We were scrolling through the internet the other day and happened upon this beautiful piece of art. It was watercolor. It was of the Crest Theater. But it was also moving. It was somehow animated.
Intrigued, we did a little digging and found the artist and asked her a few questions.
FresYes: Who are you, where did you come from, and what do you do?
Maja: Hello!!! My name is Maja Wrońska, I’m an 33 years old architect from Żyrardów, Poland. I graduated from Architecture at Warsaw Institute of Technology in 2013 and I started my own business. My mum and husband are architects as well and we design buildings but besides being an architect I also paint watercolors of cities and places. I also came up with an idea of animating my watercolors and sharing them in an augmented reality app. I share my watercolors on my social media and on Reddit.
FresYes: Tell us more about your work.
Maja: After graduating from the Architecture at Warsaw Institute of Technology, I started my own business in 2014 that now has collaborations all around the world. I paint watercolor cityscapes and focus on architectural topics- buildings and structures from European and American cities. Each painting starts with a quick pencil sketch and the details are added later with paint and brush. The combination of the detailed structures and the unpredictable nature of the watercolor technique captures the mood, weather and light in a scenery, with a vibrant end result. My works have been exhibited among others at Biennale of Architecture in Venice, International ArtExpo, on the set of several TV shows, Big Screen Plaza in New York City. Among my creations are also Pixar’s Luca and Ratatouille official fan art, Bjorksta and Gronby art sets for IKEA.
FresYes: Wow that’s incredible! What is something that you do that you think makes you stand out?
Maja: When Instagram started Reels I thought it would be interesting to animate my watercolor, so they could work well as animations.
I started in 2021 with the idea of looping my Siena watercolor, my initial idea was to loop the image so people could go inside it and the walls were moving. My husband helped me to do it in Cinema4d. It turned out ok, but somewhere in the middle the initial idea somehow vanished and it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. When the pandemic started I painted mostly European summer vacation destinations which allowed me to make some virtual tours, when everything was closed because of COVID. In February I had an art block. I couldn’t find any idea what to paint. I decided to paint New York and then I thought it would be fun to animated it. This time I made it in Photoshop frame by frame instead. I wanted to show that watercolor is not an lame/ancient medium in the digital era, but it also can be a contemporary tool that works in nowadays digitized art era. Also I heard Instagram prioritizes reels now and I thought they could be great reels, and because it’s also a form of advertising my Etsy prints and originals I decided to give it a try.
The process of animation starts when the watercolor is ready, I scan it in high quality and adjust colors and vibrancy in Adobe Photoshop to match the original as much as possible. I select people, cars and all moving elements and create new layers with them. I multiply them and create the idea of the movement by making a frame animation. I digitally make the evening from the day watercolor, I add elements that glow, copy windows to make them glow too. I render the whole thing as a gif and as a video and I share it on my social media.
FresYes: What is it that most people DON’T know about you or your business?
Maja: I sell prints and originals of my works, and thanks to the Artivive App, everyone who uses the app and points it on my work (regardless print or original) can watch the animation in augmented reality on their phones and ipads using this app.
FresYes: Anything coming up?
Maja: At the moment I am trying to figure out how to print, pack and ship larger (A2 size) prints of my watercolors. I have several ideas but I must find the best and most affordable one. I’m looking for an artist who would be interested in using my animated watercolor as a video for their clip.
FresYes: Anything else you would like our readers to know, anyone to thank?
Maja: I posted my work on r/Fresno and got many nice comments and this interview opportunity -thank you for that, I even got offered photos that I used for the reference for Fresno Crest Theatre– thank you again Mr. Daniel Griffith. Sharing my work on Reddit and showing it to the people who actually know these places gives me some inside and inspiration, thank you for that.
For the Readers: I offer free worldwide shipping with the code FRESYES in my Etsy shop on all orders larger than $40 https://www.etsy.com/shop/majatakmaj
Thank you Maja! You do incredible work capturing the true look and feel of some of our iconic sites. We thank you for so openly sharing. We’re so excited to welcome you to the FresYes community!
You can follow Maja on Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit.
You can support and buy her art on Etsy, and HERE.
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