Saturday, February 13, 2016

Baboushka Kitty


I finally finished this gal. She was going to be my Christmas card last year, but I started her too late, then had some 'real work' deadlines and had to put her aside. 

She is a Russian Baboushka. The traditional baboushka outfit is just a crazy mix of patterns and color, with seemingly no regard for what might go well together. Therein lies its charm. So I pushed that as far as I could and had a lot of fun. The black floral border is a Khokhloma pattern, which is also a Russian thing. 

I could do this same 'look' digitally, and might if I decide to keep going with this kind of art because boy howdy this was fussy to do with pencils, and was s-l-o-w. I also had to burnish (press really hard) to get the colors saturated enough, and that does bad things to one's hand after a while. I wanted to have an original piece though, rather than just a digital file, so I kept going with it.

Here are a couple of details, so you can see that yes, it is in fact colored pencil ~




I will make cards and prints and put them in the arCATecture etsy shop soon, and maybe make some stuff on Zazzle too.


3 comments:

Elizabeth O Dulemba said...

WOW! And you reminded me of another reason I went digital all those years ago... I had forgotten the hand stress. Hm!

Bonny said...

This made me laugh straight off, and then I could marvel at the detail and complexity. Just thinking about burnishing it makes my hands hurt. Beautiful work!

Unknown said...

My great-great-great-grandmama was from Poland, Bubba; she lived in the mountains of PA with Popo at the turn of the century - wish I couldve met them. Yippee! I'll getta meet'm soon in the Great Beyond where Im going.

I'm a sower, we plant the Seed; I'm an artist, we write the Word.

Find-out where we went on our journey far, far away like the synonyMOUSE metaphors which shall creeep stealthily across thy brain bringing U.S. together.

And see if you cannot 'read-between-the-lines' -or- VERBUM SAT SAPIENTI (Latin: words to the wise): here's summore symbiotically-explosive-coolness done in sardonic satires when we passed-away:

Here's what the prolific, exquisite GODy sed: 'the more you shall honor Me, the more I shall bless you' -the Infant Jesus of Prague.

Go git'm, girl. You're incredible.
See you Upstairs...
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