Kata-illustration

Monday, May 21, 2012

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Hi all,

here is my new art print "Hive Architecture" (Part of Communist Structures Series based on public modernist [commune] housing architecture in former USSR). This is available to shop at my Society6 store as art print, framed art print or stretched canvas in different sizes:

©Kotryna Zukauskaite, shop this at Society6

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Today's inspiration: Mark Twain

"Hicks was born honest; I, without that incumbrance -- so some people said. Hicks saw what he saw, and reported accordingly; I saw more than was visible, and added to it such details as could help. Hicks had no imagination, I had a double supply. He was born calm, I was born excited. No vision could start a rapture in him, and he was constipated as to language, anyway; but if I saw a vision I emptied the dictionary onto it and lost the remnant of my mind into the bargain. " - Mark Twain, Autobiography.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Working on details

Hi everyone, sorry for having no time to update my blog recently. I've just moved back to Vilnius from Moscow and of-course sank in hundreds of meetings, packing and distributing Kata Kiosk stuff to various places, working on various assignments (more about that in future posts) and meeting people, people I've really missed while being in Moscow. It's great to come back and still find long-time friends over here and speak to them as if I've just seen them a day ago.

Well, but the main reason for writing this blog-update is the fact that recently I've focused on children's fiction illustration and working on details which for some time was a hard thing for me to do. As you've probably read in my 2012 resolution I've promised myself this year to dig deeper into things that interest me and children's book and other children-aimed illustration was one of those themes. So I've worked on details with no rush. This action has produced two things: few children's books illustration examples for hunting more picture book / children's fiction literature assignments and a T-shirt for children with a surreal but also detailed print on it. Take a look:

©Kotryna Žukauskaitė, 2012

*******

So the Tshirt's print is based on a contemporary angle of Lithuanian mythology and inspired by well known idea of Tree of Life. I've tried to mix some symbols of contemporary Lithuania (such as air balloons flying over heads in Vilnius on sunny days or architecture of the city) with more folkloric symbols, such as weaved ornaments, wooden craft and fairy-tale-like half-dragon-half-adder creature. Tried my best, so this is how it looks.

©Kotryna Žukauskaitė, 2012

These Tshirts and some other Kata Kiosk items are available to see or buy in my recently updated Etsy store HERE . Sneak-peek:


all items ©Kotryna Žukauskaitė, 2012

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Working on warm tones: 2 new works.

Well hello warm tones!

As you already may have noticed, I'm focusing recently on exercising in fictional Cold War modernist Architecture Series and more casual and decorative 'Shelves' Series.

To start with, this is my go on Cold War Modernist Housing Monstrous Inner Self (or in other words monstrous concepts behind commune housing architecture, not so sunny, plain and simple every-day life in the USSR after all):

shop this print in my Society6 or Artflakes stores, ©Kotryna Zukauskaite

additional products available here, ©Kotryna Zukauskaite

***

I've spent some time recently on not only exercising in drawing different themes/objects, but also on trying to work new limited color schemes so this week was dedicated to limited but contrasting red-yellow-black color mix, which may have been caused by research on old Soviet Propaganda Posters, that I was focusing on recently - its scary how strong visually those graphic posters are in abstract and 'into your face' manners at the same time.

The second work in warm tones is my comeback to a theme of statistics and other data: "At the Statistician's office" art print from the Shelves Series. (My fascination on statistics started with the final major work at Kingston University - "How to Play Statistics" Series). So here it goes, a print for an office wall or a kitchen wall if you start your day from a data-snack as I do:

shop this print in my Society6 or Artflakes stores, ©Kotryna Zukauskaite

additional products available here, ©Kotryna Zukauskaite

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Alina Orlova feat. SunSay

All jokes about Alina's voice {sounding like a screaming cat on a roof} aside, this is an interesting try by Alina Orlva feat. SunSay singing in Lithuanian-Russian-English all at once :))) does it work?

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Black and White, lets have some wine!

oooi!

