Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Ink drawings and good books




I have had a very productive day today. The kids were at Grandma's all day, and from 9 am till 4 pm I had TIME. Time to do whatever I felt needed doing! The luxury of having time to yourself, I savored every minute of it.

First I finished several watercolors that I had been working on.
One is another take on princesses and knights, and will be for sale either as a print or as an original in my shop (I have not decided which way it will be)
Another is a song illustration for a friend of mine, that I was asked to do. Actually I was given the whole album to listen, and had an option of illustrating one of the songs. They were all good, but not many had strong visual images in them. The strongest one was a song about a couple , where the woman dreamed for them to be cats, sit on roofs, spill ink on owners poems, drink water from puddles etc. But later on she forgot all about it and became this typical boring housewife. Sad. But often times true.

And while I was doing it, I wanted to have some ink drawing references, so one of my ALL TIME favorite books about a great animator Nordstein came to mind. I will be showing off his animation soon, but so far here are a couple of drawings from that book. His wife did them. He was the director, she was the animator. Wonderful lively line, composition and free style that I admire.
Also from that same book a photo of their family. I love looking at it. I have always dreamt to have artistic parents. Did not happen:) our house was always spotless and very cozy, but not artistic at all. This photo represents something that I envisioned as an alternative reality, while growing up.

13 comments:

Christina Silverio said...

How wonderful to have time to yourself! It looks like it was very well spent. The new paintings are wonderful!

Rima Staines said...

Hooray hooray! My favourite animator too :) And I WANT that book!
It is such a lovely photo that..
And I love your illustrations, especially the cats and their noses.. what a lovely idea - spilling ink on people's poems :)

Yulechka said...

Vita, you did NOT want to have artistic parents, trust me - too many kids growing up like that end up WANTING order in their life more than chaos or "creative environment", LOL!

I love the illustrations.....

Vita said...

yulechka--LOL
then my kids are permanently messed up:) well, actually not, my hubby will be the "organized practical, logical" family person

Unknown said...

Vitusya, is Norshtein's book still on sale online anywhere? Ozone.ru has in the catalog, but it’s marked “missing from the inventory” or something like that:
http://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/2358708/
Rima,
They still sell another book Norshtein:
http://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/4016609/
Ask Vita if this is a reliable biz to buy from (I’m not sure)

Unknown said...

Sorry, looks like I completely messed up the last name spelling in the prev post.
It probably spells like Nordstein, not Norshtein in English…

Unknown said...

This is how Wikipedia spells him :)
Yuriy Norshteyn in Wikipedia

rossichka said...

I found a magnificent film - "Hedgehog in The Fog" here - http://www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar/#topic=Arts&url=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.youtube.com%252Fwatch%253Fv%253DJZS1fLK4DYM.
So sweet and poetical!! Enjoy watching it!!

Vita said...

rossichka--it is a very very famous animation! I used to watch it growing up, and rediscovered it later on as an adult. I was going to have it in one of the Movie MOndays:)
I am happy you discovered it too!!!!

Cat (darklingwoods) said...

Wonderful new paintings! ahhh a day to yourself, golden!

I've tagged you over at my blog!

Cat

rossichka said...

Dear Vita,
I remember how some years ago, on a Sunday morning, we watched the film on a Russian TV program. My son had just begun studying Russian at school and he was so happy to discover he knew some of the words. I am thankful to you for telling us about this famous animator! We speak Russian with my husband, because in Bulgaria we learned it at school for years, so it's a real pleasure to hear and understand what and HOW the heroes say. It's just wonderful the Russian intonation!!
I like your style very much and I wish you plenty of time, so that you could draw everything that's in your soul and imagination!

AscenderRisesAbove said...

arriving through illo friday and saw this image... we could have been 'pretend sisters" in this imaginary family.

Vita said...

Rossichka, it's interesting that you were watching Russian cartoons.
We used to watch Polish ones, and I hardly understood a word...
I had a pan pal from Sofia when I was in 1 and 2 grade. She would send me Bolgarian postcards and they were SO COLORFUL compared to the ones we had:)

 

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