"A Year Of Good News": My 30 Wholesome And Uplifting Illustrations

I have always enjoyed playing with different materials, usually textile and paper, since I was a child. When I was about eight years old, I made an army of little characters. Then I used to move them into small pieces and take pictures. I didn't know then that it was called animation and not stop motion at all.

I have also loved positive stories since I was a child. I tried to search for them not only in fairy tales but also in the real world around me. This is how my journey as an animator and illustrator started.

When the pandemic started in March 2020, I was reading mostly negative news from the mass media. Like everyone else, I was worried about how long this situation would last, how long I wouldn’t see my friends and colleagues, or whether I would be able to be locked up at home for so long at all. I had to figure out some sort of distraction that inspired me.

Searching the newspapers, I discovered that positive news isn’t actually that rare: it’s often small, seemingly unnoticed deeds and facts that can be found at the other end of the street as well as on the other side of the world. Lots of good things happen every day, but they are often buried under the weight of “big” events and dry news agency reports: that’s why I decided to put positive stories in the spotlight and retell them in my own way.

From week to week, I found one piece of good news from around the world and made a picture of it. Since I wasn’t really good at drawing, I made them from used or old textiles: that’s how I kept my good mood. However, when I saw how positive the feedback was, I decided to try to please people with a new picture every week. This allowed me to stay calm during the pandemic instead of feeling anxious.

Three or four years ago, when I was preparing scenes and scenography for my animated film The Kite, I realized that textiles are a very good raw material for both illustration and animation. The whole environment of the film was made of fabrics and old clothes that my friends wanted to get rid of. I fell in love with the textile because I could move its structure from fiber to fiber: I was thinking of details like the flow of grass in the wind, which I made from a long-haired, green, fluffy carpet during the animation. This book was made exactly the same way: using old sweaters, rugs, or scarves, I created soft illustrations that were lit with soft light and photographed.

It takes me about 5 days to make one illustration. Paradoxically, the longest part is to find suitable good news. Sometimes I scroll through dozens or hundreds of news articles until I find one that makes me happy, sometimes it even moves me or gives me goosebumps. That's when I know it was the right one! I start reading more about it, looking for photos of it, verifying the facts, then I draw a few sketches on paper and try to look for composition and shape.

Once I'm happy with it, I color it so I know what fabric colors to look for. Then I dig for hours in old clothes and discarded fabrics and only then do I start cutting, sewing, and gluing. Afterward, I will just light everything nicely, take pictures, edit and add message text.

So far, I feel that this project helps many people cope with difficult times. I still receive a lot of good feedback after the book was published. Many have written to me that reading the book has encouraged them to do a little favor themselves, or even to call and talk to their loved ones. I think the book can help all of us realize that this past year hasn’t been so bad after all. So I plan to continue creating it in the near future. I am currently starting to prepare A Year of Good News 2023. I believe that one day such a book will not be necessary.