My name is Martin Smatana and I am a director of animated films and an illustrator based in Prague, Czech Republic. Every week I pick one good news story from the newspaper and create an illustration to go with it. Since I love recycling and upcycling, every illustration is made from old secondhand clothes and discarded textiles.
My book "A Year of Good News" shows 52 illustrated good news stories which happened in the world during the last year. I hope these positive stories will help to reinforce people´s belief that even in the worst of times, people make many good things happen and that even the tiniest, most inconspicuous gestures can make our world a better place.
Have a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year of good news!
More info: Instagram | smatana.com | Facebook
#1
The director of a zoo in New South Wales, Australia, brought home several red pandas, saving them from a blazing bushfire.
I have always enjoyed playing with different materials, usually textile and paper, since I was a child. When I was about eight years old, I made an army of little characters. Then I used to move them into small pieces and take pictures. I didn't know then that it was called animation and not stop motion at all.
I have also loved positive stories since I was a child. I tried to search for them not only in fairy tales but also in the real world around me. This is how my journey as an animator and illustrator started.
A Year of Good News
#2
Brazilian skydiver Luigi Cani released 100 million seeds from 28 native trees while leaping from a plane over a deforested area of the Amazon rainforest.
A Year of Good News
#3
A dog named Patron helped Ukrainian emergency services find 200 unexploded bombs. President Zelenskyy awarded Patron the Order of Courage.
When the pandemic started in March 2020, I was reading mostly negative news from the mass media. Like everyone else, I was worried about how long this situation would last, how long I wouldn’t see my friends and colleagues, or whether I would be able to be locked up at home for so long at all. I had to figure out some sort of distraction that inspired me.
Searching the newspapers, I discovered that positive news isn’t actually that rare: it’s often small, seemingly unnoticed deeds and facts that can be found at the other end of the street as well as on the other side of the world. Lots of good things happen every day, but they are often buried under the weight of “big” events and dry news agency reports: that’s why I decided to put positive stories in the spotlight and retell them in my own way.
A Year of Good News
#4
When the 11-day war between Israel and Palestine ended, an Israeli kindergarten teacher donated a kidney to a three-year-old boy from Palestine.
A Year of Good News
#5
A father who wanted to spend Christmas with his daughter bought tickets for all six flights she worked as a flight attendant so they could be together on the 24th and 25th of December while flying around the country.
From week to week, I found one piece of good news from around the world and made a picture of it. Since I wasn’t really good at drawing, I made them from used or old textiles: that’s how I kept my good mood. However, when I saw how positive the feedback was, I decided to try to please people with a new picture every week. This allowed me to stay calm during the pandemic instead of feeling anxious.
A Year of Good News
#6
When students in Bristol learned that their school’s caretaker hadn’t visited his relatives in his native Jamaica for four years, they collected money for his air ticket.
A Year of Good News
#7
A hiker who was injured while climbing in Croatia’s mountains was saved from freezing to death by his dog. An Alaskan Malamute dog named North lay on top of him, keeping him warm for 13 hours until they were reached by rescuers.
Three or four years ago, when I was preparing scenes and scenography for my animated film The Kite, I realized that textiles are a very good raw material for both illustration and animation. The whole environment of the film was made of fabrics and old clothes that my friends wanted to get rid of. I fell in love with the textile because I could move its structure from fiber to fiber: I was thinking of details like the flow of grass in the wind, which I made from a long-haired, green, fluffy carpet during the animation. This book was made exactly the same way: using old sweaters, rugs, or scarves, I created soft illustrations that were lit with soft light and photographed.
A Year of Good News
#8
Many families adopted dogs during the lockdown, leaving dog shelters almost empty. Lonely people appreciated animal companionship which helped them overcome their fear of the pandemic and made them feel safer.
A Year of Good News
#9
Female Afghan scientists who were forced to leave Kabul showed their robotic inventions at the World Forum in Doha. They have been taking part in science competitions around the world to help young Afghan women develop their engineering, science and technology skills.
It takes me about 5 days to make one illustration. Paradoxically, the longest part is to find suitable good news. Sometimes I scroll through dozens or hundreds of news articles until I find one that makes me happy, sometimes it even moves me or gives me goosebumps. That's when I know it was the right one! I start reading more about it, looking for photos of it, verifying the facts, then I draw a few sketches on paper and try to look for composition and shape.
Once I'm happy with it, I color it so I know what fabric colors to look for. Then I dig for hours in old clothes and discarded fabrics and only then do I start cutting, sewing, and gluing. Afterward, I will just light everything nicely, take pictures, edit and add message text.
A Year of Good News
#10
After war broke out in Ukraine, José Andrés, a famous Spanish chef, traveled to the Polish-Ukrainian border. With his team, he prepared thousands of meals a day for refugees, supported by local chefs, restaurants, food producers and suppliers.
