My husband is fond of everything Irish. Their music, their customs, their land and history... etc. He dreams to visit this country one day.
It was February, a time close to St.Valentine's day when I decided to make an unusual gift to my beloved. All those coloured heart shapes seemed so boring to me, I was close to give up looking for smth new. Then I got an insight! Joining celtic knot and a heart shape gave me a wonderful combination!
My husband was 1000km away that time, so I sent my gift by e-mail. He was happy. 'I'm so sorry I'm not an artist myself, I can speak about my love in words only' he said.

I love old photos from our family archive. Most of them are black and white, and don't pretend to be of high quality. But they've a soul of some sort. And sometimes - interesting ideas.
unfortunately, they were done with primitive camera and developed and home then. They're not professional and have special meanings only to my family and me.
But I thought of the ideas... And tried to give old photos a new life - as illustrations.
This one was a photo in it's 'previous life'. The woman is my mother, the short-haired kid is me. I'm about 5 years old there. We're waiting for a ship to take us to the recreation centre.
And this is an alley near my home. I always liked the contrast: metal and concrete constructions on one side of the road and birch trees - on the...

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I think I've caught a cold. I feel really sick today, so I'm not going to work at the lab and will rather stay at home to recover faster.
Now I think of making a cup of hot chocolate for myself and draw some new illustrations instead of just loosing time. We've to take best of any situation, haven't we?

I've never earned money from my pictures before, neither on Dreamstime, nor anywhere else. And there's my first sale ever:

I'm happy :)

The story of this picture is long but ill try to be brief :)
December 31 is New Year holiday, and January 1 is my Birthday. Not a long time ago I disliked them both. They were saddest days in all year to me. I don't like parties, so I used to spend these holidays sleeping or reading books about something fantastic and wonderful not to see how boring my life is.
But when the year 2008 came, everything changed. One young man (he's my beloved husband now) made both New Year and my Birthday special. He came from another city to be with me at December 31 holiday, and in January 1 in early morning he took me to the ice rink where (when everyone went home besides us) he said he loves me and wants to marry me.
I didn't even hope we could be together. He's much younger than me, he lived...

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>I was not sure about experimenting with Model Releases. What if I'll fill them not right... and all that... So I decided to begin experimenting from becoming a model myself.
This is my first model photo approved. It's me at my wedding day - April 18, 2008.
We had a humble ceremony, only 7 guests, but were very happy nonetheless.

Many people in the world have imagination so bright that it's a pity they're not artists. Pictures born in their mind sure could have been amazing when drawn. So, sometimes, when Muse of yours has a long vacation, why not using their ideas?
"I want a picture of Mystirius" - "Who's that?" - "He's a mage. I see him like that: a man sits in a ruined tavern, his elbow on the table, face and hands are not seen, he has a hood. And - the staff - this is important that he has an outstanding mage staff" - "What would it be?" - "Hmmm... I suppose it should be a dragon... Yes! A dragon biting phoenix before it has a rebirth. Really evil staff it must be"
Such a dialog we had with a friend over a year ago. He wanted to see this fantasy of his mind drawn in black&white tone. And was really happy...

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