olha pryymak

Don’t feel like I can pull out my oils yet. Here are some crayon drawings of an amazing winter day I witnessed when in Kyiv last week. This is my neighborhood in Kyiv when I am visiting there.  The pine trees were so full of snow that day – they looked gray, so did the winter day. Love how the new high rises when they came up did not wipe out the pine forest around them.  (more…)

Copic marker and pen sketches , A4 format 130 lb paper

Please email me your bid (starting at $75) if you’d like to own this piece.

Just sent out a few of my drawings to the mini-exhibit at the Nebesa boutique in Kyiv for the Moleskine in Ukraine project. The exhibit is to take place h at Nebesa boutique on Podil ( on Mezhygirska 9) opening tomorrow night.

From Kyiv:

Sarah reports loads of new and amazing stuff accumulated in the back rooms of the Zeh gallery that she trove for hours thanks for the generosity of the owner Oleksandr.  We are both sharing our regret of not investing into Yuri Pikul’s paintings from last year, which by now rose 7 times in price.

Conte crayon and ink pen on 90lb A4 sized paper

Please email me your bid (starting at $45) if you’d like to own this piece.

These are two pictures from today’s life drawing at the Candid Gallery in Islington.  I am really enjoying the Conte crayon with which I made these.

Please send your bid by email if you want to purchase these drawings. All the paintings and drawings on this blog are for sale, unless otherwise specified.

Copic markers and ink pen on A4 sized 130 lb paper

Please email me your bid (starting at $45) if you’d like to own this piece.

Past Sunday was a fantastic day for taking the train to Oxford. Impression of the town is great: lots of divine architecture, lots of biking around, laid back although somewhat restrained atmosphere and some great art to experience.  Wonderful chapels and great open green spaces added to the impression.

Meanwhile I am working on another chocolates oil painting, hopefully will post it tomorrow.

Look out for the Urban Sketches project that launch in November. I will co-blog on it about London – in pictures! Perfect.

Copic marker in Moleskine

Please email me your bid (starting at $45) if you’d like to own this piece.

This morning was glorious for getting out and taking some coffee at my favoared coffee show. Indulged a bit in studying the Dutch (here and here as well) , and reflected on some Italian paintings highlighted in yesterday’s talk and draw session at the National Gallery. Looking forward to spending more time outside this weekend. London is treating everybody with unusually warm and suny weather.

Copic marker and ink pen in Moleskine, NFS

Via Irina Troitskaya’s blog, explore the admirable Wow Russia! project that calls for a Ukrainian copy soon!

Copic marker in Moleskine, NFS

Yesterday we had to miss the local markets, except for the half hour at the very end, when we could pop out for some Thai spring rolls. It rained and rained and all there was left to do is think of the fun things that happened before and eat peanut butter sandwiches. My mouse has gotten into some of this peanut butter and now it’s extremely hard to browse, sigh.  This is one of the recent past memories: lovely Yulia has visited recently, whom we made fall in love withe East End and she took back to Washington one of my Natashas.

Copic marker and ink pen in Moleskine
Please email me your bid (starting at $45) if you’d like to own any of these pieces.

Decided to come back to my doodles, quite a few have accumulated since I last posted any here. Oh, and save the date to visit the upcoming show of one of my oils:

ING Discerning Eye opens in London from

13 – 23 November 2008
The Mall Galleries
The Mall
London SW1 Y5BD

The past two days were an amazing feast for my senses – in Berlin.  The best thing that happened to me there was meeting Edward B. Gordon at his studio.

There I discovered the art of great local artist Adolph Menzel; his illustrations of  Friedrich the Great’s life are magnificent, but his art goes beyond so much more: amazing realist sketchy three-dimensional paintings on the life of the elite and poor. One can see his expressive strokes brushing over certain detail, and yet it’s so live with shapes and tone that looks better then photo.

At Bereznytsky gallery – a Ukrainian gallery on the Auguststrasse showing only the native art – Sergey Zarva shows exaggerated painted over Ogonyok magazine covers from the 70′s. Katja Solov’eva’s happy realism looks underdone – she could use another coat of paint. As the promo puts it: ” Their use of Soviet imagery raises a complex of fascinating questions surrounding the place of aesthetics and nostalgia in post-communist world, the politics of the Utopian imagination, and the intersection of past and present visual cultures.”

Art Center Berlin seemed lame, I did not enjoy much except for the Korean art on 4th.

The Gemäldegalerie offers the wealth of old masters’ paintings -  a true feast for the eyes: Carravaggios, Vermeers, besides Cranach and Brugel, ter Bosh, Holbein and de la Tur. A new interesting artist  that cought my eye there was Lucas van Valkenborch -with his painting Der winter.