was awarded a Daily Deviation here at dA only yesterday (13th October 2007)!



How appropriate then, the timing of this News Article about such a talented artist!

I have known Tatiana now for around two years, and have always had a very real admiration for both her digital and traditional artworks. There is a uniqueness that is hers alone, and whilst there are subtle influences from other sources too, she has interpreted all of these to become part of her very own style. I would really encourage any readers of this article to take a serious look at her artworks - they are worth it!!

_{NOTE: Whilst I have made every attempt to keep the wording of the biography below in Tatiana's own style, I have altered one or two areas in order to keep the flow for easier reading.}

Short Biography of Tatiana Roulin (also known as Tatiana Kuznetsova)

Beginnings To The Present Day

I have been doing art as long as I remember myself, that is to say since my childhood. When I was about three years old or so I had been doing art with everything what I could only grab: matches, plastic, wires, beads, clay, cottons and colors of course. At those times I traveled a lot all around. At first while I was growing up I did it together with my parents; later on in my mature age I traveled alone or with my friends. There was one thing that I remember very well. I always carried along a special backpack with a small sketchpad packed with pencils and my film camera just in order to capture things that might attract my attention.

As time passed by, first I graduated from Moscow State Institute of Electronics and Mathematics with Master degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science (summa cum laude) and later went up in Moscow Art Pedagogical College where I met my Art teacher, who later became both my closest friend and personal art master.

To make my story short, professionally I started doing art since 1999. After Art College graduation with honors I decided to make fine art and design my profession. After being programmer and system administrator, art and design was an absolutely different piece of cake. Generally speaking I have been doing art for my whole life. Professionally I have been doing art since 1999 so it is well over eight years now, almost a decade.

Having graduated from Moscow Art Pedagogical College, I can teach kids how to draw and paint. I wish I could get more education somewhere else in a Florence Art School, for example, or in a School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (SMFA), but right now it sounds like a dream to me. I also accomplished a lot of additional courses which were close to design and illustration and that’s all that I have for now.

Initial Influences

It is very hard to say who or what got me started or influenced my work, because I care for everything that is around me: nature, music, art, dance, reading, traveling, certain good and reasonably captivating individuals and many more things.

Actually among my family there was no one who could directly influence me at this point. My both parents were Electronic Engineers. Right now they both hold manager’s positions in different companies. It’s only my grandfather (on my mother’s side) who did drawings by pencil as a hobby. He drew a lot of portraits of people and friends, even during WWII when he fought against the Nazis as a fighter pilot. Maybe this was my first art influence.

Then I got another drop of influence from my mother when she decided to switch her professions and become an interpreter. When she had been learning Japanese, huge, handmade posters with hieroglyphs to help memorize symbols and meanings curtained our entire house. I looked at these posters amazedly trying to find a meaning of it. I was four years old when I tried hard to create something close to what I had seen on these posters. The results looked very funny and reminded a clumsy abracadabra. Later after I got absolutely enormous influence in Art College and of course I got inspired to do Art by my Art Master. Actually I still feel grateful to him for opening to me this door to art in a world of dreams, fantasies and beauty.

Preferences And Style

If we consider a digital photo manipulation, or digital illustrations it may be anything that only my mind is able to come up with. In digital art I have no preferences, but a style. I was and I am always about something mysterious, appealing to humanity, kind feelings, bearing very deep emotions, multi-vocal symbolic, abstractive or surrealistic art.

As far as classical art goes I have preference only in the area of the objects I choose. For instance, I am fond of drawing portraits; especially I love to work on eyes of images of people or mythological creatures. I love playing around with eyes because this is a mirror of the soul. They reflect variable emotional conditions and richness of the internal world. Style in classical artwork does not matter to me really, up to the certain point. You know, I tried almost all techniques in classical art, which only exist at this time and I found out that techniques in classical art can get along with any idea and moreover they can enhance all your ideas you are about to create at times. Unfortunately my gallery here on DA doesn’t reflect these preferences simply because I have not enough time to scan and upload all portraits I have but I still hope to realize it.

