Week 44: Anita Gadzińska
“A Secret Library”

Find her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, or her website.

Anita Gadzińska, formerly known online as ‘Mistrel,’ is an artist, illustrator, and storyteller living in Holland. Most of her work is watercolor with Copic marker and gouache added and she favors a distinctly storybook-esque feel in her work that is the very definition of whimsical.

The best example of this whimsy would be her “Hamster’s Adventures” series, which, as you can guess, follows a tiny hamster on a ton of adorable escapades through nature. It’s precious and simple and clever, seeing the world through the hamster’s eyes. It is a throwback to childhood when anything could be doll furniture and it just makes me happy.

There is fantasy in her pieces, often mixed into the everyday routines we take for granted; normal things become magical and magic fits in quite normally.

There are glimpses into secret worlds, silly and clever takes on everyday occurrences, and charming watercolor worlds to sweep us away. Her technique is perfect for a child’s storybook, but artistic and relatable enough for anyone. (Disclaimer: I’ve got nothing against children’s book illustrations and many of the artists I’ve featured here do them. I think they should all be relatable, but maybe some people are grumpier than I am.)