She was my best friend...

This is another illustration that I did from one of my childhood memories. Between age of 2-7 I lived in USA because my dad had to work there in that time. I was just 2 years old when we moved to USA. Even I was very young I had some problems to make friends because I didn't know English. My mom said that in the first year of my school (I think it was kindergarden) I couldn't make friends. My mom told me once she visited the school and saw that I was playing by myself because when  I tried to go and play with others they said ''go away we don't want you play with us''. So I think it might effected me because my mom said I was always very courage and easy to talk with everyone even strangers:) After that incident I got a little shy. So I wanted to share one of my important memory with this illustration. I had this doll and I never left it in that time she was always with me even I didn't know English:)

My First Steps

I decided to illustrate couple of my childhood photos. So this is the first one which I am trying to learn how to walk :) I was scared but forcing myself anyways:) I learned so much from this illustration! This was the first time for me to design a baby character. I draw many sketches to capture the moment and the feeling of the baby.After that challenge I tried to use different brushes to give a natural look to the illustration and I found out that photoshop has many brushes for this which made me so happy! So every time I draw something I really learn and improve so much which is so exciting. I love this journey.

Portrait For A Friend

So this is another portrait work that I did for my friend. I enjoyed to paint this so much. Every time I do I portrait it has its own challenges which is a great thing. It means I am learning and improving much more every time I paint a different one. This was the first time I painted a portrait that includes facial expression (smiling ). Thats why this time it was different for me. First I struggled but in the end I figured it out. I will try different styles for portraits later so it can be another challenge for me.

Dreaming of Turkey - Cotton Castle

This is the second illustration that I designed for the ''Dreaming of Turkey'' series. In the beginning I draw more then one characters. But later I thought it will be fun to just have one character and use an emotion that can be related to what we feel. Sometimes we really need to just be away from everything and have some time with ourselves. For me sometimes I love to be alone and away from everything by going to a different place which is related to nature. I don't know if I mentioned it before but I am obsessed with nature. I acted like a child who is so curious and amazed for every single natural thing I see. So it might make other people get bored of the way I acted but sorry I can't stop myself:))  I know I had some feeling for nature before but it become more stronger when I move to New Zealand :)

In this illustration I used a place called Cotton Castle which is located in Turkey and it is made of travertine. You can learn more details in wikipedia. Its a very interesting place to visit and you can go into some of the pools. Because some of the area is protected by the UNESCO which made me feel so happy:) Because it was in a bad condition since so many tourists are visiting the area.

In these series I wanted to use ottoman empire characters because I thought it will give a different perspective than we usually know them. We are used to see them in a serious and realistic historical stories or media. So I though why not use this as an advantage and make people smile when they see middle eastern themes depicted in illustrations...

Dreaming of Turkey-Cappadocia

In my previous post I have shared two of my illustrations that I designed for the Auckland Art Festival. Totally I have prepared four designs. But I just had time to paint two of them in the festival. After the festival I decided to finish these illustrations. So this is the Cappadocia one which is my favorite. I did some adjustments for the composition, colors and shapes. So naturally because of the medium there is some differences between the glass painting and this digital painting.Now I will continue to the other illustrations for the ''Dreming of Turkey'' series.