This time I have started sketching with one thing in mind – draw greed. Ugly, terrible greed. That was my idea when I was challenged on Facebook to illustrate Seven Deadly Sins through animal figures. I’ve asked my fans what to illustrate and here was the single one, suggesting the Seven Deadly Sins. This is a big challenge but I have to say that it’s something I have been thinking about for a while now – this and illustrating the seasons, horoscope signs, tarot cards etc. Not sure if these are all illustration gimmicks, but they are a perfect creative exercise, that’s for sure.

So here I was, with an empty sketchbook sheets, aiming to draw terrible greed. I started with the idea of an evil magpie with her beak filled with shining teeth, and her neck feeling heavy under the  weight of all the jewellery she was wearing. And I think that was the only serious Greed sketch that I did. Then the magpie evolved into a rounder penguin, the teeth were still shining but with the braces, and what was supposed to be Greed, became Gluttony – pictured by two lazy penguins feeding each other with plenty of fish. How did my brain come to this conclusion? No idea. But anyway, here’s the detail of penguin illustration. The full image will be unveiled tomorrow, together with the gluttonous Friday illustration with Creature Mag. Enjoy the Gluttony (perfect topic at the end of carnival as well!) and let’s hope that the next sins illustrated will be more notorious, creepy and terrifying! So that we sin no more. x

I love it when every week there is a deadline. That’s why I love so much contributing to the Happy Friday feature in the Creature Magazine. For every Friday, I have to create a Creature celebrating Happy Friday – the end of a hard working week, and the start of the lovely, relaxed weekend. To view the creatures I created, simply go to the Creature Mags website. I hope you’ll love them all!

The New Year is here. No resolutions whatsoever. Thanks God for that. And no, I will not create an illustration a day on a particular topic – at least I will not start it on 1st of Jan.

I can already hear your thoughts wondering “So, what is she going to be up to this year then?”. Well, I would have answered if I had a magic ball. But due to a lack of such I can only tell you what I’m doing now. Which is pretty exciting as well. So couple of things:

I’m just waiting for a confirmation that my illustrations made it to a fabulous culture/…/music mag
In January I’ll be testing my strengths in creating caricatures – illustrating some hilarious written word
Talking bananas are the next big thing
And I’m continuously working on a number of personal project. A snippet of the recent can be found here. It’s called Black Magic, and was born as a mixture of Rembrandt’s big collar educated boys, and my thoughts of taking this rich look out of the context and putting it in the new environment. I am extra happy with the result and I hope you love it as well!

Have a good start of 2012. xxx

Here comes the update on what I’ve been up to recently, since illustrating some beautiful editorial faces from Heart Home Magazine. I loved that project!
The second editorial project I had this month was to create an illustration for the winter ‘Night Issue’ of The Other Side Magazine. I was more than happy that I was to illustrate insomnia – all the images popped into my head of beautiful tired eyes, and the hair flowing in the air and mixing with the images from the dreams. You can see the result here. I am now awaiting the hard copy of The Other Side magazine – that’s my first print magazine presence! Very happy about that.
Recently you could have also spotted my illustrations in the Creature Mag, where I contribute every Friday with a Happy Friday illustration. And as we all know how tough it’s sometimes to get through the week (especially when you try to marry two jobs at the same time), the inspirations for the reasons of Friday happiness are endless. So make sure you check back to Creature Magazine every Friday, for a weekend mood uplifting.
And I guess that’s it from me before Christmas. Now I’m more than ready to unwind and relax, and come back to London recharged with lots of creative ideas and new projects.
Have a great Christmas time yourself and a great start to 2012. xx
J SOWA

I have recently had a great pleasure of creating illustrations specifically for the winter issue of Heart Home Magazine. You can view them in the magazine here on page 1 and the back cover.

Heart Home Magazine launched in September 2011 and is a quarterly digital publication celebrating all that is unique and good about interior decor and lifestyle.  It was founded by Arianna Trapani (Arianna Interiors) – a lovely lady whom I met in person at the Decorex International event, Carole King (Dear Designer’s Blog) who’s a fantastic interiors specialist and Daniel Nelson from Atelier Tally.

The illustration brief was very straightforward, asking to create an illustration of the magazine’s editors for the magazine’s first page, and one Christmas style illustration for the last page of winter issue. It was a pleasure to draw Heart Home Mag’s team, with the ladies looking very glamorous in gorgeous dresses and beautiful hair, and Daniel looking uber-smart and masculine, wearing a black suit and a herringbone bow tie.

I couldn’t be happier with the results, and am very glad to hear all the good comments about the work from the Heart Home Magazine editors themselves. You can view the works in the Commissions page of my website, but by all means, visit Heart Home Mag website to view it in the magazine itself.
Enjoy!