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Johis
@johisart
Finnish illustrator 🌸 Clients: HarperCollins, Sanoma, Smithsonian & more 🌸 she/her 🌸 Rep by Lemonade Illustration Agency ✉️ contact@johannatarkela.com
Illustrator🇫🇮🇪🇺🇬🇧johannatarkela.comBorn June 4Joined February 2016

Johis’s posts

Wanted to make a little holiday themed illustration for this year (planning to make it a card design available in the future), cute fox and fairy lights ensued! Process video will be linked in the replies as well
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Ooh I like the #StartToFinish tag and seeing all the stuff people are sharing! Here's the earliest concept I found of this one, done quickly on the ipad just to get the general idea down before anything else on it developed.
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The Polish edition cover for 'Fading Echoes' with my art has now been revealed!🐱🍃 published by Nowa Baśń
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Autumn Colour Splash! My new personal painting is finally finished 🍁🍂 The subject for this one was chosen through a poll on my Patreon :D
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Double reveal today, for Rising Storm and A Dangerous Path featuring Tigerclaw and Brightpaw! 🔥AD as usual by the lovely Really enjoyed working on the expressions of these two! Published by Nowa Baśń
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'Taste of Tranquility' A collab with ❄️❄️ Prints available at NFC next week and there will be a very special kind of print of this one in the art show too!
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Excited to share, the first cover I did for the Polish edition of Warriors: Omen of the Stars is out! :) published by Nowa Baśń 🐱
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I can't believe I've finally finished this before winter this year! Been in the works for a few autumns now. First big personal painting in quite a while, of course a nice comfort zone fox! Golden eyes hiding in the leaves 🦊🍂
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Not much time for new personal work for a moment, but since I made this one my header image I thought I'd share the full thing. It's from 2016 so a bit older and even if there's some stuff I'd prolly change about it now I do still like it a lot! 🍂
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It's the final remake cover! Featuring so many cats. Loved painting that shiny black fur and icy eyes. Art direction by the awesome as usual! Published by Nowa Baśń
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When you exceed your own expectations and for a moment your brain think it's proper fishy Reverse self doubt?
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The Polish cover for Night Whispers has been revealed! 🐱❄️ Published by Nowa Baśń
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Finished a remake of an older painting from 2009 (+2012)! Interesting to see what has changed and how I would approach the same subject now. Ended up changing some compositional things with it too, you can see the old ones in a reply below! 🌸🌸
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Oh look at that, I managed to do one #doggust drawing! Just wanted to experiment a bit for fun and these dogs do look kinda cool
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Cover reveal for the Polish edition of "The Blazing Star", featuring One Eye! 🐱🌟🌼 Certainly one of the most interesting ones I've got to do so far and the refs I gathered for this were pretty wild. AD as usual the lovely
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'Tis the season for unicorns and rainbows 🌈🦄 a little personal painting in between stuff!
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Wanting to try out some twitter cropping stuff and share a detail shot of this piece from earlier too!
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Been working on a new big painting, can't wait to share it when it's done! Also thinking of publishing the (smaller) layered PSD on Gumroad
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This is gonna mess the previews up but... the sketch, the actual sketch and the painting 🖌️
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Taking the weekend off to poke at something personal, I'm definitely due a painted dog drawing again
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oHHHH this was just posted on HarperCollins so I can share the news..! 🐼🎍 I'm the cover artist for Erin Hunter's upcoming new series, Bamboo Kingdom! Here's the first cover, I should be able to share the full wrap when the book is out too!
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The Polish version for The First Battle has been revealed! Featuring Turtle Tail, and Fourtrees in the back cover. Concept and AD by as usual 💙 I'm soooo loving the colours we settled with!
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First pet portrait finished! One of my favourite dog breeds, loved painting this one 💕 and summer feeeelss
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Was going through my folders and found this piece from 2017, I still really like it and don't think I've shared it on twitter before!
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Polish cover for Thunder Rising + the full spread! I created a new fire brush for this with a combination of a couple I already had and I'm very happy with it 🔥🔥 As usual, cover concept and art direction by 🧡
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Been wanting to do some more landscape paintings, couldn't resist making something colourful and snowy! ❄️ (And as a Finn I can't make a painting with northern lights without slapping a fox in there, of course)
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Wow I can't believe it's the last book of the 4th series! Here's the full spread for 'The Last Hope' featuring Firestar all grown up. Published by Nowa Baśń and art direction by 🔥🐱 This cover also had a live reveal at Pyrkon, what an exciting moment that was too!
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Two icons I did recently for friends! Opening for similar ones next week when I finish this painting I'm working on :) more info to follow
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Full spread of the latest cover reveal, The Sun Trail! 🌅 I also designed the pattern for the bg, ended up making it with ink in the end and scanning it in for a more brush-like look. Published by Nowa Baśń, AD by and Iza Troinska
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New social media challenge idea: can people stop antagonizing their pets (especially small dogs and cats) for views? Not respecting the boundaries of your pet and provoking them to react by growling, hissing and snapping or even biting is not funny, it's just pathetic.
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Trying out a new program! Artstudio Pro for iPad, I'm so happy I can use my PS brushes in it Here's a test drive fox
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The cover for the Polish edition of "Sign of the Moon" has been revealed! Here's the full spread too 🌕🐈 how many characters can you spot? Published by Nowa Baśń, art direction by the lovely ! 🤎
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Oh I totally did not notice this cover was already revealed! Book 2, River of Secrets for Bamboo Kingdom! I'll make sure to share the entire full spread painting too once it's out in June :D 🐼🌿
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My last painting of 2019, a scarlet ibis for the project Artists for the Amazon, an upcoming charity art book (more info below). I wanted a strong complementary colour contrast in my piece, what would be better than a vibrant red bird against the bright green rainforest :)
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All the spring icons from the last round finished! I think the next round will definitely be summer themed after this week's weather haha
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More cats! 🐈 The Polish editions are getting the first arc's covers remade, more to come soon! Been fun working on these and imitating the colour schemes of the originals. Fiery sky! Here's the first one, Into the Wild Art direction by:
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Here's a bigger picture of the finisher sticker designs going on my upcoming Etsy shop. Just reordered some more!
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I don't have anything new to post at the moment since it's all stuff I can't share yet weeh but here's one of my fav foxes from a few years back! I'd love to make something in this rougher painterly style again
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Been working on a new personal painting this week, hopefully finished soon and excited to share it! :D tiny sneak peek here
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Made some quick dog sketches earlier and coloured one of them today in the morning! Really enjoying this style.
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Bamboo Kingdom - River of Secrets was recently published! Here's the full cover spread I painted for it. Much bamboo 🌱🌱 Commissioned by HarperCollins // Lemonade Illustration Agency
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