spring forest

a few recent projects have just gone on the website, along with a little spring vignette for the home page. just click here. 

a little update

one of the few advantages of being stuck at home with a nasty cold is that you get round to doing things you've been meaning to do for ages, like sorting through your socks or finally updating your website. you'll be happy to hear (I'm sure) that I've uploaded a bunch of  recent projects to the site, and reorganised it slightly. it still needs an actual, proper rehaul in order tro bring it into the current century, but it will take a bit more than a cold to do this, so I'm sticking to good old indexhibit for now.

here it is - take a look, if you'd like, right over here at the usual www.zozozosia.com.

A testa in giu' - it's out!

My first graphic novel, A testa in giu', is out now with the Italian publisher Topipittori.
A few more details here.
I will be presenting the book in Torino (18.11 at 19.30, Polski Kot, via Massana 19),
Milano (19.11, Spazio b**k, at 19:30), and will be present at the BilBolBul Comics Festival next weekend (21-23 nov). See you!

And yes, you can expect regular posting on the blog again! Sorry for the rather long break.

almost there

i'm still here! it's just that i'm in the last stages of working on my comic and unable to do much else. meanwhile, here is an illustration that got cut from an editorial series i worked on in April. 

we could play 'guess the artist' but it's a bit too obvious no? i'll share the rest of the illustrations once the magazine comes out. can't wait!

ok, now back to adjusting the page layouts in the book..

Interpretation of Dreams

Just received the new issue of Zwykłe Życie magazine in the mail, with some of my illustrations inside! 

The entire (beautiful) issue is dedicated to Sleep, and my drawings were made to accompany an article about the interpretation of dreams. There's more on my website. Thanks to the editor Marta Mach for the fun commission!

it's because she's got hair

it's been all about comics on the blog lately, so here's an illustration for a change: the May wallpaper I made for the Studio Armad'illo monthly newsletter. You can download it here in a bunch of sizes.

cisza

i  got my copy of the nobrow # 9 in early april, and it's absolutely beautiful. the comic by bianca bagnarelli is  a stunner, as are most illustrations. incredibly honoured to be part of the issue.  

here are some shots of my own four-page comic, inspired by a childhood experience involving the staircase leading to my grandfather's flat, and a mysterious door with a sign saying 'SILENCE' above it; 

you can see more on my website. 

on the move

a testa in giu'

Bologna book fair preparations: just printed the mock-up of my graphic novel for Topipittori today! It's not entirely ready, I'm drawing the last chapter right now. But most of it is here! It's been a long time coming... And it will finally be out this autumn.

Off to Bologna in two days, it will be my fourth fair! Time flies.

coming soon: nobrow # 9

the mess you see below has just become a four-page comic for the new Nobrow anthology, which is now available for pre-order, and is coming out in April. the Nobrow anthologies are such beautiful objects, cannot wait for my copy to arrive! not to mention the talent packed into each issue. humbled and  superexcited to be a part of it! i'll post more images as soon as it's out!

. 

tree + house = ?

studio armad'illo has refreshed it's website just in time for spring, and there's a bunch of new projects on it too, including an interactive poster i made for Giunti Progetti Educativi last autumn. it's a treehouse that doubles as a sustainable household! click through to the armad'illo website to have a better look. 

it was a lot of fun to do, but also a ton of work, with multiple revisions and dozens of extra frames for the animations (for the online game) and lift-the-flap images (for the print version). i'm thinking of making an animated gif of the process, hope to share it soon!

  

dream logic

here's a little preview of an editorial job i have just finished for the Polish magazine "Zwykłe Życie".
made for an article about interpreting dreams. will post more as soon as it's out!

New York Times Book Review and Neighbourhood Mischief

I had an illustration in last Sunday's Book Review section of the New York Times!
Here's the final drawing, and the a screenshot of the article itself. I've only seen the on-line version, since I couldn't get my hands on a print copy here in Zurich. I hope it looked ok on paper too!

I've also updated the (somewhat medieval) webiste with illustrations for "Podwórkowe psotnice", a little book for Egmont's series "Czytam sobie", for Polish children learning to read. The text, by Rafał Witek, tells a rather entertaining story of two mischievous little girls playing pranks on their neighbours and friends.
Here they are, plotting their next attack:

While digging through the archives, I also found a reference photo I took of myself while working on the cover. That's rather unusual; normally I am too lazy to take reference photos of anything, and my characters have a questionable anatomy at best. It made me laugh a bit.

Bologna Illustrators Exhibition

Hurray! Happy to tell you that my illustrations for "Kolorowe Prostokąty" have been selected for this year's show at the Bologna Book Fair. I couldn't be more excited!

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)