The Mystical and Whimsical Illustrations of Ella Mazur : My Artist Origin Story

Pen and Ink Artist Ella Mazur working in her studio.

When I was a little girl, I never thought I would grow up to be an artist. Although I loved arts and crafts and being creative, I didn’t draw all that much. But I was obsessed with stories. In fact, I grew up thinking that I'd become a writer. I always loved the idea of creating new worlds with my imagination. As it turned out, writing wasn’t the right medium for me. I still tell stories, and I still do it with a pen, but now I share my imagined dreamscapes with the world through drawings.

So how did I end up becoming a full-time artist and illustrator? Read on to learn about my journey, and about two transformational pieces that have shaped my illustration style!

The Journey

As a child, I was obsessed with writing stories. I would spend hours dreaming up beautiful people and places. But when it came time to go to university and choose a major, I didn’t really know what to do - I loved too many things! (Did anyone else have this problem? There are too many cool jobs out there!) I ended up studying theatre, before switching to history, and then ending up in publishing, thinking that being in the industry might help me with my own writing.

Right when I graduated, my father (who is a mechanical engineer) was doing work overseas. So, I tagged along, staying with him in Budapest as a home base and travelling around Europe. The plan was that I'd be there for the summer, free to roam one last time before I started my career and the next 40 years of my life.

Although it was such an adventure to be in Hungary, I was dying to go to Italy, where my father’s project was going to be installed…but the timeline kept getting delayed. So instead of going home at the end of the summer, I ended up staying abroad for 3 more months.

I thought I would take advantage of all this time and start doing some writing. As I found myself alone with my thoughts and my favourite ballpoint pen, I realized that I was not particularly inspired. As much as I loved writing, oftentimes it felt like I was wading through a swamp to get the words out.

Instead of writing, I found myself doodling around the paper. The feel of the pen in my hand was addicting and suddenly I forgot about the writing altogether, consumed with my drawing. This was the beginning of everything! I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this chance occurrence - it’s changed to course of my life and made me excited to get up everyday.

I was immediately obsessed - I haven't stopped drawing since that moment! I would find any paper I could get my hands on - adverts, brochures, anything!- and I would doodle all over the empty spaces. I wandered the city and strangers would approach me to take a look at my whimsical illustrations. It was a huge encouragement to see their reactions.

I bought my first sketchbook in an art store in Budapest. I found myself drawn to natural elements, drawing mostly mystical artwork centered around trees and animals. I focused on drawing more complete pieces instead of just doodles.

When I returned home (after finally making it to Italy!), all I wanted to do was draw.

Of course, at this point, I did need an income, so I ended up getting a job in publishing. I worked as an editor for 4 years, but every chance I had - on my lunch break, on my commute, every night after work - I was drawing.

After a couple of years, I opened my first Instagram account, and began sharing my whimsical illustrations online. It was an incredible motivator to see people reacting to my art, and after I made my first few sales, I was elated. There is something so special about how art connects people - strangers that have never met can suddenly relate to each other because of the feelings evoked by the art. It’s the same with all art forms - music, theatre, writing, and dance. There is something about the human experience that can be hard to define but can be expressed through these art forms. I am absolutely addicted to this connection, and each time someone chose my work to take home with them, my determination to become a full-time artist grew.

I started looking for any opportunity to get my work in front of people; hanging my artwork in cafes around the city and going to markets to sell my prints and greeting cards in person. I read everything I could about selling and marketing artwork, and I began to tell everyone I knew that I was an artist (a crucial step!).

After 4 years, I took the plunge and quit my job. I had saved enough money to go back to school part-time and learn the technical aspects of illustration and printing. At the same time, I focused on finding new clients so I could start turning this small momentum into a full-time business. And I am so lucky to say that by the time I finished my certificate, I had enough work to keep me going without another job.

There have certainly been bumps along the way, and there’s still so much to learn about running a business, but every project teaches you something. I wake up everyday and I get to create something from nothing. If this isn’t magic, I don’t know what is!

The process of the transitioning from a corporate job to working for yourself was one journey, but there was also the artistic journey, from doodle to marketable illustration. As a self-taught artist, and especially as someone who had just started drawing, I felt (and still feel!) like I have so much to catch up on. But when I look back, my art has come a long way. I wanted to share two of the pieces that signified a turning point in my illustration style.