My new b / w illustrated art print "Bar" (from my Shelves Series) for home or office of those who can't wait for Friday night at the local bar with a nice glass of Friday drink in one's hand! Check out different types of products with this illustration HERE or, if you prefer shopping in Europe, different prints and cards HERE.

here is a large framed version of the print:

©Kotryna Zukauskaite

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Lets sum up the first quarter of 2012

Long time since my last post, but finally I pulled myself together and found time to keep updating this blog which always was a recreational experience for me :)

So back to Moscow for few weeks now, surrounded by Cold War (Soviet) Modern Architecture, and its repetitive and sometimes surreal rhythm, which led me to creating these block-housing series:

©Kotryna Zukauskaite, 2012, Shop these art prints on paper or canvas at my Society6 store

Still in search of my personal illustration 'style', I had time recently to experiment, which led me into directions that I was always leaving for some 'other time': a) focusing on structures, such as 3D structures made of blocks, b) focus on drawing items - different items around me, just to 'feed' my style with more details and more ways to draw in geometric, simplistic, but still recognizable manner, which led me to create these life-style type of series 'Shelves' ('Kitchen', 'Bathroom', 'Candy Store', '(Retro-) Office') aimed as interior decoration (art prints):

©Kotryna Zukauskaite, 2012, Shop these art prints on paper or canvas at my Society6 store

For those interested in buying these prints in different formats (art prints, canvases, cards), take a look to my Society6 and Artflakes stores to find the best offer.

***

By the way, a note for those interested in my professional illustration work: I've recently properly re-arranged my portfolio at http://kata-illustration.com/

***

Aside from commissioned work and art prints I make to keep my 'style' in shape, I'm also trying to find inspiration in Moscow, to eat as much Pierogi as possible, to visit exhibitions from time to time, for example a “Livre d’Artiste” (The Spanish collection. Picasso, Dali, Miro, Gris, Tapies, Clave. From the collection of George Gens and Boris Freedman) - "Book by an artist" - exhibition at the Pushkin state museum of Fine Arts and also the most recent exhibition I've visited (just yesterday) at the Multimedia Art Museum (MAMM) : besides other stuff, most inspirational parts of the exhibtion were:

• Photographs of New York by William Klein, full of ( ~ 1955) typography and other textures of the incredible city: http://www.mamm-mdf.ru/exhibitions/nyu-york-1955/

by William Klein

• Gorgeous photographs by Martin Parr: full of pop culture, trash and nostalgia for a childhood summers full of ice-cream: http://www.mamm-mdf.ru/exhibitions/posledniy-priyut-fotografii-nyu-braytona-19831985/

by Martin Parr

***

Well and besides illustrating, trying to find cultural inspirations, and understand Moscow and its life-style, I've also visited couple of new cafes here, one of which was "Products" («Продукты») at the Red October factory (a factory of chocolate in Soviet times, which now has emerged into a to-go place in central Moscow for those who look for clubs / cafes / exhibition spaces concentrated in one place):

these photos are not taken by me, I found these on different Russian websites

And of course... I'm still trying to read Anna Karenina on my Kindle. In Russian. Its still hard, as my head starts to ache from efforts to read in Russian after 10 pages, but I keep trying although Anna appears to be a very weak, naive, and almost boring character who would fit in any South-American soap-opera perfectly, but the way Leo Tolstoy writes, keeps me stuck to the book and to be perfectly honest, a story of Konstantin Levin interests me more than a story of any other character (including Anna herself). One day I'll finish it.

***

After reading this blog-post one might think I have too much free time on my hands. Which is true sometimes, but not true in general. As I stay in Moscow looking for inspiration for month or two and freelancing, my small business Kata Kiosk (this is something I do aside from my freelance career) keeps growing in Vilnius, as I manage to pretend that I'm in Vilnius myself and call people on Skype and make deals in that way. Which is great and which means my "Lithuania" t-shirts (and new yet unpublished children t-shirt version) will appear not only in Vilnius, but in most tourist destinations in Lithuania this summer. Also Kata Kiosk has published new collection of greeting cards in much bigger amounts than in 2011 - and its inspirational to see my small business experiment growing in concrete numbers, although I admit that against all marketing and business 'rules' I allow Kata Kiosk to grow in few different directions at once, and I think I will focus on something in particular later in this journey. There just to much items and themes to illustrate now. And where-ever this road is leading me, after almost a year of having my own small business, I can clearly see it all was worth the effort because - besides all other reasons - I met people I probably would have never met if I didn't start publishing my own illustrated products next to sitting in my room (alone) and being a full-time freelancer. So to conclude, this is a perfect balance for me and I don't plan to change it anytime soon.

