Logan Gorkov

Looking into my Mobile Studio

A combination of the pandemic and my personal life has forced me to make my studio extremely mobile. This has made me very minimal in materials and explore digital methods of creating artwork. This series, thus far untitled, is based on a combination of my queer and Russian identities, which is traditionally a very oil/water relationship. I'm referencing personal narratives through the lens of classic Russian folklore.

Here are some process photos and works in progress, but if I'm being honest isn't nearly representative of how many post-it notes I actually use. I like talking about my process, as messy as it is, so I included some of that too.

This is the very first page I worked on this project; Sometimes my thinking will just take the form of drawing from reference. A lot of research has gone into each piece, but also personal thoughts & associations end up here as well.

I'm very text-based in my idea generating. If I have the thought, it ends up on paper, otherwise I'll immediately forget it. This is one of many pages that are 95% text.

But once I've got the idea, composition becomes a whole other ball game sometimes, and it'll take pages before I land on something satisfying. I've given up on this one for now.

I feel strongly about post-it notes and use them for everything. Even once I have hit digital space, I still come back to the traditional when I need to problem solve certain things.

Above is the traditional side of the piece. My life is made of this one sketchbook, post it notes, a pencil, and a few various pens. I don't travel with my sketchbook typically, and so most spontaneous ideas end up on post it notes.

The underpainting is still foundational to me in digital work, but I also get more room to play with color early on. Some of the traditional lines are still visible, I'm not interested in deliberately covering them up or deleting the layer. The digital isn't always just a trace of the traditional work, sometimes it becomes clearer what needs to be fixed.


The Fox is a traditional Russian character that is not always a villain like in other parts of the world. She is usually able to talk her way out of every situation, even though she usually gets herself into them. This is one of the pieces that has moved digitally, and I wanted to show a little more of the progression. Initial sketches, thoughts, and research for this piece are the second image above, but several pages were devoted to figuring out the positioning for this one & still more are being worked on for background.