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Nadia Tolstoy is a Stockholm-based illustrator and cartoonist who has captured the attention of many on social media. She describes her work as “mildly amusing doodles” that are “surreal at times and frequently silly.” Nadia has created a series of illustrations that combine different things to represent a single word, resulting in absurd and amusing visuals that will change the way you perceive words.
More: Nadia Tolstoy, Instagram h/t: boredpanda
Aside from being an illustrator, Nadia is an interior architect by day, a writer, and an illustrator of children’s books in her spare time. She is also a mother of two and lives with her family in central Stockholm, Sweden. Nadia believes in keeping curiosity and fun alive, which she thinks are key elements for great creative people.
Nadia’s creativity is always bubbling, and doodling has sparked something in her that led her to create surreal and punny characters and ideas. She discovered this after she got sick and started doodling in her sketchbook. She drew fifty simple line illustrations, each accompanied by a word or two, all in one sitting. Her husband encouraged her to start an Instagram account, and she has been posting her work almost daily since then.
Nadia is interested in how words and images can complement each other, where one makes no sense without the other. She uses this approach when writing children’s books, where the illustration tells a part of the story that is not expressed in the text. Nadia loves wordplay, poetry, and clever jokes, and her doodles often originate from words, especially compound words, that get her imagination going.
She believes that everyone is creative, and it’s a matter of finding a way to access that creativity. Nadia’s work aims to make people smile and forget their worries for a few seconds, especially during these difficult times. She wants people to take away a sense of playfulness and humor in all her work, which makes life more enjoyable.
Nadia’s work has gained a lot of attention, and it’s not hard to see why. Her illustrations are a delightful and creative way of looking at words differently, and her commitment to keeping a sense of curiosity and playfulness alive is an inspiration to us all.