***

There's too much life left to live

***

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Resolution 2012!!

Dear Kata, this is what you promise to yourself for 2012:

Read more. Much more than before. Especially focus on reading Russian authors (at least classics) in Russian and English/American authors (dig more into both classics and contemporary literature) in English.
Draw more. Buy and fill a proper sketchbook with observational drawings, focus on faces, arms and animals, architecture. Find a way to do that in geometric but not too primitive style.
Dig deeper. In anything that interest me. Research now as much or more as I used to research issues back in university - with proper sketchbooks, also write more while researching, stop being such a superficial dilettante as I was in 2011. This promise is especially focused on researching costume history, folk ornaments of different nations, visual propaganda and advertising history history / politics in general, fashion illustration, patterns, collages, marketing basics, hand-written typography, typography in general, art history and personalities (biographies) that interest me. Dig deeper, one issue at a time.
Write more. Take out of my head all those half-stories, characters that live their own life in my head, but never on paper. Give at least few hours per week for writing, re-writing what was written, and try to write a full story, not one of those typical-to-me half stories that have no ending or too many words that lead to wrong direction and distract me from actual story-line.
Send more self-promotional cards to editorial art directors in UK, EU and USA. More than once per year.
COLLAGE MORE. After graduating from Kingston I somehow managed to work in vector all the time, and very rarely cut out something from paper and glue to other piece of paper. This is really bad, and it really starts to scare me, so I promise to actually open my plastic folder of colored card and cut-outs from magazines (the folder, that I always take with me to Moscow and back to Vilnius whenever I change location few times per year).
Try new things, go to new places.
(+ few silent promises that could not be told out loud)

Sunday, December 18, 2011

RIP Hitch

Life is a terrible thing to waste.

So I hope I haven’t wasted too much of it.

- Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens has passed away. I thought I would write this post as soon as I heard the news, but too many thoughts crossed my mind at that moment, so I had to give myself few moments, few days I should say, to sort it out in my head before writing this little obituary.

Was he a socialist in some point of his life? - Yes.
Did he express very right-wing ideas on different times of his life? - Yes.
Did he contradicted himself more than once? - YES
Did I agree on everything he said? - No. Did it make me think and provoked my mind? - YES, and this is the best compliment I could ever tell to anyone.
And YES, he was not only a polemicist on the outside, he seemed to be one in the inside too, which is why I will always respect him, as it shows a life-long growth, a state of mind in constant search of a new argument, not only strong in its meaning but also brilliantly phrased, struggling with everyone who stands in the way of principle, even if that someone was Hitchens himself.

Not so many people are brave enough to be themselves, to admit that their job was their life and that it all was worth it after-all:

"It’s not for everybody. Not everyone wants to always be an outcast or out of step or against the stream. But if you do feel that the consensus doesn’t speak for you, if there’s something about you that makes you feel that it would be worth being unpopular or marginal for the chance to lead your own life and have a life instead of a career or a job, then I can promise you it is worthwhile, yes."

- Hitchens on my favorite interview on summing up his life - on Charlie Rose show - http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11168

Thank you, Christopher Hitchens, for reminding me that not everyone has to grow out of youthful maximalism during very confusing times in my life when I almost chose an easy way.

Rest in peace, Hitch', I really hope you are not in heaven now, but just in case you are, I hope you're at least enjoying the argument with God about the fact he does not exist.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Crafty Christmas Cards!

Hi all, just wanted to present you few of my folk inspired crafty but professionally printed blank Christmas cards that you can buy at my Etsy Store ; here they are (and there are more on Etsy):

Ever dreamed of getting lost in the forest where every tree is a Christmas tree? ©Kotryna Žukauskaitė

Christmas Wreath! ©Kotryna Žukauskaitė

Rocking Reindeer! ©Kotryna Žukauskaitė

Christmas in the country-side! ©Kotryna Žukauskaitė

Going home for Christmas! ©Kotryna Žukauskaitė

Snow flakes falling! ©Kotryna Žukauskaitė

These come in sets of 10, envelopes included.

Kata Kiosk on Etsy

Also don't forget to check

KATA KIOSK website at www.katakiosk.lt

all images ©Kotryna Žukauskaitė, 2011

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

KATA KIOSK re-launched!