A Year of Good News
#11
A garbage collector in Bogotá, Colombia, has collected over 25,000 books people had thrown out and this year he opened a public library for poor children on the ground floor of his house.
So far, I feel that this project helps many people cope with difficult times. I still receive a lot of good feedback after the book was published. Many have written to me that reading the book has encouraged them to do a little favor themselves, or even to call and talk to their loved ones. I think the book can help all of us realize that this past year hasn’t been so bad after all. So I plan to continue creating it in the near future. I am currently starting to prepare A Year of Good News 2023. I believe that one day such a book will not be necessary.
A Year of Good News
#12
When the war in Ukraine broke out, twelve-year-old Gabriel Clarkie from England decided to help children caught up in the conflict by making a wooden bowl. His Bowl for Ukraine went viral, raising a quarter of a million pounds sterling, which he sent to the war-torn country.
A Year of Good News
#13
A Japanese grandma, Masako Wakamiya, couldn’t find a game app for elderly people on her smartphone. At the age of 81, she took up a course in programming. After three years of studying, she designed a mobile game app, “Hinadan,” inspired by traditional puppet theatre. The game has since been downloaded by tens of thousands of users around the world. Today, at the age of 85, she is one of the oldest app developers in the world. She encourages other seniors to use digital technology to enrich their lives.
A Year of Good News
#14
As flights from Italy were canceled due to the pandemic, a ten-year-old boy decided to walk with his father to visit his grandma in London. After 93 days, 2.800 kilometers and two weeks in quarantine, they made it to Trafalgar Square so the boy could finally give a hug to his grandma.
A Year of Good News
#15
Children around the world who were stuck at home for months during the pandemic drew pictures of rainbows and put them up in their windows to cheer up their neighbors and spread hope by showing that after every rain the sun always comes again.
A Year of Good News
#16
Valentina and Leonid Stoyanov, a veterinarian couple from Odesa, turned their house into a shelter for abandoned animals from Ukrainian towns affected by war.
A Year of Good News
#17
After more than thirty years, women cyclists have returned to the Tour de France.
A Year of Good News
#18
For the second time in history, the International Refugee Olympic Team was competing in the Olympic Games. 29 professional athletes forced to leave their homes by war or oppression competed in Tokyo together under a joint flag. They act as a symbol of hope for refugees worldwide and bring global attention to the magnitude of the refugee crisis.
A Year of Good News
#19
Two-year-old Barrett from Texas accidentally ordered 31 cheeseburgers while playing with his mother’s mobile phone. Since the order couldn’t be canceled, she threw a cheeseburger feast for people in the neighborhood.
A Year of Good News
#20
A Finnish woman has been cleaning the grimy homes of strangers for free. Auri Kananen (aka Queen of Cleaning) has focused on people who are unable to look after their own homes because they have found themselves in difficult situations or suffer from mental health problems.
A Year of Good News
#21
To give back to nature what it has taken from it, a Danish company has invented pencils that can be planted after use so that they grow into a herb, a shrub or a tree.
A Year of Good News
#22
A 22-year-old student with disabilities dreamed of climbing Mount Olympus. Her dream came true when an endurance runner Marios Giannakou carried her to Greece‘s highest peak in a specially modified backpack.
A Year of Good News
#23
After a year of remote learning and socially distanced classrooms, one school in Spain decided to adapt to a new way of teaching and moved lessons to the beach. The children were socially distanced in the fresh air and the teachers could give object lessons in biology and geography near the sea islands.
A Year of Good News
#24
When the border between Český Těšín and the neighboring Polish city of Cieszyn was closed during the pandemic, residents of the two cities exchanged messages across the river to tell their neighbors how much they missed them.
A Year of Good News
#25
Australian firefighters dropped tons of fruit and vegetables from helicopters to feed starving animals whose habitats have been burned in the bushfires. Australian rescue centers have helped kangaroos, camels, horses and alpacas to survive.
A Year of Good News
#26
The Slovak ultramarathon runner Lenka Vacvalová went to Peru where she ran 850 km along one of the most ancient trails in the world, raising money to buy unique equipment for the children’s oncology clinic in Bratislava.
A Year of Good News
#27
Italian street artist CIBO has been fighting hatred in the public space by covering neo-Nazi graffiti with colorful murals depicting all kinds of foods.
A Year of Good News
#28
An old man in Australia knitted woolen jumpers for penguins threatened by an oil leak to stop them from swallowing the toxic oil while cleaning themselves.
A Year of Good News
#29
A French florist left bright bunches of flowers on cars parked outside a hospital to thank healthcare workers.
A Year of Good News
#30
To protest against unequal Covid restrictions that forced museums and galleries in Holland to stay closed, leading cultural institutions were temporarily transformed into establishments not affected by the lockdown. For one day, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam turned into a nail salon, the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague into a gym, and concert halls across the country into hair salons.
A Year of Good News
source https://www.boredpanda.com/illustrations-a-year-of-good-news-martin-smatana/
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