Tiger Moon

Nature was always the biggest inspiration for me. I would sit for hours in a cubicle, in a grey office where you couldn’t open the windows in the middle of a boring part of the city, and I would miss the sky and stars and the trees and the wind and the sea. I suppose it wasn’t surprising that nature was the subject of my first drawings. As I was building my skills up from nothing, my drawings were fairly simple, with my subject (usually an animal!) sitting against a white backdrop. I would spend hours getting lost in the details of these beautiful creatures, but what I really wanted to do was illustrate the worlds inside my head.

I wanted to create an image that someone could look at and get carried away by their imagination, perhaps even start writing their own story. These drawings could be like little doorways into the dreamworld in my mind. And I had plenty of ideas for these kinds of images.

These magical scenes would come like flashes in my head. I would have to write them down right away, or even sketch a quick thumbnail, before the image disappeared (even if it was in the middle of the night!).

But I didn’t have the skill to draw to get what was in my head onto the paper. I would try every so often, but I could never capture all the details and, more importantly, the mood that I wanted. One day I had a flash of a tiger sitting on a rock. This image soon became my first transitional piece into creating a mystical art scene.

I remember exactly where I created Tiger Moon, sitting in the stairwell of my office building, where I would go during my lunch hour to draw undisturbed. I remember the excitement as I drew the tiger and the pattern of stars around him. The piece was simple, but suddenly I was using ink - darkness - create this luminous night sky. Inking in stars is still one of my favourite parts of working on any drawing.

Sometimes your artwork just doesn't end up the way you want it to. It can be difficult to translate the image from your mind onto paper. When I drew Tiger Moon, I felt like I was having a magical breakthrough and it was opening a door into a whole new stage of progress for me. It was the first illustration where I was able to draw a magical scene that looked like what I saw in my imagination. The elements were simple, a white circle for the moon, a simple pattern for the stars, but the effect was magic. And I knew it was just the beginning.

Which leads me to Midnight in the Garden.

Midnight in the Garden

The first night sky drew me in, and I returned to the stars over and over again. I wanted to capture my memory of seeing the Milky Way for the first time.

With Midnight in the Garden, I didn’t get the flash I usually get with drawings. Instead, I knew I wanted to create the perfect piece to escape into. Working in a corporate environment really weighed down on me, and I wanted to run away into one of my drawings. I laid out some of my favourite things, playing with the shapes of the darkness peeking through the flowers. I created a deeply star-studded sky, and I challenged myself to draw the beauty and mesmerizing glow of the moon.

This night sky and magical glow has become a staple of drawing style. I love this piece because I love the sense of peace it evokes. As an artist, I am often deeply critical of my work, and it’s often a love-hate relationship. But as the years pass, I still love this piece. In fact, I have a glow-in-the dark version of it hanging in my room.

Adding Another Layer of Magic With Colour

When I first began drawing, I experimented with different mediums to add colour. I tried Prismacolours, watercolours, coloured ballpoint pen, and markers. But none of the mediums seemed right for me.

One day I began to explore colouring digitally on PhotoShop. Digital colouring gives you access to so many colours! I love all of the bright neon and the vivid, saturated colours.

I coloured in Midnight in the garden petal by petal, and I love the coloured version as much as I love the ink version. I started colouring more of my works, and invested in an iPad to make things infinitely easier.

Both Tiger Moon and Midnight in the Garden are significant milestones in my journey as an artist. I can look at each illustration and immediately see how much I've grown and be so grateful for what I've been able to accomplish.

With every little improvement, I keep exploring this world of mystical illustrations that I'm creating. It keeps getting bigger and expanding. Eventually I feel that I'll be able to create a map of this imaginary world that I've created. I feel a bit like an explorer, and I'm never really sure where my imagination will take me.

More transitions are coming, and I keep reminding myself that it's important to stay creative as I grow. It's critical to keep your imagination alive.

My best advice to any aspiring creative is to stay playful and whimsical…not only for your art practice, but to help you become more creative in any path that you choose. There's really no job where it's not useful to have new, useful, creative ideas, and I feel so lucky that I’m able to use my imagination like this every day.