Find Joy in Little Things

Hi everyone! It has been a while and since I did any illustration. I had to take a break from drawing because of my injury but now I am slowly getting back to my drawings little step at a time. In this time I have learned so much and been reading so many books which all helped me to think about life with fresh eyes. For now I just want to say I missed drawing so much and excited to express myself through art. I also wanted to give some break from social media which helped me to rethink my time and make a healthy balance between work and life.

Here I got inspired from something I have seen in daily life and that sparked the playfulness inside of me. Wonder, curiosity, imagination and playfulness are all necessary for everyone to find their inner voice and help to heal our inner child. I believe through creativity we all can channel our emotional energy which can help us to understand ourselves and others. So I wanted to share this illustration that I have been working on and thought maybe this can help us think about what our inner child needs. I have been listening her for a while now and I am so happy to finally meeting her with more courage and kindness. Maybe this will help you to meet your own true self as well...

 

Turkish Girl and The Elephant in the Circus

Hi I wanted to make a wall art for a children's (nursery) room which is about a circus. With this one I wanted to use Turkish elements since there is no Turkish themed circus art. (I didn't seen one but if you did let me know:) ) The Circus theme was an Instagram challenge and to make it interesting i thought adding something from my culture will be fun.

Water Color Study-2

This one is a study of Blue Hydrangeas from Emma's Watercolor book. I am trying to learn watercolor with her exercises which I have shared in my previous post. This one was about using the paints with wet on wet technique. I really liked the feeling of how colors flow to each other and it also has that surprising and spontaneous result which makes it very fun. But also makes you feel like you don't have the control with your painting and that can create fear. However, In my opinion not having the full control and being relaxed creates natural and authentic feeling for the result. Thats the thing I want to experience because when you use digital media it might make your painting stiff and unnatural. Because of that whenever I decide to do digital painting I always draw with traditional medium first so I can still have that flexibility to make accidental marks also I can feel the raw media directly on the paper. Then I use these sketches on my digital software and I don't loose that pure and true feeling that I want to represent with my work.

So lets talk about my second watercolor painting that I studied. I tried to experiment with this wet on wet approach on a separate watercolor paper so I can understand how it works. I realized that when I did it on the separate paper i was more relaxed and I really liked the effect. The way the colors flow into each other amazed me. It was something that I never saw before. But when I actually painted the final flower in the vase subject I wasn't feeling relaxed. I was afraid of making a mistake. So that effected the painting. I really wanted to have the same effect that I did on the separate paper. As a result I understood that it just comes with practice and with repeating the technique I will be more confident and more relaxed which will make my final paintings more close to what I want. It doesn't mean that this painting is not good, but I know I can do better and this was my first trial. I embrace all the process that I can make mistake which is the way to expressing yourself in a more free way. When you have that confidence you will know how to show yourself through those paintings.

Hope these experiences and my thoughts will give you hope and have more courage to keep going. Have a lovely day my friends.  

Practicing Watercolor with Emma Block's Book

Yesterday night I started to practice and improve my watercolor skills. I always wanted to learn watercolor and couple months ago I bought this book called ''The Joy of Watercolor'' by Emma Block. She had this different way of showing the techniques than other watercolor books that I have been comparing. Also her illustrations were so cute and felt so close to my taste as well. In the beginning of the book she gives some information of materials and techniques with tips that will be good to know before starting with the watercolor project exercises. These watercolor exercises are categorized with three levels which are beginner, intermediate and advanced which is a good thing because it gives you a direction. Other than that these paintings are so inspiring which makes it more exciting and motivational for practicing a medium. The way she explains the steps of the painting is easy to understand. I just started with the first painting and the only thing for now made me think there were some parts that the technique didn't work and I couldn't understand why which made me feel stuck. For example I used the salt on the wet paint and it didn't work even I waited so long for the paint to get dry. So I tried to check on the internet to find the reason. I guess it is not enough just to learn from the book, you will need to have extra resource to solve some of the questions you have. Also there was another thing that made it a little complex. I already had a set of watercolor paint and this book's exercises requires you to have specific colors for you to have in order to do those paintings. So for that I just try to be as close as I can with my own paints and choose my own reference and interpret in my way which also helped me to have my own paintings instead of just copying her work. Because I also want to have my own paintings as well when I am practicing.

Overall the book is nice and helpful. I like that it gives you guides with different subjects and shows you what kind of technique you can use.

I have failed in the salt technique but tried on a another paper to see if it will work and it did! So it is just trial and error. I am so excited to just keep painting and learning this cool media:) I happily recommend anyone who is interested to learn watercolor with exercises. But I also think you will need to just practice practice practice. The book alone won't be enough, you might as well check video tutorials or skillshare classes to understand the way watercolor works. But This book is nice to start with;) Just wanted to share my experience with watercolor. I will be sharing my experience more in my blog in the future as well. So maybe this will help you to see how to learn watercolor with me.

I wish you have a nice day...

Some Old Lovely Sketches

Hi there! Now I am trying to blog everyday which is like a journaling to me. Sharing this journey with you makes me feel I am not alone in this challenging path. You know its a isolated and a lonely journey as we freelance illustrators have. I do enjoy being with myself but to be honest I am a social person so it is hard sometimes to not having that interactive environment. The last time I joined an Art Convention to have network and sell my art prints made me feel so alive and happy. Because I can see people's reactions and hear their thoughts about my work and meet other artist like me. It felt more real to me than having to connecting through internet all the time. But now I think by sharing my journey with you will be so rewarding and will make me feel close to you as well. Also, I will like you to know me and my thoughts and experiences in this adventure. So hello and welcome to my life with ups and downs... I am so happy to blog more regularly, building a relationship with you and recording my journey in this illustration career. Thank you for following my work and being beside me it really makes it more meaningful.

