december crowds

i've been frightfully busy lately, but last week i managed to sneak in some time for drawing and painting just for fun. Here's one of the small paintings I made - I've put the rest up on Behance.
after a lot of digital, commercial work, it feels really good to mess about with watercolours and coloured pencils and no specific purpose in mind.
now, back to thumbnailing the last chapters of my comic!

no sleep till brooklyn

Here's a long overdue update! It's a crazy busy autumn after an equally busy summer. First of all, I've been trying to do a bit more magazine illustration lately. Here'a an illustration for Kolbojnik, the newsletter of the Warsaw Jewish community. For an article about trying to combine differing opinions:

I've also been working on my graphic novel over the last two months, and it's finally starting to take shape. Right now it looks like it's going to be over 120 pages long and this terrifies me quite a bit. Here's a spread - wordless for the time being, I'll be adding the lettering later. 

I've been doing a lot of extracurricular reading while researching for the comic, and I was thinking of making a separate post about it sometime (well, sometime this century) - on different kinds of memoirs, and autobiographies, and on historiographic metafiction in general. Since that won't be coming anytime soon, however, I just wanted to recommend Ciaran Carson's The Star Factory, which I just finished reading and loved. I was only familiar with some of Carson's poetry, and haven's read any novels - but now I'm definitely looking forward to reading more! 

september

 found this sketch while cleaning my hard drive; i think it's from two years ago, when i was doing research of 1920s fashions for Złote Pszczoły. i can hardly believe it's been two years already!

loading

here are some sketches from that dead time when photoshop crashes yet again and  you wait for it to resume working, coloured pencil in hand and your mind somewhere else. yes, the little bear is inviting you to 'shake it'.

opinions

unused sketches for an editorial illustration

summer sketching

(the reader is maria chiara banchini)

website update

aaaaand i've finally put up some of this year's projects on the good old website. 

(the image below is the back cover for the young readers' mystery novel Messaggi da lontano, 

published by the Italian publisher Rizzoli back in March. More images here).

                  I really ought to give the whole website an overhaul... It'll have to do for now, though! 
   I have one more large project to finish, and then it's back to keeping tabs on web presence and the like ;) 

black on grey

My  book on Mark Rothko is out! It's a children's guide made to accompany the first Polish Rothko exhibition, at the National Museum in Warsaw, which opened in June.

Needless to say, I loved working on every last bit of it. A dream commission! The guide's thoughtful and engaging text is by Agnieszka Tarasiuk. The whole thing was put together by the lovely folks at Full Metal Jacket.

There are more pictures from the book on my Behance profile. One of those days I'll get to updating my main website, too.

a shtetl, a harbour

psssst... a few bits and pieces from a book i am working on right now.

summing up spring

i'm still here! just finished illustrating the second installment of the lovely Miś Kazimierz series. It's out in two weeks i think, and it's definitely summer reading. Here are some spot illustrations from the book that i like (including blueberry pierogi, yum).

we also finally moved into our new place! i can break out the watercolours and inks and get back to the messy illustrations i started doing in March - as soon as i find the box which contains my art supplies, that is. i'm also working on a really nice project right now, i hope to share some images soon. here's a tiny preview:

In June it'll be back to work on the Extensive Comic Project That Must Not Be Named, but which ought to be finally finished over the summer; i really, really hope it will!!
oh, and please remember that you can follow me on tumblr and twitter now, if you wish to do so!

little music

some bits and pieces from Kitty Crowther's workshop I attended a week ago. super-intense five days of experimenting, playing with style, characters and purpose. sounds a little trite but it really was quite amazing. 

towards the end of the course i started developing this little story about a melancholic bird in a yellow coat and a girl who was dating a crocodile.. a possible bestseller, i know. 

if you ever have a chance to do a workshop with Kitty Crowther, don't think twice;  not only is she an amazing artist, but also an excellent (and inspiring) teacher. 

let's stay home like it's 1981

here's a preview of a preview of Comic No. 1. glad I'm working on it again. there's still a lot to do, but at least it's growing.

then there's Comic No. 2, 20 pages in various stages of colouring. that one should be ready soon. ok, i'm moving countries for the second time in 2 months next week, so that might get in the way.

looks like i've drawn my way through the most depressing month. i swear, the sun came out ONCE throughout entire February. i guess that's what i get for moving to warsaw in winter. now i'm off to (slightly) warmer climates.

seaside photo

or, sunday doodling

girls in coats

here are some more absent-minded fashion doodles drawn from the pictures in my tumblr feed. 

fun

just a quick warm-up sketch. i drew those bored partygoers from a photo i found on the internet.
one of my 2013 resolutions: learn to use photoshop better, i really am a slow learner when it comes to computers and trying out new things.