Ladies and Gents, finally after long weeks of working and waiting for the right moment, I've relaunched a proper website for my illustrated products brand KATA KIOSK separatly from my editorial/book portfolio. These are pure self-initiated products (tees, cards, souvenirs, etc) that I sell on Etsy and 'offline' stores in Lithuania, so please check it out at www.katakiosk.lt! I would be very grateful if you could tweet or share on your facebook wall this newly re-branded small business adventure, as I appreciate every new visitor! P.s. let me know what you think!! ;-)

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Queen of Rage

what "don'ts" do inspire you?

As its a long weekend back here in Vilnius, I decided to put my serious assignments aside and give myself some time to exercise something I would not normally do, just to give my brains a break. So the exercise was to illustrate few things I hate most in illustration and pop-culture in general, so those were:

pocket-sized pet fetishism
pink+purple color scheme
photoshop use without knowing how to use it (pixelated, oversaturated, all-effects-on images without any irony)
cute stitching patterns
over-the-top cuteness although I love over-the-top aesthetics in general
all sort of non-ironical kitsch especially kitsch in politics
someone looking from the image straight to a viewer.
no-questions-asked, no-provocation, no-thought-involved advertising/design
cult of beauty
those scary cat-patterned bags I see everywhere I go

So, this is a result of trying to include all those 'inspirations' into one image:

Queen of rage: what "don'ts" do inspire you?

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

ETSY!

Big KATA KIOSK update coming very soon with new website, new production and new everything! Take a small glimpse of the future look of Kata Kiosk and check out KATA KIOSK's ETSY SHOP FINALLY AVAILABLE at http://www.etsy.com/shop/KataKiosK?ref=pr_shop !!!! more cards coming this month! Also, please please 'like' KATA KIOSK facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kata-Kiosk/175076925843579 and keep checking it for big news in late October!

Till then, these are wedding cards 'Rococo Garden' series that are already in my Etsy. Spreading the word would be very very very appreciated, thanks!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/KataKiosK?ref=pr_shop

Golden autumn. Petersburg. Life.

It's been a while since my last personal post on this blog and sorry to all my followers for that (one of them even wrote me an e-mail, asking if I've ever post anything again :))) ) but recent month was a real rollacoaster in my personal and professional life, and I don't even know where to start and where to stop to tell a story about it.

So as I'm sitting in front of a window in my hometown Vilnius and see few golden trees in front of me shivering a word 'autumn autumn' already, so its about time to do some retro/introspective thinking. And those thoughts for me now starts with thinking on dearests friends, and a concept of friendship itself. It seems that recently it finally took a shape for me - sometimes it takes me a while - I don't want any random people near me, honestly, I've learned few hard lessons recently and made my conclusions: no more effort from me to to anyone who never puts any effort into the friendship, no feeling uncanny or even guilty when talking about my plans (of ruling the world!!!) in front of anyone who puts me down every time or takes that as dry careerism and an insult to their own indifference and lack of dreams. I'm done with people who take others success as something that make themselves look worse, I'm done with that and I wish I could say it breaks my heart, but it really doesn't when 'friendships' with people like that end.

----

Well anyway, did I mention that there was an European Basketball championship (Eurobasket 2011) just held here in my home-country Lithuania? It was and it seems a country passed the test with A+ except of the fact we didn't win any medals :))) But somehow even with no medals it felt as a big celebration over here and of course there were few more tourists than normally in September, which was not bad for my 'Lithuania' t-shirt and other souvenir-stuff sales. Plus: now I have my second favored basketball team in Europe (the most favorite of course is Lithianian national team) - so the second place in my personal ranking goooooessss toooooo.... ----- Macedonia! Well done, guys, I wish you've won your bronze, cause you really were worth of it.

So after those dramatic games I needed a break and is there a better place than St.Petersburg for that? Long walks even on a rainy day are worth doing there, not mentioning an improvised visit to the concert by Nina Karlsson or a Graphic Novel festival, great food in Petersburg's cafes, great people, beautiful old-town architecture and great atmosphere hanging in the air, and there is just nothing bad to say about that place, one of my most-loved train-destinations in the whole world.

train station where train from Vilnius comes. Nice architecture, especially when its the first thing you see in Petersburg at 6 o'clock in the morning

a wonderful drawing from the exhibition by Kojiro AKAGI

At the Graphic Novel festival (this was just the entrance, much more ofcourse was hidden inside the building and also scattered all around Petersburg

At the concert of Nina Karlsson

"Demand for: croissants and sandwiches"

Well, thats it for this time, fellows, sorry for a long delay, just needed to put my thoughts together, to sit in the corner of a room hidden in my bathrobe with earphones and sun-glasses on. Now I'm done with it and back to my previous life with few stones taken out of my pockets. Life gets easier every-day.

