Yelena Shabrova
My drawings express personal feelings in response to subjects that fascinate me. What attracts me most when looking for what to draw is character and mood. People and animals are an obvious choice, but trees and rocks, buildings and places offer plenty of both too. Capturing that is more interesting for me than rendering the appearance. I leave it to the viewer to interpret my creations as they see them and am always interested to hear their stories.
My all time favorite subjects and long time love are horses, everything else comes after them: animals and the natural world in general, people, everyday items. Funny how preferences change. It was all people, specifically portraits, in the beginning. I used to ride horses when I was young, but when riding came to an end, drawing became the next best way to feel connected to those wonderful creatures.
When I began to seriously pursue art, my media of choice were at first graphite and charcoal, then sanguine and sauces, and later, soft pastel. I did try to make friends with various paints, but none of that felt like "my" kind of medium. For a while I used a bit of everything in each piece. Instead of mastering a single medium for the full range of subjects and techniques, I would do aerial parts in watercolor, use tempera and gouache to define trees, grasses, or rocks, and then add finer texture with charcoal or pastel. That got the job done but again, didn't feel quite right.
Soon after I moved from Russia to the USA I discovered professional colored pencils. They were so different from anything I used before that for the next few years I was fully immersed in this new (for me) medium. To this day, colored pencils are my favorite drawing tools, nothing can beat them. This wonderful medium allows me to draw practically anywhere, in any interval of time, and requires almost for setup or cleaning.
I love diversity; it keeps creative blocks away.
Pen and ink is another medium that came into my life rather unexpectedly. At one point, I found myself without any drawing tools except for a felt pen and an odd block of paper. So I started doodling with a pen, somehow moved from really short lines to dots, and liked the result so much I decided to stick with those dots. Weeks later I learned that it's an actual technique with a name - pointillism, a.k.a stippling. I still love lines as a form of creative expression, so my artworks with pen and ink marks feature a combination of pointillism and line drawing. Pen and ink is also responsible for my interest in experiments with textured backgrounds with tissue paper and eventually expanding into mixed media.
I also enjoy working with China markers, charcoal, pastel pencil, oil pastel, and will gladly try any other dry medium or at least something that does not involve waiting for paint to dry. Each one has its own unique qualities. But no matter what I use, the creative process itself and numerous opportunities to catch fleeting beauty keep me forever fascinated.
