Happy New Year!

This time of the year is usually time to reflect and think about the past 365 days. To me year 2009. was probably one of the most creative and productive years of my life! I've been completely focused on creating art and I felt a deep need to put most of my energy into finding my own illustration style and figuring out what I want to do with it. Since I spent a great deal of my free time and energy working on it a lot of other aspects of my life have been suffering (my social life suffered the most) but I'm really happy because I feel I've learned so much as an illustrator and I'm looking forward to further developing my work.

I hope you all had a great and productive 2009.!


This time of the year is also time to celebrate , of course! I've never felt so ready to embrace a new year and I feel good things are coming!
I didn't make any standard New Year's resolutions but I do have many plans that I'm very excited about. Do you have any plans for 2010 that you're thrilled about or maybe some resolutions?


I'd like to thank you for all of your visits and comments on my blog in the past year! Your support means a lot to me! I wish you a wonderful, joyful New Year 2010!

Back to basics

I spent some time yesterday and this morning just drawing. It felt like I was going back to my basic since I was using only graphic pen and white sheet of paper and no PS, layering or textures I usually use nowadays to finish my illustrations.





And style of these drawings (particularly the second one and the last one) is inspired by this artist.

Happy Holidays!

I wish you all happy and joyful holiday season!

...and so do the animals who gathered in foxes lair to celebrate :)

(You can see the card larger on black background here)

Project 365-nine months

Here are some of my favorites from the past 30 days from my photography project on flickr. I've started a 365 challenge (one of those projects that include taking and posting one , or more photos every day) 9 months ago and despite occasional periods of feeling uninspired I''m still doing it :)

Day 247/365 : magic lamp


Day 251/365 : birds


Day 259/365: bird doodle


Day 264/365: black flowers (paper cut outs)


Day (272/365) : believe


You can see all 274 pictures here.

Illustration Friday: Undone

Even though he ate almost all the big plants in the area Dino decided to go back and eat the last one too because he doesn't like to leave his work undone.

Just a thought (and featured on the creative JAR)

Illustrated:


...and photographed:

I'm sending you lots of love :)
I hope you're all having a great weekend!
xo
Asja

p.s.: I'm off to take some photos of blizzard we're having right now in Croatia and I plan to post my entry for this week's Illustration Friday later today... that is if I don't get swept away by snow and wind hehe :)

UPDATE:
I just found out that "Love is enough" illustration has been featured on the creative JAR.


Yay!

Dodo wondering

...who am I? Why am I here? Shouldn't I be extinct? And why am I covered in this silly pattern ?

Illustration Friday: Hatch

When he found himself in a scary part of the woods, Fox knew he needed to hatch up a plan to escape quickly before those black trees turn into black hands and get him!


But don't worry eventually he finds his way home :)

Pantsless Santa

This is a quick, silly doodle I did for a friend who gets annoyed by many aspects of over commercialized holidays ( too much decoration, cheesy Christmas songs playing everywhere all December long, etc)
It's a Santa, who is pantsless and probably slightly drunk, too :)
(Hm, maybe that's why he forgot his pants.)

And Sretni blagdani means Happy Holidays in Croatian ;-)

The joy of making snowflakes (paper cutouts)

I've been having a lot of fun making paper cutout snowflakes. Originally I started doing them so I can scan them and add them as layers so some of my illustration( such as this or this) but then it became very addictive :) and I noticed that snowflakes can look pretty on their own (not just as addition to illustration):



And they are also very useful as photo props , I used them on a couple of my 365 photos on flickr yesterday:

Four seasons (card designs)

Recently I did a set of card themed four seasons so I thought I might show them to you.


Spring.
Originally, this was ought to be a Summer card, but then I remembered Summer heat and blazing hot weather and this pinkish card suddenly seemed too timid and inappropriate to represent the hottest (and my least favorite ) season of the year.


Summer.


Autumn.


Winter.
This is my personal favorite from the series, mostly because I'm dreaming of snow and really cold weather which always brings happy childhood memories to mind.

Illustration Friday: Entangled

She was entangled in her own daydream.

I wish you a happy first day of the last month of the year. I hope you have a magical December :)