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.

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.