Mariana Black Illustration

Baba Yaga Watercolour Sketch

 

 

 

Life is full of hiccups and I've had my fair share these past couple of months, so huge apologies for not blogging for so long! But everything is finally sorted out for now and it's straight back into work and studies. Happily so, too. I'm working on my Negotiated Studies for college this year, and exploring the shadow and self-identity in fairy-tales (well, that's the plan) and have done tons of research -- and in the process have discovered Baba Yaga and her refreshing ambiguity ... a perfect 'shadow' character. She has much to teach me.

I'll write more later on about why I'm acquiring a fascination for this crone witch, the 'bogeyman' for Russian children -- although she's apparently now quite famous worldwide. She's also just right for my project, flying around in her mortar, wielding the pestle in one hand and a broom in the other to sweep away her tracks, and lives in a hut that stands on one or two chicken legs and dances around, how cool is that?

I've started on exploratory sketches of my interpretation of Baba Yaga and of course I've managed to merge her with my love for the raven trickster. Here are some of the in-progress sketches:

 

 

I'm using Shmincke watercolours for the first time, and they're wonderful. Experimenting on an Akvarel  watercolour paper block from Tiger. One of these days I'm going to begin videoing the process, but for now it's photographs. As always, I'm thoroughly enjoying myself and it's so good to be back at my 'Mission Control' desk at home, working on my art. Cheers.

 

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Panda Love & Picturebook Links

 

 

I've fallen quite unashamedly in love with my panda. He's just so full of joy that it's contagious and when I draw him (which I am doing so often that it's surprising I'm not sick of it) it fills me with pleasure. Therapeutic just doesn't begin to describe it ... At the moment I'm trying to define his lines, unsure still of what the end result will be, but extremely happy with the process of exploration. Above is one of my experiments but it might be too clean, I'm not yet sure. Here's the original sketch:

 

 

I quite like the rough edges and marks, and would really love to incorporate them somehow into the final ... we'll see how it goes shall we? I have a feeling that this little panda will let me know exactly what he wants and needs eventually, and that I won't have much choice but to happily go along with his wishes.

I'm also exploring the construction of a picture book -- layout, dummies, etc, so I thought I'd share a few links with you that I found useful:

•  Picture Book Dummy, Picture Book Construction: Know Your Layout: https://taralazar.com/2009/02/22/picture-book-construction-know-your-layout/

• Basic Book Construction: http://editorialanonymous.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/basic-book-construction.html

• How to Design Your Picture Book Layout: http://www.alexenglish.co.uk/blog/picture-book-layouts/

• Picture Book Pages & Tips: http://www.wordsandpics.org/2015/11/ask-picture-book-editor.html#more

• Picture Book Layout Templates: http://www.scottefranson.com/publishing-2/picturebook-layout-forms

• An Illustrator’s Guide to Creating a Picture Book: http://www.meghan-mccarthy.com/illustratorsguide.html

• Dummies for Smarties: http://www.yellapalooza.com/tutorials/dummies.html

I'll be doing tons more research and will keep sharing and posting what I find. If you're exploring doing picture books for children you'll find them useful in some way I hope. I'll also add links on the side of my blog as I go along, so keep an eye out for those as well. Cheers.

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Playful Panda Prints

 

I've been playing with panda bears again, this time on linocuts. Considering making some greeting cards out of these prints, what do you think? Here are a few more experiments:

 

 

I'm still experimenting, so expect a few more pandas at play to appear here soon. Meanwhile I'm also working on a college project that's having me out of my comfort zone and creating very different work, with ravens and crows of course. More on that very soon too! As you can imagine, it's been very busy around here, but in an extremely therapeutic way. Cheers.

 

 

Illustrating for Children

 

 

 

Welcome to my new blog! I'm embarking on a delightful journey exploring the world of illustrations for children, specifically for books, though I'm going to happily dive into painting, drawing and sketching anything that children love.

 

This new website/blog is still partly under construction so please excuse the links above that will take you to the About and Portfolio pages of my other ‘persona’, Floating Lemons. I’ll be working on changing that in the days to come, and meanwhile thank you for your patience.

 

Illustrating children’s books has been a dream of mine for years, and I’m fortunate (truly blessed, really) that I’m now able to collaborate on a couple of projects with Jennifer Poulter, an award-winning author whom I greatly admire, and who has had so much faith in me that she has waited patiently for years for me to be “ready” to work on these pieces with her.

 

I went back to 'school' last year to take a Creative Arts & Design Practice course that I love, and they have accepted these projects as coursework for the whole of the coming year, so I get to play and experiment as much as I like, how exciting is that?

 

I’ll be doing tons of research and searching for inspiration from other illustrators as well as looking for classes and tutorials that are aimed specifically at illustrating for children, so I do hope that you’ll follow me on this journey so that I may share my discoveries with you.

 

Jennifer and I are also joined in these projects by a talented designer and good friend of mine, Lisa Zainuddin. She has helped me out with hand-lettering a logo for this new venture, using her calligraphic skills to come up with something I love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve then cleaned up and redesigned a new illustration of flying elephants to use as my banner - it’s an illustration I love as it fills me with delight and encourages me to dream big.

 

 

 

 

 

Mariana Black is a pseudonym that I finally decided to use because my real name, Mariana Musa, is too closely aligned with my illustration business, Floating Lemons. I'll explain more once I get that "About" page up and running! As it is, I can already say that this coming year will be full of new discoveries at every step and I’m looking forward to the challenges and joys waiting down the path for me. Cheers.