I love doing year-end reflections. But not in terms of achievements — more in terms of bright moments, like flipping through a photo album.

Since 2020 life has become pretty unpredictable, so planning feels a bit scary. I’m learning to be flexible. I can only plan 2–3 months ahead. As for my work I also had to start over more than once. At one point I was trying to build a career in Europe and then I had to adapt to completely new realities back in Russia.

YouTube, Patreon, Google Meets, WhatsApp — everything works only through a VPN. Instagram is officially banned, so I can’t use it as my contacts legally anymore.

And yet, this year brought a lot of good moments — including some very personal wins.

In February I finally held my first offline workshop in Novosibirsk for a small group. The first time not enough people signed up, and I was really upset. In Amsterdam I never had issues with audience numbers, but here I had to build an audience from scratch — and lower the price quite a bit. Nevertheless that “failure” didn’t stop me from running several more workshops later, including online ones. It was amazing to see participants from all over the world: Japan, Korea, France, India, the Netherlands.

And around that time, I started working on a course about drawing people — and I had no idea what it would eventually turn into.

In March I visited China for the first time, and it became a huge source of inspiration. I filled an entire sketchbook inspired by that trip. I rediscovered colored pencils and experimented a lot with materials. It truly felt like creative salvation. Honestly, I’m so grateful that I draw. During especially hard moments, I escape into creativity. And a huge thanks to my friend Alisa who introduced me to this country and shared her love for it.

I tell more about my Chinese travel here in that post 

In this post I tell how I use references in sketching (also inspired by pictures from China) 

Here I'm drawing people from Chinese subway using ink and coloured pencils.

In April I took part in an exhibition that gave me… nothing 😅

Except the realisation that I can draw my city beautifully — but I probably won’t ever love it. Oh well, it was worth trying.

In May I opened my plein air season and closed it in early June. After that, mosquito season starts in Siberia, and summer drawing outdoors becomes almost impossible till the beginning of August. 

I finally went to Altai with my family. I love mountains. If I have to choose between the sea and the mountains, I’ll always choose the second. We did get food poisoning on that trip, but even so it was really good.

This year, I went to Tomsk (the city nearby) three times. “Nearby” means a three-hour bus ride 😄 By Russian standards, that’s close. I met up with a friend from the Netherlands, and we had a lovely time together. Later I went again just to draw with a friend and get to know the local art community.

And then things really took off.

Veronika Kalacheva — the founder of the largest online art school in Russia — wrote me and suggested to create a course together. Since I already had some course materials prepared, the topic was an easy choice - drawing people. This was a huge and very important step for me professionally. Before that, I honestly thought I hadn’t “grown enough” for something like this. I studied at that school about ten years ago — and now I was invited back as a teacher.

For two months I barely got up from my desk — I was drawing a book and working on the course. And once again, fighting my imposter syndrome, which kept whispering that I was just pretending to be a professional.

In August, we went to the Urals (the region in the middle of the country) to visit relatives I hadn’t seen in probably six years. I brought Misha to meet his great-grandmothers. Every moment with them feels incredibly precious now. The house where my mom grew up is still standing there — the same house where my great-grandmother lived, which means Misha’s great-great-grandmother. I never knew anyone beyond my great-grandparents, and no one could really tell me anything. It just wasn’t something people talked about — too much pain, too many secrets. That time with family filled me up in a very deep way.

Then came a long-awaited trip to Moscow to record the course. I really love this city — I have so many warm memories connected to the time I lived there. I remembered how much I love filming, the hustle, working with the camera. Of course, I tried to squeeze absolutely everything into that one week: filming, exhibitions, meeting friends, an illustration festival. Totally unrealistic — but absolutely worth it. Those impressions carried me through the entire September.

Autumn flew by in work mode, and in November we traveled to a new country for us — Vietnam. I talked about that trip in more detail in the previous post.

It was a challenging year. Only by early summer I started to feel things again after moving from the Netherlands . Fell something except the anger. There’s still a lot of anger in me. Anger helps me move forward, but at the same time it eats away from the inside. I want to redirect it into something less destructive.

What do I wish for myself in the new year?

A bit more care for my health. I want to work on my anxiety — it takes up so much energy. I want to learn how to accept things and stop wasting energy on what I can’t change (at least for now). I wish myself a visa, so I can finally get to Amsterdam to see my girls again. And professionally — new, interesting projects.

Thanks for being with me this year. 

What moments stood out the most for you this past year?

And the bonus video