HOME | DD

Description
This is an illustration I made of my three pets turned into an original folktale! The concept of this picture was to make this like a dollhouse. The house is cut in half so you can see the inside and outside. This was inspired by an old cabin my mother used to live in for a short time that was build by her grandfather and later renovated by her father. I used photographs they took of it as reference and asked my mother about any important household objects. On the floor next to the china cabinet is called a "Samovar", which is a metal kettle used to brew and heat up water. Its a traditional Russian household object that almost everyone had since electric stoves weren't really a thing. Another important household object I added was the icon in the upstairs shelf in the corner. Because (most) Russians were Orthodox religious, there were not many churches or places or worship around, so there was always an icon in the house that was used as a mini worship-station. A few more notable things are the traditional wooden clogs, which I hid a Domovoy inside (a Domovoy is a Russian folk-tale spirit who lives in your house to protect it, you, and love a clean house, hence the picture titled "Весенняя уборка" (Spring Cleaning). And finally you also have the cat upstairs wearing a traditional Russian dress called a "Sarafan". I was in general happy with the goal of this picture and composition, mainly the materials failing me was the issue.

This was a very difficult picture to color in. It was multi-media, consisting of the three main materials: watercolor for clothing and fabric, oil pastel for the wood in the house, and colored pencil for all the rest. I've recently learned that my new pack of colored pencils I used was very bad quality and did not color in/darken very well. Post-finishing this picture I tested new pencils with the same paper and discovered water soluble colored pencils work way better, so I can consider remaking this eventually. I also used my mechanical pencil for most of the outlines and a white wax pencil to make the water spill effect on the floor. The most difficult part of this picture was the border. Usually these patterns are very clean and very crisp and clear lines which was very difficult to achieve with colored pencils, low-quality as they were. Next time If I did remake this I would do so digitally for better results.

Description
This is an illustration I made of my three pets turned into an original folktale! The concept of this picture was to make this like a dollhouse. The house is cut in half so you can see the inside and outside. This was inspired by an old cabin my mother used to live in for a short time that was build by her grandfather and later renovated by her father. I used photographs they took of it as reference and asked my mother about any important household objects. On the floor next to the china cabinet is called a "Samovar", which is a metal kettle used to brew and heat up water. Its a traditional Russian household object that almost everyone had since electric stoves weren't really a thing. Another important household object I added was the icon in the upstairs shelf in the corner. Because (most) Russians were Orthodox religious, there were not many churches or places or worship around, so there was always an icon in the house that was used as a mini worship-station. A few more notable things are the traditional wooden clogs, which I hid a Domovoy inside (a Domovoy is a Russian folk-tale spirit who lives in your house to protect it, you, and love a clean house, hence the picture titled "Весенняя уборка" (Spring Cleaning). And finally you also have the cat upstairs wearing a traditional Russian dress called a "Sarafan". I was in general happy with the goal of this picture and composition, mainly the materials failing me was the issue.

This was a very difficult picture to color in. It was multi-media, consisting of the three main materials: watercolor for clothing and fabric, oil pastel for the wood in the house, and colored pencil for all the rest. I've recently learned that my new pack of colored pencils I used was very bad quality and did not color in/darken very well. Post-finishing this picture I tested new pencils with the same paper and discovered water soluble colored pencils work way better, so I can consider remaking this eventually. I also used my mechanical pencil for most of the outlines and a white wax pencil to make the water spill effect on the floor. The most difficult part of this picture was the border. Usually these patterns are very clean and very crisp and clear lines which was very difficult to achieve with colored pencils, low-quality as they were. Next time If I did remake this I would do so digitally for better results.