P.S. I think this band 'BrassBastardz' made of few Lithuanian musicians will be a soundtrack of my autumn2011 - check them out (at http://brassbastardz.bandcamp.com/ or their Facebook page) they just won few 'The People's Music Awards' in the UK and I don't think there is anything that could stop them now.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Lithuania: Country-side, Nida, Vilnius.

Holidays. Finally!!!

Long story told short, it all started with me traveling from Moscow to my home-country Lithuania, re-packing a bag for a weekend in the country-side, then re-packing a bag for a short 2-days trip to the Lithuanian seaside, Nida in particular, and then coming bag, walking in Vilnius old-town during my birthday and later that day going to the historical capital of Lithuania, Trakai, losing my bag there (with keys, debit cards, cash, pretty new cell phone, etc.) and finding it at six o'clock in the morning the next day.

Zoo. Mammuth. Sunday. Moscow

Sunday time – lazy time

What a Sunday was recent Sunday. Something I really needed - good rest, big inspiration, tasty food, and ofcourse - RAIN here in Moscow, where I'm staying from time to time. After a week full of sitting in front of monitor and illustrating a Math school book for grammar school students, I finally got a chance to escape my room and have some real rest. It all started with a french film 'Mammuth' (starring Gérard Depardieu Mammuth Yolande Morreau, Anna Mouglalis, Isabelle Adjani, Benoit Poelvoorde and Miss Ming) in old Soviet-era cinema 'Kinocentr na Krasnoj Presne',

a so-so story where a character of G.Depardieu is searching for his new poetic himself while traveling to places of his youth in France. Although not the best film in history of cinematography, but good enough for lazy Sunday morning with a big paper-glass of Pepsi in one hand and ice-cream in another.

So after seeing a film me and my bf somehow appeared next to the entrance to Moscows Zoo across the street from the cinema, and the Zoo, as appeared later, was not as small as we thought at first.. Well first of all, as it was Sunday, people from all around Russia, visiting the capital, were the dominating part of visitors there, which was interesting to observe, as most of them found it necessary to take pictures of every creature posing next to it.

Secondly, why why WHY would you put a fun-fair stuff next to a cage of the tiger? So that was a bit surreal as I didn't expect to see plastic cars or spaceships in a Zoo.

And thirdly - some of the aviaries were very small, too small in my opinion. So besides all that, its a pretty big zoo with a variety of creatures and most fascinating for me was to observe all those birds, reminding fairy-tales or folk-tales about bird of happiness and all other magic birds. Very inspirational. Also I saw a cat, which somehow came into zoo, found a piece of grass in front of zebra's yard and enjoyed all the attention she got, as people started to feed and flatter her. I've never seen anyone more high than that cat, who accidentally got all that attention, in my life.

Some other surreal thing - THE TERRARIUM made out of an old soviet-era building, strangely enough, reminding a small cinema somewhere in the province. Look at the typography!!

Well anyway, besides all that, the day in the zoo was interrupted by

Amy.

R.I.P. Amy Winehouse.

You were a soundtrack of my late teen-years and I used to listen to you on my way from University to the airport in UK for many many times. For more times than I would like to admit.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Welcome to the Rococo Garden!

Ladys and Gent's, let me present you my newest product series - Rococo Garden wedding cards series, inspired by French and Slavic ornaments!

Shop in Lithuania at:
C&D style (Vilnius, PC Europa, PC Panorama)
Baltas Angelas, Vilnius (PC Europa, PC Gedimino 9)
Popieriaus Stilius (Basanaviciaus g. 25, Vilnius, www.popieriausstilius.lt)
UAB "DS Baltic" / Vestuves1

directions for shopping world-wide coming soon. If you urgently want to buy some of these outside of Lithuania, please contact me directly at katrez[@]gmail.com