Artist Inspiration - Liza Rusalskaya

Even though I previously mentioned that I would like to push myself out of my comfort zone, I can’t help but talking about one current favourite artists - Liza Rusalskaya - who specialises in 2D illustration. She is constantly inspired by the world around her and “loves to capture the transient beauty of everyday moments”. This alone inspires me and makes me wonder if I could develop my own viewpoint and thought processes towards my work. With 2020 being quite a intense year with lockdown, I have found myself to have a large amount of time to just think, and I feel as if for me, some of Rusalskaya's work perfectly encaptures this. The concept of being alone is a room or outside and trying to keep a healthy headspace and relaxing, whether that being reading a book or listening to music. Trying to just have a moment where you're not worrying about what is happening or what could happen or whether it's gonna be better sooner rather than later and just trying to live in the moment and enjoy the little things.

Something which I have personally been trying to experiment with myself in lockdown is sketching people and how their posture could tell so much about the design, whether that’s leaning back on a chair or laying on your back in the pool. This all came from me finding Rusalskaya and her work giving me different emotions depending on what they were doing, which is something I would love to incorporate into my own work when I start second year at university. I noticed something which I struggled with throughout first year is perspective and trying to make people look more natural and realistic, and looking at Rusalskaya’s work has most definitely encouraged me to try and improve on this.

"Most often I depict moments when a person is alone with himself; in my mind these are the most sincere moments."

One aspect about Rusalskaya’s work which I was instantly drawn to was the plants which were placed in the background of the majority of her designs, which adds a sense of peace. There is often a large variety of plants in her designs which allows each design to be diverse. It is clear that the background in her work is highly important and truly helps bring the entire design together. Rusalskaya "loves to capture the transient beauty of everyday moments; a breath of wind, the rustling of leaves, the way a shadow is cast", which is very clear in her work. The way she has captured such simple moments such as sitting and reading a book, leaves you with a happy feeling, which is also what she aims to achieve in her work. She is able to capture this so successfully because these are all moments of which we usually experience on our own, maybe whether that be longingly staring out a window or sitting on a desk at a laptop.

Another aspect of Rusalskaya’s work which I love is the colour palettes that she uses. She has said that colour takes the main attention in her work. They are often very pastel and calm colours, which link well with the theme of nature which, like said previously, is common in her work. For example, with one of my favourite designs of hers above - "Afloat" - the colour palette is quite restricted, with it just being different shades of blue and red. Red and blue contrast against each other significantly well as blue is a cold colour and red is a hot, allowing the swimsuit to be much more vibrant. Having a restricted colour palette also allows the design to appear much more professional and thought out, which interests me, as limited colour palettes has been something which I find myself gravitating towards a lot in my own work.

The line work in her work also really interests me. When I personally approach digital illustration, I find much more comfort in using bold thick lines to outline the shapes, however Rusalskaya does the opposite and allows the colour contrast to do that for her, which allows the illustration to look a lot more clean, which inspires me. This style really intrigued me and in turn inspired me to try and create a design of my own inspired by my favourite parts of her work and I found that using a line work technique like this really helps bring a calm and aesthetic look to the design, which I think are also two adjectives which I would use to summarise Liza Rusalskaya's work.

http://lizarusalskaya.com

https://www.instagram.com/lizarusalskaya/?hl=en