Last face!

Well, last face for the challenge anyway. I'll still post faces of course, I just won't do it daily. I can't keep that up, and neither can my followers I think ☺

So here she  is:

I'll admit I sometimes feel like this ...

It was fun, this challenge. Got to meet some very talented people, which is the nicest thing about these challenges. Ayala Art is planning on having another one in February, the month it all started. I'm in then, for sure!

Tomorrow I'll  post a mosaic of all my faces together. Hope to see you then! Thanks for visiting and enjoy your Sunday ♥

Face nr.28: I can never find words

Only one face left to go! These challenges sure have a way to show you how time flies...

Here's today's girl:

Do you have that too? That you don't know how to put something in words? I have it all the time. Especially when someone is nasty to me and I can't come up with a speedy reply. Until after I get home. Then I find all the right answers that I should have given. Very frustrating. Might try this getting drunk next time. It sure beats getting frustrated ;-)

Hope you're having a lovely weekend! Thanks for stopping by, and for all your wonderful comments.  See you tomorrow with my very last face! ♥

the real art of conversation

Well, I didn't expect that the spring break would have such consequences on my ability to paint. Since I don't have a studio, or even a separate room, I always do my painting in the diningroom. And I pretty much take up all the passageway. Which is not so handy when the house is full of people...

So I had to limit myself this week (and next week probably too) to working smaller and on a canvas that was pretty much ready for the next step. This is a canvas that I brought with me from Belgium and that had some layers on there already.

It's mostly leftover paint from other projects. The interesting part is the first layer. That was done with a mix of sand and gesso. You just put some gesso on a palet, mix sand under it with a palette knife (at least if you want to keep using your brushes ...), and smear the whole thing on your canvas, again with a palette knife. It takes a while to dry, but gives you a nice grainy surface to work on. It was my favorite way of painting for a while.

I decided to use one of the sketches in my journal. I have so many sketches laying around, and when I paint the "Flora-way", I just paint what I see on the canvas, and I don't use my sketches. Since I've done Flora's workshop I paint mostly with my fingers, and this surface is not really suited for that.

So I doodled a bit more on the canvas

and some more ...

And then added (with some difficulty I might say) the drawing on top of all those doodles. Hard to see, I know ...

I ended up using too much dark

And decided to lighten it up again ...

So this is where I am now. I hope I'll be able to finish her next week ... (and yes: that are fish swimming up her belly ☺ I like surreal sometimes ....)

The 29 faces challenge is almost over. Only three more! Here's my face for today:

Thanks for stopping by! Take a look at all the other participants in the 29 faces challenge and in Paint Party Friday! So many interesting and inspiring things to see!

Hope you'll have  a wonderful relaxing and funfilled weekend, and I'll see you tomorrow with my daily face ☺♥

Face nr.26: Eyeballs

Only 4 more faces! I'm gonna miss these daily funny girls I think. I might just continue. Not on a daily basis, but regularly. I love making them, especially when I'm stressed for time. They don't take long to make at all.

So here's the next girl:

So happy that I've finally found a use for all these funny quotes I have. I have even more "sad" quotes. Have to start using my journal again, it's been heavily neglected the last couple of weeks. I feel my fingers itching to do something else. Haven't sketched in ages so I want to take that up again as well.

But for today, this is it! Off to visit some blogs, and for once try to get into bed before midnight ....

Thanks for stopping by! See you tomorrow with another face and also for the Paint Party Friday!

Daily face and artists that inspire me: Lisa G

Lisa G is a Canadian artist who is living in Paris. I discovered her a while back, and put her amongst my favorites right away.

I love her use of colours, and the surreal imagery.

Her faces have something magical; innocent and knowing at the same time.

And the way she paints hands ... oh, just the way I like hands: long, thin, elegant. And she's an autodidact too! Hard to believe ....

I'm only allowed to use a few pictures of her paintings on my blog, so if you want to see more, you'll have to visit her blog, her website or her Facebookpage. So much more to see there, check it out!

And here's my face for today:

Hihi ...

