Visiting Lecturer: Kristyna Baczyski

• Always liked drawing but now an illustrator in a world of wolves!

• Dropped out of A levels did art foundation then Beckett. Multidisciplinary degree comprising of graphic art, photography, typography and illustration. Loved making animations of weird things.

• Year after graduation was difficult but shaped her practice. Interim period of no one there and no one interested. "How do I make my work?"

• Thought Bubble - this amount of time to fill a table of stuff was exciting

• Makes things herself that helps her connect directly to her audience. Shop and working go hand-in-hand; client see the stuff she is making, they as her to make stuff which she loves

• Uses a combination of an iMac, Wacom tablet, risograph and sketchbook. She loves her world of making and scanning and sending off to clients

• Sketchbook - loves drawing for herself and isn't restricted. Works with different materials, stream of consciousness, measured. Shapes and colours. Obsessive with sketchbook, variations, project itself and becomes a zine and sell it.

• Feeds into her work and becomes her work because it is published. Or taps into it for themes. Or characters. Maybe make characters from them. Elect characters, navigate something.

• Local job at first, ripples go out and something echoes back. Leeds - northern - U.K. - international.

Timeline of work Kristyna has created:

• Picture house 100th birthday tote bag

• Leeds college of music: be nice, do a good job and you will get more jobs from the same client!

• White noise - motorcycle character, breaking through fabric of space

• Friends of Ham - family are from Ukraine and her work has those folklore and those sci fi elements.

• Leeds train station public installation with Leeds artists and designers - pretty cheap to live here, extra room in house, not vast amount of rent, creative and nurturing. Drystone walls and nature close by

• Gosh comics - retailer and publisher. Poster series of their 20th anniversary, nice to be regarded with other illustrators

• Metro newspaper ad piece. Fold out piece, weird characters, busy city scene

• Gateshead big posters used on printed material and on the metro and a big welcome mat. Modular so can be reformatted
• Worked as a greeting cards designer for a few years after graduating

• Design learning curve of illustration came after graduating

• Pad file so clients can move things around

• Beers in London published into a book. Made a fictional label. Citragalaxy hop. Fictionalised this and build the story of a special edition beer. Grain landed on a meteorite And created an abundance of beer

• Thought bubble - Beatrix potter - book cover for catalogue. One job is seen by the right person and links in a chain - forged by you alone in a studio - or forged by working with other people

• Chipotle Mexican restaurant - packaging. On the back of making comics about feelings. Cultivating thought. She put together lots of stories that would take 1 or 2 minutes to read while waiting for food to cool down

• Worked with a writer really beautiful thing to be proud of

• Etsy store - done a few jobs for them. Email sent out when making a shop and selling first order. Designer mentality.

• Set of stickers. Weird physical stickers with badass animals. The suburban crooks

• First job was with hallmark, hated the job as she wanted to be an illustrator. So it was great to be asked to do 7 or 8 designs for hallmark US

• Sample cupboard of stuff from the US, loved looking at it then ask to contribute

• Making stuff for yourself has its advantages

• Science tech engineering, she likes those microscopic galactic stuff with story through it

•Sci-fi, being an introvert, comics is for her. She just likes sitting, making and drawing

• Labours over her work. 24 hour comic page in an hour, 24 pages. 6 other artists in a room each of them making a 24 hour comics! Blur of activity. Sent to printers, made an edition to sell.

• Nominated for best short award

• Hand me down - an object having a cyclical story

Fanfare legit book with ribbon bookmark

• Nominated for a Canadian award

• Being braver to share stories about herself and share that after the buzz of the 24 hour comics

• Every year she makes a published edition

• Toronto vessel - autobiographical, steer your life how you want and breaking free escaping

• Debut, memorable, giving a deadline, new comic to debut. Half personal half fictional

• Sequential and TCAF - do a comic about Toronto or Ontario. Golden Horseshoe tall tell fake folktale

• Jobs lead into jobs

• Birmingham library pavilion workshops lead to working with the royal Shakespeare theatre having a season of events - blending of gender roles - creating characters who could interchange

• Hall full of tall wooden mystical creature things

• Comics for other people. Street press comic, won dury award at the Belgrave.

• Bimba - witch house - tapping into Russian Ukrainian - Baba Yaga - flies around in a pestle and mortar. Story about that.

• Empowering to self publish.

• Raw comics

• Comics anthology - trying out weird stuff.

• Keep making work, let the journey be organic, Twitter and Tumblr can be toxic ... sharing comics and zines, trading in her bag, sending in the mail, making friends, respect for other artists, supporting artists.

Reflection
Krystina has inspired me so much with her positive and quirky personality and her passion for creating images. She is a hard worker and I respect her grafting and crafting to create work that she loves. I want to be able to be so driven during the hardships and the misfortunes that happen with life and to just keep creating no matter what. It is something I'm trying to juggle with when having a 26kg Labrador who just wants to play all the time. When I'm at home, I can put Tami with my mum or my dad - but in the studio flat it is just one big room with us two in it and I can't always avoid her wanting to play or wanting to cuddle and stopping me from creating. Other times I am just some exhausted from life. I need to be more like super-dude Krystina!