69. Still Life

With some surprise I found out, that there is one genre of Victor's art that I haven't explored yet: still life. It is not very common, but looking through all of his drawings that I have, I found quite a few - enough for two posts, perhaps. They don't require any comments - except the last one, probably, but I can't really say much about it, except that it may not even qualify as "still life" - after all, it's a portrait!



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Rafaelina"

68. Встречи и Расставания.

I entitled this post in Russian, because that way it sounds much better, more romantic and poetic. In English it would be something like "Meetings and Partings." Not good. But I hope that the drawings I selected will compensate for the lack of romanticism and poeticism in the title...

Victor sent these four drawings to me at different times. I don't know if they were supposed to be connected in any way. Yes, here we have a few centaurs and a couple of mermaids, but he varies the characters: who they are, how they look, his style of drawing them. But I don't think it's important. To me, either Victor meant it as a cycle or not, they all show a cycle of relationships between Him and Her.

I am also not sure about the most meaningful order. But there is no one standard cycle of relationships. So everyone can place them in whatever order makes sense to them. Four drawings can be placed in various orders in 4! = 24 ways (sorry, but I AM a math teacher...).

 

 

 

OR MAYBE EVERYTHING HAPPENED DIFFERENTLY?

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

OR...

 

 

 

67. The Old Testament

The selection for the current post was inspired but this recent drawing. After Victor sent "Adam and Eve" to me, I recalled another "Eve" from awhile ago. 

Then I started thinking: two are not enough for a post. What would I combined them with? When I mentioned this to Victor, he said he has about 20 works on the same topic. No, I said, this is too obvious. I'll think of something else based on his drawings I already have. Then came to mind some more drawings based on the Bible characters, and here they are. I'll try to keep it chronological.

"Isaac"

"Moses"

"Prophet Elijah"

The next one, as I realized now, is actually about a story from the new Testament, since the head is supposed to be of John The Baptist. Oh well, I don't think I am going to continue this theme, so let it stay here.

"Salome"

66. The Dreams of Flight

This post celebrates the two-year anniversary of this blog!!! 



Just yesterday Victor sent me a series of his most recent drawings, including this one, "The Iron Icarus."



"The Iron Icarus"

 "Железный Икар"

As it often happens to me, this image reminded me about few more that I have had in my "collection" of Victor's drawings for awhile. Well, they may not necessary depict Icarus himself, but they can easily be organized in "chronological" order, showing kind of a biography of Icarus. Or of anyone who wants to fly!

I am keeping here Victor's original titles (well, this is not completely true, he usually doesn't give titles as he draws, only when he sends them to me), which somewhat contradicts to my "biography" idea. But this is my blog, and I still see them connected.

"The dreams of Flight."

"Мечты о Полете"

"Inspiration." 

"Вдохновение"

  

"The Fallen Angel."

"Павший Ангел"

This last drawing doesn't have a title. And it doesn't really fit my "life cycle" idea, neither about Icarus, nor about dreams of flight. But I still think it belongs to this post.

And although it looks kind of tragic, but this guy - a man? an angel - has pretty big and sturdy wings, so I am sure that everything will be fine!



65. Portraits - 3

Back in the Fall, I made two posts where I presented some of Victor's portraits. Since then, he sent me some more that I'd like to share. Well, I would not claim actual likeness (and neither would he, I am sure), but they are definitely recognizable, except the last one, whose identity I can only guess, so I am not stating it here. Besides some factual clues, each of these portraits carries unmistakable emotional characteristics, which are more important than physical likeness. I wish I knew why suddenly he decides to draw this or that personality, zigzagging between times and places. But as usually, he would never explain.

 

 

 

 

"Joan D'Arc"

"Жанна"

 

 

"Paul Cezanne"

 

 

 

"Prophet Elijah"

"Пророк Илия"

 

 

 

 

 

"Andrei Rublev"



 

 

"Poetess"

64. A Very Sad Post.

Most of Victor's drawings, at least the ones he has shared with me, are funny, ironic, sarcastic, humorous. Some are serious, some are lyrical. But for today's post I selected his saddest drawings.
After I already  posted them, I realized they all are about love... Well, this will continue my earlier series about love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

63. Fish, and More Fish

Why fish? That's the question I am asking myself every time I receive a drawing of fish, often in a least expected way. This is the question I asked myself today when I noticed, for the first time, how many of them have been accumulated in my folder of Victor's drawings. There must be a reason, why he keeps returning to this image, but we'll never know...

 

 

"The Fish Wedding"

"Рыбья Свадьба"

 

 

 

"Saving a Fish"

"Спасение Рыбы"

 

 

 

 

"The King Fish"

"Царь-Рыба"

 

 

 

 

 

"Dream"

"Сон"

 

 

This previous drawing, by the way, is an accurate depiction of what Victor once saw in his dream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Jesus Christ in a Boat"

"Христос в Лодке"

 

 

"Transmigration of Souls"

"Переселение Душ"

 

 

62. Just a Few Simple Lines...

I have always admired how Victor is able to say so much with a minimal amount of lines. In many of his drawings, the same line serves more than one purpose being a part of more than one object. Often, he barely shows just some hints of lines, and this is enough; our eyes see everything they need to see.

For this post, I selected few of Victor's  works that are the most "economical" in terms of amount of lines and details. It doesn't make them less expressive or less emotional. (I need to remind that I have only those of his drawings that he has sent to me, out of more than three thousand that he has, so my selections may not truly be "the most" and definitely not "the only").

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Auto-portrait

 



61. Poetry of FOG

 

Let's look at some photographs, for a change. Recently Victor surprised me with his pictures from his hike in Crimea Mountains. In March, everything there was grey and foggy, but I was amazed how beautiful this still could be. Or rather how anyone could notice this beauty and was able to capture it and show it to others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

60. Monsters - some more...

For my last portion of monsters I selected several that can also be called "hybrids." Victor has always easily combined parts of various animals inventing very believable creatures. It's even surprising that Nature hasn't actually made any of them. Surprisingly or not, he is also very good in making hybrid words, such as "chimpanzebra." (OK, now I know what my next post will be about: Victor also sent me a few pages of illustrated word-hybrids. But they are in Russian, and no way I am going to try to translate them. Sorry, non-Russian speaking readers...)

 

The first drawing is a panel of 49 creatures. I've already posted it in this blog when I was telling about my ceramics endeavors and how I used four of these images to make my tiles. I have looked at this work many-many times, and Victor's endless imagination still amazes me.

 

 



 

"My Animals"

"Мои Звери"

 

 

 

The next animal actually has a story. Two summers ago we spent some time with my friends from Ukraine, and they had an 11-year old daughter. Being somewhat bored in our adult company, she started drawing some animals, in a common children-picture style. Victor noticed, and started showing her some tricks that would make her animals more interesting and funny. They also came up with funny names for them. Then they started giving assignments to each other: one is giving a hybrid word, the other is drawing it. Below is one of Victor's  creations. (Some translation is still needed: the last letter in the word "Camel" can be easily modified in a way that now this word reads "Male" in Russian.) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is no story for the next drawing. I was actually saving it for a potential post that I would call "Legs." But so far I have just two or three of those, so I decided not to wait. Or maybe I'll repeat it.

 

 

 

 

I am not sure if the next drawing is a hybrid or actually it is two creatures. But that's the point, I guess.

 

  

 "Слонежность"