design – smyeshka.com

Philosophy, science and innovations.. backbone of human history

I went this winter with my husband to Germany. Our base was in Halle, Heiden’s hometown. We went few days to Berlin – with most silent trains. Berlin is great but not my cup of tea, but Leipzig was love at first sight…

What I noticed while was there what is a proper way to appreciate your history – god or bad- it is your backbone – it is your proof that you made mistakes or left something in a legacy for future generations. What i find amazing is that Croatia hasn’t use as much, nor god nor bad, parts of history ,even though a fair number of scientists and innovators and philosophers.

It is unfair to ignore so many people from Croatian history that gave, not only for their country, but for the whole world the base knowledge on which was build everything we now have…

My favorites are: Bošković – a physicist, astronomer, mathematician, philosopher, diplomat, poet, theologian, Jesuit priest, and a polymath from the Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik); Faust Vrančić – an inovator (parachute, moving bridges), a polymath and bishop from Šibenik and his coeval Marco Antonio De Dominis (Theory about Rainbow was his, even Newton said so, but Descartes took all the glory) a Dalmatian ecclesiastic, archbishop of Split and Primate of Dalmatia and all Croatia, adjudged heretic of the Catholic faith, and man of science…

In recent history there are few we need to say at least names and what they gave to world. Slavoljub Penkala – invention of ball pen; Spirdon Brusina – edited the best local ornithological collection in the Austro-Hungarian Empire; Ivan Vučetić – the creator of the modern method of dactyloscopy – the discipline of criminal techniques, one of the safest and most common methods of identifying persons, based on the papillary lines on the fingers, palms and feet of people; Ivan Vukić (Giovanni Biagio Luppis Freiherr von Rammer) invention of torpedo; Leopold Stephen Ruzicka – winner of the 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes” “including the first chemical synthesis of male sex hormones; Franjo Hanaman – invention of lightbulb with wolfram’s thread; Marino Getaldić – the application of algebra in geometry and a pioneer in making conic lenses; Benedict Kotruljević – dual bookkeeping system…Frane Petrić, John Mišković, Mario Puratić, David Schwarz, Tomislav Uzelac (mp3)…

The list is long, very long… this is not even a half! And btw. Tesla was born in Croatia, but if someone is giving him another adress, so be it..

I am beyond proud to be a part of same land just because of this magnificent minds that changed humanity..and history..

I draw most of them… I think I might do them all.. just to give a little smile of appreciation for this genius minds 🙂

Mushrooms

Magic and fun to illustrate

This series is inspired by most fun and colourful time of the year…autumn.

I have made series that speaks of humans and mushrooms. We eat mushrooms, but also they eat us when we are dead. They live inside us, on walls, in woods… The are amazing! They are so fun to illustrate and to eat 🙂

Little bit of humans and mushrooms… 🙂

Some people have mushrooms on their head and some have mushrooms inside of them

You can see all images of mushrooms HERE.

Playing Game with a capital G

Imagine that your soul is your mirror image somewhere in space, playing cards with other souls.
All cards are different, unique, rules are to play your own unique cards as best combination that makes you stand out. The goal is to avoid or undo/annul or overpower prejudices. There are no winers, there are no heroes, there are no opponents. It’s an art of fight without fighting to make life real life with purpose, to be universe we are – made of differences.

The dealer is displaying prejudices and all players are playing against them with a hand they have.

The trick is you have cards life gave you, it can be anything – you can be woman, man, transgender, any race, any religion.. What ever is prejudices aim that comes from cultural or physical references – is at least one card you have in your deck.. But the important cards are strength you have, it can be all the goods you have as a human.

What you need to do is play a game with a capital G, take no shit, own who you are, work on your self and love your self. You ain’t perfect, but guess what- no one is. But make it work. 🙂

Take a look at the cards HERE!

Crumbs on Vespa, challenge that make me realise a joy of riding the tide

After monotone challenge, that didn’t go as well as I expected, I’ve applied for a second challenge “Joy of riding” on Designhill.com
Usually I love making characters, I love the way they can make you imagine the story around them. Sometimes I notice that people love the whole story and hardly play with characters dragged out of the context or just characters suggesting where to put them in a story.

The challenge “Joy of riding” made me think about a big guy on a Vespa. I found it fun to combine big and small. Illustration of Crumbs on Vespa was my idea of joy of riding, it doesn’t matter what you ride as long you feel the wind in your (facial) hair. Honestly, I didn’t go for design for t-shirt with writing so someone will better understand the illustration, I found that a bit stupid. Anyway, I didn’t win the challenge but I got a good feedback. It was enough for someone to se both sides of work.. A public that want something so literally so they won’t need to use brain cells and profession that will appreciate a nice design.

Point of this story I’ve shared with you is discovering yourself while riding trough life/work. What seems to be nice to you, obvious to you, to others seems opposite. It doesn’t mean that you failed. As Crumbs could ride a bigger motorcycle he chose to ride Vespa, because it’s all about the joy of riding and the experience. Let the Crumb be your inspiration 🙂
P.s. Next time I’ll tell you how Crumbs inspired me to find lost characters in places lost in covid-19.

Until then, be safe and enjoy your life 🙂

Try monotone, monotone is fun!

After some other kind of illustrations, I have made profile on designhill.com. It’s something new for me, a big space for designers from all over the world, mostly from east side of the world. This site has some interesting things for designers and different challenges that you can sign up to.

I did sign up for two challenges, design in monotone was first – in a few days challenge will be finished…I’ve found some old illustrations from back than time when I was obsessed with sea monsters and octopuses. Two mythical creatures were perfect to try new way of using color, monotone color scheme. Two female mythical creatures I’ve painted in shade of blue and shade of green. Then I wasn’t happy with only two illustrations, I’ve made third one to balance the story. Third illustration was a guy holding a fish as a gun. Color for third illustration was brown.

Still I’m struggling with colors but trying my best. Monotone, I think, is the best way to get rid of a notion of a missing any color. Maybe it is a forced way to trick brain to see and think in aspect of shade and light. In the end i think i’ve managed ok with this challenge.

If you’d like to see challenges click on link: Challenges Entries | PrintShop by Designhill

So if you have a problem with colouring your illustration I would say go monotone! Oh, I use Adobe kuler color wheel: Color wheel, a color palette generator | Adobe Color for easy access to color rules. 🙂

See you soon! 🙂

T-shirts

In the end of March earthquake shook things up in Zagreb, made a mess. Buildings in center of Zagreb were damaged quite badly and for most people homes and security was gone in a heartbeat. No need to go in full details about the feelings and atmosphere in minds of all of us who experience that day.

It was April, pandemic was still like alien invasion, I was behind closed doors still scared. In that time I was finished with series of Quarantine illustrations and trying to find new project to make time bearable till summer.

My dear friends liked illustrations of veggies and fruit and some old ones I have showed them, asked me to make them printed T-shirts. They choose illustrations and I started to convert them to digital form. After few weeks I’ve made everything prepared for print.

I found nice print studio that have good quality T-shirts and made arrangements. So in a month I have finished project T-shirts and survived another month in this new (dis)order. 🙂

You can click here to see T-shirts. 🙂