While I am working on my Circus themed illustration and my Chocolate Factory's 3rd piece (from my Children's book portfolio work that I have been working on) I wanted to share couple of my old sketches. When I look back I realized that I really enjoy sketching from old photos or people who have this way of look that you can feel they have an interesting story. It makes me so excited and I want to interpret their story in my perspective. In other words, I want to draw them in a way that how they make me feel and how I imagine their story is. Its just the old photos has this mystery, something makes us wonder. Maybe one day I will gather some old photos and make my own children's book:) That will be so fun!

So here is a mix of sketches that I did way back from old photos, some old tv shows, a girl from a different culture that made me feel connected and so authentic, lastly my own self portrait:)

Have a nice day, enjoy the life around you and be curious about people's stories. They can inspire you who knows... Everyone has something to give you... And we have so much in common.  

A Turkish girl in the Circus

Hi everyone! I have been working on two illustrations at the same time which helps me to have a break, look at the same work with fresh eyes and I can work on variety of works. This one will be one of the series of my nursery room wall art. I tried to show you my process while I am working on it. This is a challenge from instagram called #portfolioclub. It is the first theme of the month. I am behind of the schedule but I will be finishing this no matter what. I have been quite enjoying it because I love Turkish elements and combining it with something unsual like circus. Because circus is not related to Turkish Culture so I knew this theme will be interesting. Next I will decide on the characters and start to draw a rough sketch and a line work for the final illustration. I am still thinking should I work in traditional or digital. I might make a rough and a small size traditional one to see how it goes:) 

If you are interested about the materials, I used Copic Markers, PolyChromos Color Pencils, NeoColor Oil Pastels and Faber Castel Pencil.

I am very happy to share the behind the scenes of this illustration.Hope you enjoyed it and wish you have a lovely day... 

Charlie's Chocolate Factory-Scene 2

This is the second scene of Charlie's Chocolate Factory. After having their usual cabbage soup Charlie always went to his Grandparents' room and listen to their stories. One evening Charlie asked is the Chocolate Factory the biggest in the world and they start to talk about the mystery of this factory. This is the moment that I wanted to illustrate for the second scene of this story. I have been working for these piece for a while and it had some challenges which helped me to learn and find solutions. For example arranging all the characters in the right position so they can be clearly seen so I thought why not play with the perspective of the bed, since I like to break the rules a bit because for children there is no rules they just do what feels right to them and they push the boundries. So I am also trying to experiment with a child's mind.

I have realized that I love including details in the scene so people can notice different elements that tells more stories in one scene. For example the photos in the back and the newspaper are all related to Charlie and about the Chocolate factory. Those show how much they love their grandson and they are very excited about the factory as well. I wanted to make it believable scene that they have a background. Children love to read the stories over and over so why not put more stories through details so they can discover different elements in the illustration.

Hope you enjoy this painting as I did while I painted it. I also wish it will bring you happiness when you look at this painting. Have a lovely day my friends...

Good Night Sleep Tight

Hi everyone! For a while I really wanted to make some paintings that I can use traditional mediums. So I decided to create a sleeping animal series for parents to hang on their child's bedroom wall as a nursery wall art. For people who are wondering what I have used which are watercolor and color pencil also for the moon and stars I used White Posca Marker. I realized traditional tools have something so unique that gives you more control on being authentic with your work. It gives you that spontaneous effect on how the work will turn out. I like that surprising and experimenting feeling with raw materials. It was a fun experiment that made me feel like I am in a dream. It just felt so magical, warm, comfy and cute. I think these paintings can encourage children to sleep right?:))

I have made prints of these as well and I will be willing to sell originals (The fox is sold on the Art Festival recently but the other two is available as original work) and the print versions in my shop. Recently I have been working on my new website which will also include the shop but for now it is working in progress. I will definitely let you know when it will be working.

Hope you liked these cute sleeping animals! Have a lovely day and thank you for checking out my blog.

Mouses playing Traditional Turkish Music

This will be one of the animal nursery series that I will be illustrating. I thought including my Turkish background will give the chance to the world to notice and learn about our (Turkish) culture. Turkish culture is not very well known and it is hard to see illustrations about it.

In this illustration The horn is called ''Zurna'', the middle mouse is dancing which calls ''Halay'', and the third one is using a Turkish trumpet called ''Davul'' and using ''tokmak'' to hit the trumpet. I have searched and watched some videos about this music and the people who are using it. Usually they go to a house and take the bride from the house with the groom. Also they use it in other celebrations as well. Sometimes they just go to an empty green area with their car and just sing dance and play to have fun as well. So I wanted to show this perspective which was very fun :D

Wedding Invitation for my Lovely Friends

I worked on this for my lovely friends from Turkey but they live in New Zealand. They wanted me to illustrate their wedding invitation which made me so excited because Esra (bride) means so much to me for being a wonderful friend in my hard and good times. We become like sisters in a very short time in Auckland which I never had that kind of closeness in a quick way. Knowing them helped me to decide what to include in this design and it was fun to show their unique features.

Hope you both have a happy and peaceful life together my dear friends...