Mirka Léblová

My friends call me Mirule. I am 43 years old, have two children – a ten-year-old girl Kaja and an eight-year-old boy Honzík. I also have a funny husband called Bobin. We live in Mělník. I work as a graphic editor for the magazine “Mommy” of the Czech News Centre publishing house. I love Pilates, yoga, dancing, reading exciting books, watching movies and lying on the couch by the fireplace. First, I was scared of painting. Although I have art education (I studied graphic design at the High School of Arts and Crafts in Zizkov), I always expressed myself by drawing only. But making an oil painting where turpentine or oil is used as a thinner was inconceivable to me. Once, my sister-in-law Silvie gave me a set of oil paints for Christmas. I left them in a drawer for ten years. But once, when I was on parental leave, I said to myself I would try to paint something with oil paints. It was shocking. The paints behaved unexpectedly, and turpentine destroyed my plastic bowls. I just taught it all the trial-error method. I’ve been painting for about two years. Pencil drawing is still the most pleasant and natural thing for me. The time when I prefer to paint is the time when I feel physically well, which is not always the case. It was my friend who told me about the project. I was given an opportunity to create something according to a specific assignment, and I also took the size of the painting as a challenge. I had not painted anything that big, except the walls of our house, before.