Justyna Dorsz

Garden progress

I’ve been working on the garden area of our cat book and I wanted to show you how it’s progressing.

Here is one of the first sketches:

I am now adding details and more cats and basically looking for plant references online and drawing them. This is what I have so far:

The right side of the image is too empty — I am going to work on that next.

Our Cat Book: fixing garden composition

My brother and I are making our first book about cats. Today I’ve been working on the garden area. Here is the initial sketch:

Cat book by Justyna Dorsz and Rafał Dorsz (Work in progress)

The problem is that the trees create a kind of frame in the picture, as so:

Cat book by Justyna Dorsz and Rafał Dorsz (Work in progress)

There’s still a lot of space outside those borders made by trees. That’s not a good composition because you can’t really draw anything interesting there. The eye will naturaly see what’s inside the borders and will miss anything that is outside.

To fix that, I moved the whole image left so that there’s not so much of that useless space on the left. And then moved the other tree more to the right:

Cat book by Justyna Dorsz and Rafał Dorsz (Work in progress)

Now I am adding more cats and details but that’s not ready to show yet.

What happened to the book?

You might have wondered what happened to the book about cats that my brother and I have been working on. We had to put it on hold — other projects got in the way. But now we are finally back to it.

A book about cats by Justyna Dorsz and Rafał Dorsz

Above, you can see the initial sketches of four areas that we are illustrating. The whole book is about a house full of cats. Each two-page spread is one area, and there will be seven areas in total. I am now reworking the garden and plan to post an update tomorrow.

“Show Your Work” – Book Notes

Today, I’ve read “Show Your Work” by Austin Kleon.

I wish I had read it years ago. If I did, maybe I would have started my blog earlier than I did.

The core message in the book is to not work in secrecy, to instead share ideas, bits and pieces of work, what you are learning.

Here are a few highlights:

  • “The best way to get started on the path to sharing your work is to think about what you want to learn, and make a commitment to learning it in front of others.
  • “Become a documentarian of what you do.”
  • “Being open and honest about what you like is the best way to connect with people who like those things, too.”
  • “The minute you learn something, turn around and teach it to others”

I recommend this book to anyone who creates things but is afraid of showing them to people. Or who would like to write a blog or post on Instagram but think they don’t have anything worth sharing.

Related articles that I’ve read recently:

Black Cat

I was playing Stardew Valley and I had a cat shirt. Or so I though.

It was in fact a skull shirt. But I didn’t know that. I thought, “I am going to draw a giant cat head”. So here’s my new design:

Black Cat - design by Justyna Dorsz

At first, I drew it like so:

I painted it with white color only — those dark grey areas are just white pixels with very low opacity. But, as I know, those pixels would not be printed at all. There’s no point submitting a design with too many transparent pixels. That’s why I changed contrast, so only the white pixels with high opacity are left.

Black Cat T-shirt

Weird Dog

A few years ago I made a creepy design for a contest. Here, below, is a dog which was part of the design:

I ordered a t-shirt with it and gave it to my brother. His wife said that this is my worst design 😀

Anyway, it didn’t win the contest and I haven’t published this design in any of my stores. As you know, my Threadless shop is a mess, it contains a bit of everything: lots of cats, dogs, other animals, and also space and nature and flower designs. But most of the designs are either cute or funny. A weird dog really wouldn’t fit.

I am thinking of opening a separate store for strange, scary designs. Everyone says that you should find your niche. It’s good if a store is thematically consistent so that customers know what they can expect. This will be a small store, I just need a name.

Awesome t-shirt advertisement

Check out this video:

It’s of course an advertisement. But so well done! The key point is not the t-shirt but the idea that thinking of yourself as the Main Character can impact your life and mental health.

I like both the video and the concept that I am a central character in my story. I would buy the shirt if not for the fact that I already have too many t-shirts — being a designer means that you get A LOT of free t-shirts.

Here’s the link to the t-shirt: Be A Main Character. I am not affiliated with them, I just really like it and I think it might even be helpful to see the reminder that you are the Main Character every time you see yourself in the mirror.

Sleeping cats

Did you know that when your t-shirt is selected by Threadless to be added to their catalog, you usually get a $250 coupon code? I use my coupons to buy hoodies and t-shirts for my family and friends.

If you want your design to be added to the catalog, you need to submit it to their main design challenge. Every week they select new designs. If your design doesn’t win, don’t give up. Try again. The more designs you submit, the better the odds of one of your designs being selected.

Here’s one of my recent designs:

It has just been added to the Threadless catalog. This means more people will see it and more people will buy it. And even if they don’t buy it, they might check out my other designs and find something else for themselves.

It look good on triblend blue:

sleep sleep sleep