole piece quite matte and only to varnish the frog in glossy varnish to give it a wet look. 

Death's-head Hawkmoth A6 journal

Hello guys :)
I know I've been busy and worked on a lot of projects for the past couple of weeks. Busy times and a lot of posts for you to look at!

Sometimes I like sharing some pictures of work in progress as then you guys can see how it was made and learn some new techniques for free.
As you can see I started from quite simple shapes and cut outs and gradually sculpted my way in!
Then I used Mica Powders ( Perfect Pearls and other brands) to build up a shimmery colour base. After the journal was baked I kept colouring the wings with acrylics to show even more details.

This journal was ordered by a customer and was supposed to look like the original journal he already had. He loves Death's-head Hawkmoths and so the main element was supposed to be it and all the rest just some creative writer's background :)

Giraffe Journal "Mother's Love" by Aniko Kolesnikova (Mandarin Duck)

Hello everyone :) 

Today I would like to present you my newest journal "Mother's Love". This journal was a commission work for an the International Giraffe Conservation Organisation. They contacted me recently and offered to participate in their yearly auction with my art. The money we would raise by this auction will go towards the charity to save Giraffes all over the world. I loved this idea and decided to make a little A6 journal with a baby and mother giraffe in a very sweet loving pose. Giraffes can't hold hands, can't they!? 

I also made a PDF tutorial out of it (took some pictures of the whole project for now, but will edit it soon for you to enjoy practicing making giraffes!). I thought it's a striking design and many of you will want to try and create similar designs. Who doesn't love giraffes? :) They are so sweet!

So here are the photos and wait for a bit, I will release a PDF soon too :) 

 

 Thanks for visiting and reading, 

Have a great day!