Thanks so much for visiting and commenting. Love reading your reactions, they make me smile ♥

Face nr.24: walking distance and award

We had a fun-filled, action-packed day today, and I'm knackered. But, well, gotta do my daily duty, right!?

Here's my face for today:

And guess what! The lovely Natasha May has given me a Liebster Award!

Thank you Natasha ♥! This award involves sharing 11 things about myself, answering 11 questions posted by the giver, and then nominating 11 blogs. I read somewhere that this should be blogs with less than 200 followers, although this wasn't in Natasha's post. So I'm not sure.

About the 11 things to share about myself ... For the other award that I received, I shared 7 things about myself. You can read them here. So I only have to come up with 4 more. Let's see:

8) Yesterday I started drinking green smoothies. Why? Well, because it's supposed to be healthy. And since I want to lose a few kilo's I thought I might try it. I even had the ambitious idea to eat/drink nothing else during a week. Hmm, turns out I really REALLY dislike them. They make me want to throw up. Now my whole fridge is stocked with green veggies, so I have to force myself to keep it up at least for a few days. Aaargh! Why do I do this to myself!?

9) My absolute favorite authors are Harlan Coben, Mary Higgins Clark, Joy Fielding, Linwood Barclay and Nicci French. Yes, all authors of psychological thrillers. My kids don't understand why I want to read about people being murdered all the time. I can't seem to explain to them that it's not about the murders, but about the whole findingoutwhodidit-thing. And I also enjoy books by Marian Keyes, Jill Mansell, Carole Matthews, and Jennifer Weiner. Laugh out loud funny sometimes. Love it!

10) When I was a kid, I once ran through a glass door. I was playing with another kid who was running after me, and I ran towards a double glass door. I was screaming and laughing and looking behind me and thinking I was heading for the open door. But I ran through the closed door instead. Straight through it! I remember thinking: "uh-oh, I'm in trouble now", but all of a sudden all these women were surrounding me and fussing over me and thinking I was badly wounded. I almost felt guilty for not being hurt...

11) I am crazy about potato-chips. They're my all time favorite snack. I can't have it in the house because I eat it all. No matter how big the bag.

And here are my answers to Natasha's questions:

1. If you were born the opposite sex, what would your parents name you?
   Bruno! My parents loved that name, but they got 5 girls and no boys. So in the end they called the dog Bruno ;-)
2. If you could have a superpower, what would it be?
   Being able to fly
3. If you needed a ride and there were two cars willing to give you a ride. One would be Donald Trump in a Rolls Royce and the other would be your celebrity crush in a beat up Sedan. You'll have to drive by your ex-boyfriend's place who broke your heart a couple of weeks ago and he would be standing outside. Who would you pick?
   Donald Trump!?? Serious? UGH! Not even if he was the very last man on the planet.
4. Take the color of your socks, your middle name and the last thing you ate. What's your rock star band called? :)
   No Socks Gilberte Maoam. Don't see that band becoming famous ....
5. Who's your favorite book character?
   Myron Bolitar (Books from Harlan Coben)
6. Comedy, drama or horror movie? Western, action or sci-fi?
   Comedy and drama. That's it.
7. How would your best friend describe you in one word?
   enthusiastic
8. PC or Mac?
   PC
9. Will you get laid tonight? :)
   haha, you're curious! Since he's already sleeping, it's pretty unlikely ;-)
10. Choose one or two. Dogs or cats or birds or reptiles or fish or insects?
    cats and dogs
11. What do you think will happen on Dec. 21, 2012?
    a lot of people will be disappointed ...

And then the difficult part: 11 blogs to nominate .... It's just not enough and I mentioned too many ;-)  I've chosen blogs that don't have 200 followers yet (as far as I could see), and if you don't feel like doing all the work, please don't feel like you have to. I really won't be offended :-). And for the blogs I didn't mention: feel free to grab this award and answer these questions, 'cause I would've liked to nominate you all!

