Oksana Pasishnychenko is a happy soul. In fact, she refers to her business Oksancia as “optimistic art”. Her illustrations and surface designs are filled with happy animals and people that have more than a hint of kawaii. But what I love about her work most are the fabulous floral designs. (Is it just me? Oh, I do have a thing for flowers!)

Her palette is soft and warm, with a predominance of coral reds and yellow-orange (even though she has said in the past that her favourite colour is blue ;D). Her surface designs showcase some wonderful drawing skills, full of gentle and flowing lines that demonstrate a great understanding of plant forms gained from close observation.


bright garden flowers

 

succulent

 

Oksana grew up in the Ukraine, fascinated by images from a very early age. After watching her draw and paint what seemed like hundreds of pictures of ‘cats, and other weird animals’, her parents decided to send her to a local art school at the age of six. She loved it, but after a year the teacher changed and she decided to pursue other interests.

Despite moving around a lot (first to university in Kiev to study Literature, then to Groningen for a Masters in Dutch Culture), she always kept up painting in her spare time. She soon became interested in vector illustration, and started contributing her work to microstock agencies. This turned out to be the perfect backdrop to her life. She says of this outlet “Gotta be thankful for microstocks when you are a digital artist who loves to travel the world!”

 

folk tulips

 

underwater garden

 

Not one to sit still, Oksana and her husband Alex have now moved to California!  I’m looking forward to seeing what turns up next.

 

poppies – silhouettes

 

flower dream

 

You can find Oksancia on Spoonflower here, and see other examples of work on her own website here.

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With thanks to Oksana for sharing her words and images here.