Irina Troitskaya

Lost your portrait lately when the winter blew

2009-10-29T00:32:02+03:00

I'm working with Level 2 student this year and it's exiting, but sometimes exhausting work. These moments I just need to take a break for a couple of minutes. I hide in the stuff room and... guess what? I draw there. The self-portrait above is the result of my Friday escape.

Also did you know you can bring your Faber-Castells back to life with tap water? I'm talking about PITT artist pens in particular.

Sarah Applebaum is exactly what I need during these gloomy rainy autumn days.

If you're a student, take part. This makes me regret my Master of Arts is over.

Your so called vendetta was light like birds feathers

2009-10-21T14:01:53+04:00

Full of random good news. I mean it!

My iPhone wallpapers on Poolga.com. Actually, all the wallpapers I have now are from that site.

Took part in a competition, but yesterday found out Rodion Kitaev made it too. Now he's gonna win!

Ivan Velicko's collection of polish posters could help me to accept the situation.
Breath slowly! You're on Poolga now. Agrrrrh!

There's a bear inside your stomach

2009-10-18T14:47:22+04:00

If you're laughing and look a bit surprised after you've finished your picture - be sure it's one of your bests.

But it'll take a lifetime to learn to draw like a child. Just look how they interpret works of mature illustrators!

My friend has problems with winter and autumn

2009-10-15T00:34:08+04:00

It's ok to visit exhibitions again, means it's autumn. Today we've seen some of Vladimir Favorsky's illustrations for children's books. His engravings had a great influence on the development of modern Russian graphics.

Dreaming about Victor Pivovarov exhibition. He's stunningly perfect.

Also now I'm in the Luerzer's Archive "200 Best Illustrators worldwide 2009/10".

Take what you have gathered from coincidence

2009-10-07T16:59:53+04:00

It was nice to find some of my drawings published during trip to St. Petersburg.

We had a lunch in Zoom cafe and accidentally saw Jaakko Pallasvuo exhibition. One of his drawings is right behind me. It was dark, I know.

Amazing book about easter eggs by Sonya Solonchenko

Monkey see monkey do I don't know why

2009-09-14T23:25:53+04:00

Meet the new monkey set.

Look at the Ben Newman's Russian doll for Pocko

Fairytales of yesterday will grow but never die

2009-09-13T15:09:59+04:00

The opening of my Matreshka's ehxibition was lovely - calm and easy. I met several good people I knew for a long time through the internet but never met them in real. One of them was Lyalya Vaganova, an illustrator. And the other one was Serge Kuzhavski from OPEN!Design&Concepts. That's what the exhibitions are for! Meet people! Thank you everybody who dropped in.

And oh I know they like the fragility of handmade

2009-09-11T10:44:03+04:00

Preparing my personal exhibition of Matreshka dolls. It was too late when I've realized I have no business cards. So I made them myself. Each one is slightly unique now.

If you're in Moscow, I'll be pleased to see you tomorrow, Saturday 12th at 18:00. The place called Mesto and it's a ten-minute walk from Kitay-Gorod subway station.

Before they turn the summer into dust

2009-08-23T13:52:16+04:00

The summer is nearly over and the one above was my last comics page for Kids magazine. Will miss it! Anyway nature abhors a vacuum. So let's hope a new project will be even more interesting.

My friends from Lviv Irena and Eugene launched their new site Keepa.

Everybody wants to look like a dude from a glossy magazine

2009-08-15T14:20:55+04:00

Living my double life. Sketching patterns based on Russian embroidery and spending lo-fi dacha vacations I'm drawing illustrations for a glossy magazine.

Elliott Burford's Spam project

A matryoshka doll seems to know it all

2009-08-06T12:02:21+04:00

These are matryoshka dolls from my childhood. Found them in the attic of our summer house, dacha.

Spanish black&white magazine The Gutenberg's Quaterly published some photographs of my matryoshka dolls in their second issue. The funny thing is they asked my permission to publish the colorful set there! It will be printed in September.

Valerio Vidali's new book
Gala & Fedor The Cat

So I went out to the country, sat down on some straw

2009-08-01T16:35:03+04:00

A lot happened while I was away. Design-bureau "Shuka" has launched Letterwork site. Sandra made a new start with her blog. Nate's methodology for creating new ideas is a must. Be back with more news soon!

Is it a free giveaway of a black cadillac

2009-07-16T15:42:42+04:00

Yesterday was the last day of Tzeh's summer intensive courses of illustration. We made it!

Had a lot of unsent mail this morning, a postman was a bit surprised to see me. Don't forget to check your mailbox in two weeks, my friends!

Karin Cyrén
Pau Masiques

When record shops were still on top and vinyl was all that they stocked

2009-06-28T18:00:39+04:00

Got those vinyl records with my design few days ago. There were so many of them in my childhood and now it's a rare thing. Glad I had a chance. Who knows what will happen with vinyl records in let's say next ten years? Hope they'll survive.