Limetree

Minnemie

Paula

Sandra

Joyce

Jessica

Pauline

Jen

Michellem

Anne Manda 

Marja

Alarmcat

Sharon

And these are my questions for you:

1) Do you collect things? And if so, what do you collect and why?
2) What is your favorite city and why?
3) What irritates you immensely?
4) What do you love most about yourself?
5) If you could change something about yourself, what would it be?
6) What do you really want to do before the end of the year?
7) What is your favorite form of exercise??
8) What do you do when you're stressed?
9) Are you a morning- or a nightperson?
10) What's your favorite program on TV?
11) What is the first thing you do when you get up in the morning?

See you tomorrow with another inspiring artist and my daily face! Thanks for stopping by! ♥

I see now it's already the 26th here! Well, not for me! As long as I don't sleep, it's still the 25th! Off to bed now though ... ☺

Face nr. 23: I always win ...

Thanks for sympathizing with me on my previous post . Didn't get everything done today, but at least I finished all the things that I really didn't feel like doing. 

Here's my girl for today:

Looks like she has a goatie. Which she hasn't, but that's what you get when you make one-line-drawings. You have to go back and forth over the same lines, and today my hand was a bit shaky I guess. Oh, well, never mind. Only 6 more faces to go. I can't believe how fast September has gone by.

Didn't catch up with the 29 faces-participants yet, but I'll get there. Just not tonight, because tomorrow it's my daughter's birthday, and  I still have to pack her presents and decorate the room. She'll be ten tomorrow! Almost a teenager, oh dear ... My son just turned 12, and he's definitely showing signs of the dreaded sullen, stubborn and cheeky teenager ... I'm not sure I'm ready for this ...

Well, thanks for visiting, and I'll be back tomorrow with a new face!
♥♥♥

Face nr. 22: all stressed out ...

Well, today's face describes my day perfectly. I am way behind on my todo-list, and had planned so much for the day, and I didn't get anything done. And not for lack of trying. Very frustrating, and the bad part is that now I have to do it tomorrow. While tomorrow is Monday and I'll have a whole new todo-list, because  I make one every week (told you I'm the queen of lists ...). Blahh! It's all kind of things that I have been delaying because I didn't feel like it or it was too much work. And now I can't delay it any longer because it should've been done yesterday already. Aaarrgghh!

So now I'm just going to visit some blogs and then have a good night's rest, and tomorrow I'm gonna tackle EVERYthing that needs to be done!

Well, at least I hope so ...

'Cause life surely has a way of getting in the way ....

Thanks for visiting! ♥ ♥ ♥ U 4 it!

Face nr. 21: Solution

Well, this will be a quickie as I'm a bit stressed for time today. I can't believe it's almost midnight in this part of the world. Good thing that I don't have to get up early tomorrow. And not for the next two weeks either, since spring break just started here. Mmm, looking forward to it, it's exactly what I needed!

So without further ado: here's my girl:

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend! Thanks for visiting and see you tomorrow!

Face nr. 20 and works in progress

First of all: thanks for visiting and commenting! I ♥ you all for it!

(hihi, I just found out how to make that heart .... I'd been wondering how people do that, so I've been googling, and tadaaa! there it is! And it's easy too! Turn on your numlock, press alt and press 3 on your numlock. Easypeasy, right ☺!) (and the smiley is alt and 1)

Sooo, I've been playing with paint a lot this week, but not much to show for it yet. Last week I started 2 new canvases, but they're small (40x40cm or 15,7""x15,7"), and I really like to work on bigger canvases. So I looked in my cupboard to see what I had left from the things I brought with me from Belgium, and found 2 bigger ones, and 3 slightly bigger that I started a background on already but didn't finish yet. So I've been splashing paint around on 7 canvases! Mucho fun!

And I painted the sides of 4 more small canvases, and now they're ALL DONE! No more unfinished sides. And I'll try to keep it that way!

Here they are:

Sorry, bit of overexposure there ... But see how the sides are done !? It was quite a lot of work because the background was a mixture of techniques and not easy to replicate.

These are the canvases that I started last week. They're now in their "ugly teenager phase" if I remember correctly from Flora's workshop. I'll just show how they look now; once I finish the painting I'll show all the different stages.

They look pretty similar at the moment. Looking forward to seeing what comes out of it.

And these next ones I started this week, after I received my order from Dick Blick. I HAD to try out my new materials ...

