Using pencil and fine liners, Anna Karetnikova knows when to thrash the traditional rulebook when needed

The illustrator is inspired by fashion, Slavic folklore, the mysticism of old fairy tales, witchcraft and what she calls "the strength of women throughout history and into the present day".

Written By: Ayla Angelos

4 August 2026

Smiling figure with red hair buns sits at a table surrounded by food and cooking utensils, with floating hats and German text reading "Ach, du diches Lämdei

In Anna Karetnikova's series Verloren Gegangen, you'll see a bundle of figures toppled together in a ball – their limbs tangled, their bodies wrapped in red snow suits and their boots spiked and ready to walk through snow. It's an analogue piece created using coloured pencil and fineliner – the tools she trained on – and it's dense with texture, pencil marks, and the hard graft and determination of the creative process. "I love getting lost in the details and fully exploring what different textures can do. Because it was a personal piece, I had the luxury of discovering what it was really about while I was making it," Anna says.

"To me, it's a journey into my inner world. What would it look like to walk through my thoughts? What would it feel like? It's like following a winding thought through a dense landscape of memories, both good and bad. A path through the different versions of myself. I also think you can clearly see the influence of Slavic visual culture throughout the piece."

Stylised illustration of intertwined figures with brown serpentine limbs, one wearing a blue tunic and another in a yellow dress, against a pink background with a detached head above

A woman in a blue patterned top and olive skirt strides across a yellow background surrounded by stylised plants, vegetables, a cat, crocodile boots and a small child

Diverse group of illustrated figures clustered together with speech bubbles showing yes and no responses, rendered in warm earth tones and muted colours with detailed pencil textures

A tangle of figures in red snow suits with white trim and spiked boots huddle together against a coral-pink background in Anna Karetnikova's illustration Verloren Gegangen

In another, awash in a palette of earthy tones like green and yellow, you'll see a subject stomping on a table in crocodile boots, a cat perched on their shoulder, and a childlike figure clutching their arm, while carrots, corn, broccoli, and tomato are scattered around the frame. The illustration was commissioned for a food magazine's low-carb issue, in which Anna was asked to illustrate the entire magazine. "What I enjoy most about commissioned work is having a lot of creative freedom, and this project gave me exactly that," she says. "It allowed me to work in a playful, naive and humorous way. I love getting lost in the details, hiding little Easter eggs and creating an atmosphere that invites people to spend time with the illustration."

Born in Kazakhstan and raised in West Berlin, Anna studied Illustration at HAW Hamburg for the best part of a decade, a Bachelor's in Graphic Storytelling followed by a Master's in Informative Illustration. Long before any of that, though, she was a teenager obsessed with fashion, photography and diary-keeping – she always knew that she was the creative type. "All of these things gave me a strong creative foundation," she says. "They helped me understand what it feels like to create and trained my eye for aesthetics over many years."

Illustration by Anna Karetnikova showing figures with intertwined limbs surrounded by purple flowers, paintbrushes and art supplies in earthy tones and purples

Illustration from Verloren Gegangen series showing a figure in red snow gear with tangled limbs suspended above a crimson landscape, created with coloured pencil and fineliner

Illustrated collage of food and domestic items including fried eggs, strawberries, sausages, tomatoes, cheese, peas, a person eating toast, and a figure sitting in a chair, rendered in warm earthy tones and yellow

After 10 years studying illustration, she is now a freelancer who has developed a strong understanding of composition, colour theory, and storytelling, and knows how to thrash the rulebook when needed. "My artistic foundation comes from traditional drawing, especially using pencil, coloured pencils and fineliners. Everything I know about light, shadows, colour and texture comes from working with these materials."

Anna's inspiration comes from everyday things. "The structure of a beautiful tomato can inspire me just as much as a newly passed law about women's health. I think it's always the things I feel deeply about. Luckily, I feel a lot, and I have very quick access to those emotions." Fashion, Slavic folklore, the mysticism of old fairy tales, witchcraft and what she calls "the strength of women throughout history and into the present day" all feed in, alongside a long-running fascination with opposites sitting next to each other. "I love bringing contrasting elements together and exploring how softness responds to hardness, where light begins, and where it slowly fades into darkness."

Colourful illustration of two figures with tangled limbs surrounded by floating objects including documents, a mobile phone and flames, inspired by Slavic folklore and witchcraft themes

A child with dark hair in a greenhouse tends to tomato plants, wearing pink and olive green clothing whilst holding gardening tools

Stylised figure with tentacle-like dark limbs and four large circular eyes with blue scalloped borders, holding a smaller figure in a pink outfit against a cream background

Colourful illustration showing four figures huddled together amid swirling green vines and red flames inside a tent, surrounded by camping equipment and blue sky above

Her process starts purposefully messily, which includes scrolling through Pinterest or flicking back through old work to get her in the right headspace, followed by a stream-of-consciousness word dump for whatever brief she's working on. "I don't judge the ideas – I just get everything onto the page." Ballpoint pen sketches follow, rough and quick, before the strongest one is photographed and rebuilt in Procreate with a fineliner brush and a colour palette she sometimes locks in early and other times discovers as she goes.

She's currently represented by the illustration agency Kombinatrotweiss Illustration and has planned artist residencies and exhibitions, and hopes to explore topics such as motherhood, particularly from the perspective of being a stepmother. Above all, she hopes to share stories and evoke an emotional response in her audience. "I want people to feel seen, and above all, I want them to feel something," Anna says. "The moment someone looks at my work, it feels like we're entering into a conversation."