From September 2024 to June 2025, I illustrated three pages each month for the legendary Slovak children’s magazine Slniečko, contributing to a series of ethnographic articles about Slovakia and its folklore.
Each month focused on a different theme. The stories were told by EAS, a character who lives inside a fairy-tale ethnographic atlas that belongs to the mother of the main character, a boy named Florian.
Here are some of the illustrations I created during the 2024/2025 school year for Slniečko. All articles were written by Verona Hajdučíková.
There was an article about ghost stories and “creepy pasta”–like tales that our Slovak ancestors told during long winter evenings.
All kinds of monsters from Slovak folklore.
This is an illustration for an article about traditional Slovak architecture
and village life.
And this one was about traditional Christmas customs.
January and February mark the season of Fašiangy carnivals in Slovakia. This illustration showcases traditional Slovak folk masks worn during these festive celebrations.
This illustration shows Florian and his sister Jolana making hand-crafted masks for their school carnival.
The end of spring was marked by the burning of Morena. Beforehand, a procession of young people would symbolically escort her to her death. A somewhat creepy tradition, but the straw figure of Morena, dressed in women clothes, represented winter and the illnesses and death that came with it. By burning her, people welcomed spring and new life.
This illustration is about the customs for pregnant women and the practices they had to follow during the postpartum period.
Did you know that when a baby was born with teeth, it was believed they had the ability to predict the future?
And here are traditional folk heroes and villains.
What would folklore be without music? This illustration showcases all kinds of traditional musical instruments.