Illustrators Envelops
Best paper bag ever by Rui Vitorino Santos

I've been cleaning, scrubbing the plates and weeding out the garden

2009-06-15T14:52:58+04:00

Lonely Elk gave me an advice of a programmer - clean my table. The result came immediately. I made a tiny book for doodling "Draw your bird". There's a bird's face on each page and you can add some lines to come out with your own bird. I gave one book to Lonely Elk as a reward and he drew me the first bird in this project. Think it's an ostrich.

Espen Friberg
Kai Asserson Nødland

As happy as a girl in a magazine

2009-06-09T15:31:47+04:00

Uppercase magazine published two double spreads of the interview with me about sketching, plus some of my drawings. It was a honor to take part in their first spring issue. It arrived yesterday right from Canada! The paper is very good and their design is so neat, this's one of the best magazines I've ever seen. Well done!

I wish I could do a collabo with them some day. Keep my fingers crossed.

Get the sneak peek, Issue 1, Spring 2009

Going to the jungle where the elephant roams

2009-06-06T14:38:10+04:00

Got a lot of nice things recently. The elephant is from Sabob, paper bookmarks made by Vera Evstafieva and the newspaper was printed for the exhibition of graphic design and illustration course of British Higher School where I'm working as a tutor.

Have a great weekend!

Before I had an interview, a photo shoot and a show

2009-06-04T13:22:06+04:00

The day has a good start. I do not allude breakfast. It's all about that interview. The loveliest girl Petula, the owner of Yellowgoat Design blog, asked me some really in-depth questions. Answering them I even discovered something new about myself. Means the questions were excellent. I was a journalist and I can tell you.

Back to my sketchbooks and personal projects now.

Toshiyuki Fukuda
Cornelia Odonovan

Children of mutation are saving the seed

2009-06-01T22:19:54+04:00

Some weird finds. Not much news.

Serge Bloch
An Awesome Book!

But there's room for two

2009-05-23T22:44:01+04:00

Here's the result of my Friday fortune-telling. I was surprised as much as you are right now. I thought I took out one piece of paper, but there where two sticked together. The point is I was going to send a package to Sandra long before that anniversary raffle off thing. It seems out swap blessed by heaven now! Anyway I decided to leave things as they are and each of you, my dear Zime and Sandra, will get a small white castle. Congrats!

This anniversary may never be the same

2009-05-20T23:25:33+04:00

Tonight it's a tiny anniversary, one year of blogging here. Congratulations my dear readers!

I’m going to raffle off one of these tiny embossed castles - just leave a comment below and I’ll choose a winner on Friday. Please, leave your e-mail or blog name so I could identify you.

The wind is low the birds will sing

2009-05-18T15:38:04+04:00

It was the birds invasion. Left to right: Blanca Helga, Malota, me, Elvira H. Mateu.

Almost two years ago I made a picture for Newporker pdf magazine. Finally it's back on the track and you can download it here.

The words have been drained from this pencil

2009-05-16T01:31:22+04:00

Recently I was interviewed by Bill Turner, the owner of The Tools Artists Use blog. He asked me about my favorite pencils and sketchbooks. Do I need to say I can spend hours at the store with fine art materials?

Alireza Goldouzian
Rashin Kheirieh

White on white

2009-05-14T00:17:19+04:00

Yesterday I built 25 little white castles.

Hana Akiyama
Martin Haake

Snow can wait, I forgot my mittens

2009-05-07T13:14:00+04:00

Funny interview with Carson Ellis about Siberia, Russia and Irkutsk.

5tac
Maruoka Shinichi

How come nothing rhymes with orange?

2009-05-03T18:27:53+04:00

Aloe

And the birds flew round about

2009-05-02T13:42:33+04:00

The Easter is far behind, but I still have some wooden eggs left. Three tomtits helped to reduce the amount of blanks though. Have four more left. Guess which bird it'll be next time?

Some girls I give all my bread to

2009-05-01T17:13:35+04:00

The best comics of KomMissia VIII Moscow International Festival of Graphic Novel was drawn by eight years old girl named Zhenya. It's my own modest opinion, has nothing to do with all that juries, prizes and so on.

Easter bullfinches

2009-04-20T14:26:10+04:00

Last year I painted owls. Today is still snowing a bit, so it's time for bullfinches. They are perfectly shaped to be an egg especially when it's -30C. These are wooden, absolutely useless as a food. But Masha saved us from hunger by giving the real one painted eggs.

More drawings

2009-04-19T15:18:14+04:00

Made a new page for my sketchbook works of this year. The progress is slow, but everything is much better than three years ago.

So exited about the new site/blog of the community of Russian illustrators Tzeh I'm in. I'm so proud to be part of it.