Materials And Techniques

In the current period of time I am used to working with watercolors mostly. I usually use Yarka or Winston and Newton Watercolors in tubes. Working with watercolors, the type and quality of paper means a lot to the artist so my spectrum of paper, which is in use nowadays, include.. Canson Montval Watercolor Cold Press, Jack Richerson’s Cold Press, Movlin Paper Arches Grain Satine Hot Press (French paper). I also use other types of paper but the afore named types I use often.

How many hours it takes me to finish one watercolor depends on the size and a plot of my painting. It can take a couple of days to a couple of months.

I want to say also a few words about illustrations I do now. In illustrating I include postcards and full size illustrations. Working on illustrations I use Faber-Castell Markers, Prizmacolor pencils, pencils, inks and watercolors. For illustrations I make use of Strathmore Paper as a rule. They offer an enormous spectrum of paper so everyone can find what fits well for one’s project.

Finding ideas for future artwork is a very important moment too. For me, I take some ideas from books I read or playing around with my sketches.

For digital work, and also for creating jpeg's for upload, I normally use Adobe Photoshop. I have been working with Photoshop for years and this is the only one program that I acknowledge nowadays. In general I use a whole Adobe Professional suite but Photoshop I open almost every day. It’s like a cup of coffee in the morning to me.

Sources Of Inspiration

Fiction, mythological, fantasy and art books inspire me vigorously. Since I inherited from my mother a love for Japanese culture I still observe Japanese artists, books and music and it gives me a lot of inspiration. Traveling around, talking with interesting people, taking photographs, listening to classical or new age music, watching very good movies or playing a piano occasionally keeps my imagination on a high-spirited note. Moreover I can add that the dA Community is a great place to get endless inspiration and to get you back on track if you by chance got lost in the woods of this life!

Three Of My Most Favourite Works

“Dancing Autumn”

Several years ago this watercolor took me a month to complete. Why so long you may ask me? Because I used a multi-layered technique working with watercolors (rather like oil techniques). I created this watercolor on a very hard paper in order to keep it tight, flat and straight as long as possible after watering. In this work I also tried a star perspective when one central spot of the composition is pulling attention and at the same time also this spot occurs to be a main knot of invisible rays along which other elements of composition spread. This kind of composition is very simple to picture when you look at the stars or sun. After my experiments almost everyone who had ever seen this work was telling me that it has unusual decision of perspective, which is quite true I think. To me such words and evaluations mean that the month I left behind working on this artwork, was not in vain! In addition I want to say that “Dancing Autumn” was shown as a part of "Congruent Realities" Exhibition in Agora Gallery, SoHo, NY in January of 2004 and a fragment of this watercolor was published in Art Spectrum Magazine.

“Medusa”

This artwork was very time consuming too. I used here a lot of dry mediums: charcoals, pencils and graphite to embody this mythological creature. A lot of swirls and ornamentation made this work pretty hard to complete but in spite of all adversities I got through this finally.

In this regard I recall one funny story about this artwork. When “Medusa” was almost done I got a phone call from someone at Cambridge Gallery (Cambridge, Boston). They invited me to review my portfolio and my artworks to make a choice for the possible exposition in the Cambridge Jewelry Store. This story was going on in 2005 - two years ago. At those times my portfolio consisted of almost realistic and fantasy artworks, medium and large sizes. After observation of “Medusa” in this Gallery I was told that the size of it (22”X15”/56cmX38cm) was not big enough as they wanted to see it; the fantasy motives were not marketable at all and in general it did not fit the tastes of the Gallery’s customers. I was recommended to create something in abstract style with a certain amount of metal and wires on future creations, plus - as big as a barn door - something about 50”x75” and even bigger! If I create art as requested then they would gladly let my art to be exposed.

How does this sound to you, friends?

To me it sounded like if I want to fit the current US art market then give up what you love to create and be ready to do what the Market wants to make you to create! Unfortunately market’s demands as a rule are so far away from what you are used to doing and call art. How many of you would be able to do such changes in your creative vision and style in order to be successful and get money one way or another? This is a very captivating question, isn’t it?

