Okay, so I wanted to share something I spent some time on recently. It’s about trying to figure out the style of an artist I stumbled upon, Olga Izmaylova.
I first saw her work somewhere online, maybe Pinterest or one of those art sites. What really grabbed me was the way she uses color and texture, especially in her digital paintings. It felt really unique, kind of painterly but definitely digital. It looked effortless, you know? But I figured it probably wasn’t.
So, I thought, okay, let me try and see if I can understand how she does it. Not to copy, but just to learn the technique behind it. My goal was mostly about understanding the process.
Getting Started
First thing I did was gather a bunch of her images. Saved them into a folder so I could look at them easily. I wasn’t looking for anything specific, just pieces that had that distinct feel I liked.
Then I fired up my usual drawing software. Nothing fancy, just the program I use every day. I put a couple of her images up on my second monitor for reference.
Working Through It
I decided to tackle the color first. Her palettes are interesting – sometimes subtle, sometimes quite bold, but always harmonious. I tried mixing similar colors myself. Used the color pickers, the sliders, everything. Man, it was harder than I thought. Getting those specific hues and values, and making them work together like she does? Took me a good while just messing around with colors, trying to get a feel for it.
Next up was texture. This was the other big thing that stood out for me. Her work has this tangible quality. I zoomed into her paintings, trying to see the brush strokes. Looked like she might be using custom brushes. So, I went into my brush library. Tried some standard ones – didn’t quite cut it. Then I started tweaking settings, trying to make my own brushes that gave a similar effect. Made about five or six rough attempts. Some were okay-ish, gave a bit of that textured feel. Others were just… bad. Didn’t work at all.
After fiddling with colors and brushes, I decided to actually try and paint something simple. Just a basic shape, maybe like a sphere or a simple character head. I tried applying the colors I’d mixed and using the textures I was experimenting with.
- The first few attempts were messy. Really messy.
- It was tough blending the colors smoothly while keeping the texture visible.
- Often it just looked like a muddy digital painting, nothing like her clean-yet-textured style.
- I realized I was trying to do too much at once.
So, I broke it down even more. I decided to just focus on a tiny area. Like, how does she paint light hitting a rough surface? I did small studies, maybe just 2 inches by 2 inches on my screen. Repeatedly. Trying different brush combinations, different pressures with my stylus. This felt a bit more productive. I started to see some similarities, or at least understand the layering involved a bit better.
Got stuck again, though. Especially on how she layers things. Sometimes it looks like watercolor, other times more like oils. Trying to guess the layer modes or the sequence she used was pure guesswork. I spent quite a bit of time just looking, zooming, thinking. There wasn’t really a way to know for sure, so I just kept experimenting based on what I saw.
What Came Out of It
So, after a few evenings messing with this, did I master the Olga Izmaylova style? Nope. Not even close. Her skill is clearly built over lots of practice.
But that wasn’t really the point by the end. The process itself was valuable. I definitely learned a lot about digital color mixing, thinking more carefully about my palettes. And I actually created one or two custom brushes during the process that I really like and will probably keep using for my own stuff. They give a nice bit of texture I was missing before.
It was a good exercise. Pushed me to try things I wouldn’t normally do. It also gave me a much bigger appreciation for the work that goes into developing a unique artistic voice. Sometimes you see something cool and think “I can do that,” but trying it really shows you the depth of skill involved. So yeah, a worthwhile practice session, even if the end result wasn’t some masterpiece replica.
