Perhaps one day I will design something as beautiful as these floral patterns from the Botanic Garden.

tickle the imagination

Have you heard of the Tickle The Imagination online mag? Well, if not, then you definitely should check it out. It’s an Australian online magazine run by Tanya Collier, with beautifully styled photos, great ideas for parties, home decor and tutorials. The name speaks for itself, total inspiration.

I am so glad that I contributed my share. Tanya did a great job of presenting Skazka fabrics. Don’t you agree?

Fine Finds: water blues

Glorious day at Watsons Bay…

a little saying

I made this a few days ago for myself. I thought I should share it with you. It gets me through rough times.

Instead of looking for inspiration in others take the time to look within yourself…

Fine Finds: nautical

Story and sneak peek.

Walking in the woods with my family, picking little forest strawberries and immediately consuming them along the way…Baskets full of mushrooms… Spotting birds between the branches.

For my inspiration I quite often go back to my childhood. The memories of it make me smile and warm my heart. I think my parents did a truly great job at providing me with experiences that later in life brought me beautiful reminiscences and with these are inspirations.

I especially remember our trips to the woods for mushroom picking. We would leave for the woods early, about 4 am. My dad carrying me to our tiny car half asleep and I am waking up with the forest scenery. Grandma and grandad explaining about mushroom picking. Having a picnic lunch in the meadow, don’t know why, but food always tasted better on our mushroom picking adventures. The sounds, the light just beautiful…I even can smell the woods air, now, while writing about it.

My imagination would run wild on those trips, I would dream about bears walking up to me. Or are witch flying above and forest creatures following our steps. I would end up in imaginary fairy-tale for the rest of the day.

The fairy-tale is called skazka in Russian and that’s what I called my new collection, because SKAZKA designs are enthused by those memories…

All above, is my little story and sneak peek of my new work. I thought it’s important to share here with you a bit of my life, in order to understand what is behind my designs and where some of them are coming from.

Lesson with Eeli #3

I finally did one more lesson with Eeli “Paint and draw a hand painted postcard”. Honestly, it was more like… lets say inspired by Eeli’s lesson. There is something wrong with me; I am a total fiasco at following the instructions. I see it and do it my own way. Not sure, is it good or bad…

In her lesson, Eeli recommends to cut paper into pieces of needed size, which I did. Paint freely on cards, using acrylic colours and black marker for details. This is the part where I failed 🙂 I used water colour and gouache instead; the black marker part is missing too. But I like the result. When I looked at little paintings, I saw a pattern in my work. Some paintings were united either by colour or shape or texture. You see, they are like little cohesive collections. I definitely will use them in further works.

Fine Finds: cats

Usually it’s a wordless post, but I feel like I own here some explanation. Fine Finds posts are my photographs of what I find interesting, inspiring or exciting for future designs. I photograph images on my walks and unite these images under one common. Today’s post is Cats 🙂 I am mad about these furry creatures and I love getting to know them whenever I see them on the street. Some are happy, sweet and soft characters, some are cranky and scaredy kittens, but those who I made friends with and not shy, I photographed. So here they are my furry friends …

maybe one day I will create something as cool as this :)…

found via WORTHIS

Fine Finds: exotics

My Creative Space

After participating at an inspirational and intoxicating Shibori workshop on Sunday that was held at the Powers House Museum and run by Pepa Martin and Karen Davis from Shibori , I’m working on a new type of project again! Experimenting and making new products.

these indigo pillow cases I have dyed at shibory workshop

Last night I dyed silk/cotton fabric, calico and lace to make large scarfs and pillow cases. I will try to finish all off today as soon as fabric is dry. Can’t wait to show here the finished product!

I am absolutely amazed with the whole process of fabric dyeing: techniques itself easy and quick, colours are bright, not much colour mixing involved, however there is plenty of room for colour experimentation. And there is no right or wrong in fabric dyeing (well it’s my point of view), not like in screen printing where things have to line up and you have to be accurate and precise. With fabric dyeing you are free to make mistakes!

Visit other creative spaces here!