Illustration for the collection of short stories by Yevhen Gutsal "In the stork village" 1969

Hryhorii Havrylenko made this illustration for a collection of short stories with ink, or something similar. Look at the way he builds up the image with layers of tiny marks, like he’s weaving a visual tapestry. I imagine him sitting, maybe at night, patiently building up these textures and tones. The cross-hatching feels almost meditative. He probably wasn't interested in slickness or perfection. There’s a rawness in the work, a handmade quality, which reminds me of folk art. There’s this tension between the dark, dense foreground and the open sky. It's like the artist is exploring the boundary between safety and the unknown. That bright patch—is it a field, a lake, or something else entirely? Artists are always in conversation, riffing off each other, and here Havrylenko is speaking a visual language we can all understand, one built on feeling, intuition, and the simple act of mark-making.