As for me I concluded that I couldn’t stoop so far down, especially under such ridiculous market’s demands - even if it is really well paid. That’s probably why “Medusa” was exposed abroad in Madrid, Spain as a part of the Art Festival FAIM 2005.

“Old Tree”

This is a very old watercolor where pointillism technique was implemented on the leaves, bushes and grass. This artwork is about strength. It shows that even when everything around is dead already, never give up in spite of age, experience, burden of thoughts and your own weak points. Always try to remain calm, wise and be strong in order to carry life and light to the most darkened godforsaken places. This tree is very old it looks older then the place itself where it is growing. Meanwhile everything around is ruined and surrounded by graveyards, but nevertheless this tree gives a bouffant healing shadow, makes a good stand for the brook’s water, a bracer for the surrounding nearby area, bushes and flowers.
So here is a message for you: Try to gather your strength around your faith in spite of all hard times that may come. I remember that I drew this watercolor right after I got impressed by one of my favourite paintings named “Abbey in the Oakwood” by Caspar David Friedrich (19th century German romantic painter). You can look at the “Abbey in the Oakwood” painting HERE

“Old Tree” did not get watched around our world, but it was published in a DirectArt Magazine in Fall-Winter 2004 issue, volume 10.

Some Advice For Aspiring Artists

You know I am following myself one Golden Rule: Practice makes Perfect so no matter how much experience you have in art (or any other field) try to remember there is always room for improvement.

Looking back on human history I have to admit that there were so many Great Artists in our past, yet most of them are forgotten. However, in our minds they should become like lighthouses to light up our paths to follow, and help us in finding our own way in art. So that’s all that I can give as an advice - keep practicing, look around the corner in hope to find something you never knew before, do not be afraid to make your own experiments and do not be afraid to make mistakes. Mistakes are the best teachers when you analyze them and work them out.

The Future

I have a lot of ideas and plans regarding my art. For example, I am planning to create a 2008 calendar here on dA with my illustrations. I hope you will enjoy looking at the result or, maybe even more than just looking, I hope you will get one calendar for you and hang it on your wall to cheer yourself up in the oncoming year.
Well, we’ll see how it comes out.

Another thing, which is in the process of arrangement, is my first art book.

I want to compile and design everything in this book and finally I’d like to see it published here in US. This art book is supposed to be about art with some step-by-step instructions included. I still keep working on it, but it goes very slowly because apart from my art commitments, I also have my family duties and everything takes time as you will understand.

I also seriously think about opening a small, cozy and stylish walk-in gallery with exposition of my current art for sale.

Regarding my personal realities, right now I am working on a new portfolio which I truly hope to show you as soon as everything gets done.

I also have some secrets to keep them unspoken until an appropriate time comes up

Final Words

Unfortunately I cannot invite any of you to visit my official web site now at [link] (I am not rude here I am just cautious) because it was temporarily closed due to reconstruction. I am currently working on a new content and design of my web place and hopefully you will take a chance to see the new version as soon as I finish everything. That’s funny because I already paid for an advertisement in a school calendar (in my son’s school) and my business card will be shown in December right before Christmas so I need to hurry with opening my renewed web site.

You are very welcome to check my information about commissions on my dA main page: [link] In addition I’d like to say that I also write art reviews for artists and make a selection of portfolios if it’s needed.

Finally, I’d like to express my endless gratitude to *AnnaKirsten for this wonderful opportunity to spotlight my creative process, going through all questions I’ve been asked by her, as well as to let you know about myself and express my thoughts briefly. Thank you so much to those of you who supported and featured my art all this time it means more than just a whole world to me. Take good care all of you and keep going on doing your inspiring art.

A Sampling From Tatiana's Gallery

_{(AN APOLOGY goes to who's name was subjected to a serious typographical error in my recent News Article where she was my spotlighted artist. Her name is, of course, Titia - not Tita! It's unfortunate that once a News Article has been submitted it is no longer possible to go back into it and alter anything. I'm so sorry Titia!)}