First of all very belated Happy New Year everyone!

I just realized that I never updated my blog in all holiday season craziness. Wow, better late than never, I guess, so here goes a quick round up and plans for 2018

 

In December I participated in Advent illustration challenge with prompts created my Shannon McNab. As Shannon suggested I picked a color scheme and subject (holidays in the woodland). So everyday I made a full color illustration with a cute critter or several. Here’s a quick look:

So this was my advent calendar of drawings.

I also made illustrations for 52 weeks illustration challenge, hereby completing this year-long project, which is, I am saddened to say, has closed now forever. ((all drawings for this challenge can be now seen under #greenrainart52w tag on instagram)

I made a couple of watercolors:

a few patterns for Spoonflower challenges

 

All of these I plan to proof and hopefully will have dishtowels and bedlinen for sale soon.

I also created some stand-alone illustrations and possibly started a series of illustrations connected by a storyline

These two illustrations are a beginning of a series with a connecting story line. I am still working on outlining the story, but I am very curious where this will take me.

And the final illustration for 2018 is my second annual banner for good luck.

Now to the plans for 2018:

• I am planning to continue my pastel works. Soft pastel is something I can’t live without at this point and I added some sketches in oil pastel last year and I will attempt to get more familiar and comfortable with the material
• I have joined a daily sketchbook challenge by Natalie Ratkovski (see #sketchclub365), I don’t think it will necessarily be a “daily-daily” challenge for me, but I will definitely sketch more from life. Her weekly sketch from life prompts are coming in February as well
• At some point I will renew my folk art studies and try to push myself further by drawing people and places
• DREAM TO COME TRUE: I joined an illustration sketchbook year-long marathon (by Kristen Taylor) , this will be especially interesting as I am now a member of SCBWI. I am hoping to gather enough courage and time to appear at local chapter’s meetings and meet more fellow illustrators.
• COMMERCIAL PROJECTS: I hope to do more food illustration and patterns, filling my spoonflower shop with more fabric designs and offer more dishtowels for sale. I also want to explore possibilities of travel illustration
• LEARNING: I joined MATS Bootcamp again, very excited for this one! Also Folio Focus class is coming in February. These are all classes for this year as of right now. I really hope I will be able to do Global Talent Search with Lilla Rogers in July and trying to squeeze another ICB class with Lilla and Zoe Tucker. But I also aim to learn more efficiently, without gasping for breath and create more work to send to the world. Financial situation is also different this year as I am preparing to send my child on an international choir tour in 2019, and have to set money aside for that. I have a paid Skillshare membership and utilizing it as much as possible.

 

So here are my tentative plans for 2018. Hope it’s a wonderful and magical year for everyone!

 

Love,

Anya

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