I am busy with a large illustration project lately, so new vlog took me a month to edit.

This time I tried small animations. I like how it turned out. Although animated elements are time consuming, I want to keep using more of them going forward.

This March was special for me. I’ve been planning to launch an art vlog forever. And it finally happened.

I was thinking about my art channel ever since I started learning illustration. When Covid lockdown happened, I finally launched my YouTube, but I did not feel ready to make vlogs, so I started sharing only drawing process videos there. Finally, last year was so crazy and turbulent in my life that (at last) I felt like it’s ”now or never”.
But again, it took time. It took me over 9 months to figure out what to film, with what gadgets, how to film, how to edit and voiceover. I was a slow learner, but a stubborn one.

I had the experience of being a beginner artist previously in illustration and painting. Vlogging is an art to me too. For the great part it’s also visual, which makes it easier. But there are motion and sound to master, which is new.

I know it takes time and tones of patience to close the gap between the art I want to produce and the art I am able to produce right now. So I try to be kind and nice to myself and enjoy the process while I am getting to the level of the art I want to produce. It takes years.

Today I am sharing my first ever vlog. It will mean a lot to me if you let me know your thoughts in the comments on YouTube or subscribe to my channel. 🙂

Recently I found myself having fun illustrating full stories with a single picture. It’s fun to have a lot going on on a single spread. As a kid I could study detailed pictures in books for long.

It is even more fun to challenge myself to squize a full plot in a single illustration.

I’ve created a few of one-page stories like this in 2022. The final illustration of this type in the past year was this Wednesday series fan art.

In June I was in the middle of my ”Learn to enjoy small things” project. And I came up with the idea to learn new exotic cooking recipes. I thought: what if I pick a country and learn to cook some traditional meals beyond those 1-2 well-known ones? To keep myself motivated, I decided to recruit friends.

There was this article I read about the health benefits of Medditeranean cuisine and overall Medditeranean culture of spending time together. This became the concept for the “Cultures on the plate” project.

So first cusine we explored was, of course, Medditeranian: Greek. And it turned out to be super exciting.

Last Saturday we gathered for the second time to learn cooking all kinds of Spanish tapas. 12 hours of groceries shopping, cooking, Spanish songs, talks, movie, more cooking. I still can’t believe that cooking all day long can be this fun.

The illustration above is a visual diary entry, to keep it in memory for longer.

And I am already thinking of the country for our third meet up.

September came and left, almost unnoticed. Late Autumn and winter tend to be grey, rainy and cold here. But now we still have the golden period of Autumn. It’s colorful and ocasionally still sunny. My favorite forest on the hill is changing daily.

Kolobok is an ancient Ukrainian fairy tale. It tells a story of a round loaf of bread. He is a runaway rolling through the forest, trying not to get eaten by those he meets. This kids story actually refers to the initiation ritual. And no surprise that bread is a main character. It has been sacred throughout the whole history of Ukraine, which is and always was a huge agricultural hub.

Since the tale is not that well known outside of Ukraine, I wanted to retell it visually in a single illustration. The plot is a typical quest. My screenwriting teacher used this fairy tale to teach us the plot structure formula. No wonder this tale survived through ages!

Local botanic garden is just 1000 steps from my door. Recently I went their with a new plain air easel I got as a present (thanks, mom).

I felt like a classic French Impressionist there, surrounded by all those blooming flowers.

I took my water based oil paints to try out for the first time. Have you ever used them? Acrylic paints are so much more convenient to use when you have a home studio. But nothing can replace the joyful process of painting with oil paints.

I recently made a trip to Wrocław, Poland. My friends live there, so I am a regular guest of the city.

When in Wrocław, I have one favorite quest. I am looking for dwarfs. Small monuments are all around the city, over 300 of them! It’s a funny seek-and-hide game.

Each time I visit, they inspire me for something new. I was drawing dwarfs for the travel guide at the beginning of my illustration career. I was writing a fairytale about the city of dwarfs for the publishing competition in 2021. It was later aired on the national radio. This time dwarfs are back as an illustration for social media.

A colleague at my former workplace once took a long sick leave due to severe health problems caused by stress.

Another colleague confessed to me a couple of days later how ashamed she felt. They talked just the day before and she could not recognise that person might have needed support.

I also spent a day in training with that colleague just a couple of weeks earlier. She seemed like the most cheerful and confident person. I really could not sense she was going through the hard times.

Reading someone’s soul is a magical skill.

Some people seem week and are willing to verbalise it, but they can turn out to be surprisingly resistant to all the storms in their lives.

Others look calm and tough, but you never know what fire can be burning them down from the inside. Their “I am fine” does not always mean they are.

I wish I had this magical skill.