Sit Down With Our #090 Featured Artist
Polina Zavodina
Instagram / @polarts_iv
Featured Artist / #102 ScrawlrBox
After finishing an art school I got interested in portraits and it became my favourite topic to draw. My art is about combination human and nature’s beauty, best-loved supplies are watercolour, pencil and ink.
I’m 23 y.o., now getting my design bachelor’s degree and developing in different spheres of my art life, creating tutorials and lessons, planning a big course about fountain pen drawing.
Will be glad to see you on my social media where I share my art and thoughts, you’re welcome!
What do you like most about working with metallic watercolours?
I've always been into decorating my artworks with different details and metallic watercolour is a great way to do it! I love this gentle glow which can be seen under light and an opportunity to blend the colours and make sparkling gradients. It’s easy to work with and doesn’t need any special preparations
Do you store your things all neat and tidy? Or is it more of an ‘organised’ mess?
Between my drawing sessions it’s always neat, all my brushes and palettes are clean and ready to be involved in a new art process. But when it begins... All my table is full of paint tubes, brushes, pencils – it’s an art catastrophe haha. And it lasts until the drawing is finished. As for storing art supplies in general, I have them sorted. Each type of paint or paper has its own box to be found faster, it’s very comfortable.
Do you do any ‘warm up’ techniques or do you go straight into a final piece?
Sometimes I can make a little sketch before starting a big artwork, just to see the composition better and place all the details. Also, whenthe medium is new for you, it’s better to make swatches and get acquainted with it before starting a big piece. So the warming up work is optional for me. Sometimes art is a moment and it comes only once, it’s important not to lose it among all the warming up sketches
You create a lot of beautiful portraits, where do you look for inspiration or reference for these?
I start by searching portrait references orjust beautiful pictures on Pinterest. It can be everything - landscapes, color shades, other artists’ works, flowers and animals. Usually my art is a combination of human and nature’s beauty, so among my references you can find different types of photography which can be combined in one drawing later.
Where is your favourite place in the world?
I think I haven’t met it yet. If I could imagine, I’d explain it like a hidden and quiet garden, full of green and sunshine, with a nice view of mountains. Sounds like Shire from Lord of the Rings films! Such places give me a lot of inspiration.
f you could go back in time to meet your younger self, or go to the future to meet your older self, what would you choose?
I’d choose to meet my older self, it’s so curious. I could get some wise advice or just have a look at myself as an experienced, happy and succeed person. I believe it will be like this.
You’re super active on Social media, as well as having a popular YouTube following. Do you feel like there is a lot of pressure on artists today to maintain and keep asocial media following?
I think it depends on your “artisticactivity” type. Some artists are soactive in real life – they have workshopsand exhibitions and sometimes forget about showing their artworks on social media. But for artists like me, who aremore active online the following andthe attention of the audience is very important. Sometimes I feel upset whenmy art doesn’t get much attention and feedback, I think that I did something wrong and it’s obviously not true. So yes, there is a lot of pressure about social media on me... from myself :) and my nearest goal is to become more independent and confident about my art getting only positive emotions from interaction with social media.
And lastly... have you ever accidentally drank your paint water?!?
Yes! It happened a couple of times because usually I have a cup of tea on my table prepared for a nice drawing session. And when you’re totally into art process, you just don’t think about such unnecessary things and take something similar to a cup without looking.Spoiler – watercolor water is not tasty.