Look at those colours! Aren't they yummy!? I almost start salivating just looking at it.  Gosh, sometimes I wonder whether I'm normal (whatever that is ...). Can you also get that excited about colours? I remember when I left home to study in another city. It was the first time that I was living on my own. I only had one tiny room, but I was going to make the most of it.  So I painted it bright yellow. All of it. Even the ceiling! Much the same yellow as the one in this painting. And when I woke up in the morning it was as if the sun was all around me. And at night I felt embraced by the nice warm glow. Aaaah, I simply LOVE warm colours. Maybe it's because I grew up in northern Europe, where the weather is often grey and the skies are grey and people are always looking forward to a sunny day. I guess I just created my own sun.

This is the second layer, cool colours on top:

Oh, the brightness of the colours! Lovelovelove it! I'm so happy with my paints! And the fact that I now know, thanks to Flora's workshop, how to avoid making mud (never mix warm and cold colours. Let one layer dry before you start with the other colours).

And this is the first layer of the second canvas:

I put it in this direction, because when it was drying on the easel I suddenly saw the sea in there. Or at least water. And when my son saw it he said I should paint a landscape. Yeah, I think it would've made a good start for a landscape. But alas, I'm not a landscape-painter. I need to paint people, I can't help it. I don't feel happy when I can't paint people, or at least living things. Unless it's something completely abstract, like a dotpainting. I once did a drawing-class, and we spent weeks drawing apples and flowers and onions. Yuk! I found myself really reluctant to go after a while.

I might use this picture as a background for one of my sketches though. But for now, well, I painted my second layer on top of it ...

When my son saw it, he said: "Yuk! Now it's ugly!". Oh well, you can't please everybody, right!?

I find it very interesting to see the difference between the two canvases. I used mostly the same colours, just that one started with warm colours and the other with cool colours. Yet they look completely different. The colours in the first canvas are so much brighter. I think I know how I'll start next time ...

Well, as far as painting goes, that's it for this week. I still have my daily girl though. Here she is:

I've tried that out a few times, and believe me: it works ... ☺

I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday and 29 faces. Go check them out, it's worth it!

Well, I hope you'll all have a wonderful weekend doing things you love to do! Thanks for stopping by!

Daily girl and artists that inspire me: Sarah Joncas

I got an answer from one of the artists I wanted to feature, so here she is! Sarah Joncas is a young Canadian artist living in Toronto. I think her art is amazing, this girl is really talented.

She paints mostly women, which by now is not a surprise anymore I guess, since all my inspiring artists paint mostly women.

I love the surreal elements of her paintings.

Such beautiful faces ...

And that hair blowing in the wind ... wish I knew how to do that!

Sometimes she uses a more illustrative kind of style

Look at those bubbles, and that hair again ... love it!

Oh, and did I mention how I love the eyes?

Isn't it beautiful!? *sigh* I could look at her art for ages.

This is really interesting I think. The initial layer is in acrylics, and the top layers are oil. I find it fascinating to see how she starts with a painting.

If you can't get enough, check out her blog, her website and her Facebookpage. So much more to see there!

And here's my daily one-liner, with a very true quote ....

Thanks for visiting! See you tomorrow for the paint party!

Face nr. 18: sick days

No inspiring artist today I'm afraid. Didn't receive an answer to my email, so I don't have an explicit permission to use pictures of her work. Which is a pity, because her work is really worth a look.

Oh well, maybe tomorrow ...

I'll make it short today. It's late again and I'm in danger of collapsing on top of my keyboard. I have a bad habit of staying up too late at night, and then I still have to get out of bed early in the morning, and every once in a while I get so sleep deprived that I walk around like a zombie. Which is how I feel now ...

Here is my girl for today:

Hihi. She clearly doesn't feel like working ;-)  I can relate to that ...

Thank you so much for visiting and for your lovely comments! I'll come by your blog tomorrow, promise!

Face nr.17: it'll all seem funny

On yesterday's post I got some really good tips about art stores her in Australia. Thanks! Must be that I'm not a very good Googler since I hadn't been able to find these stores by myself ... So next time I'm looking for something I'll just ask you ;-) Might be a lot quicker!

I am finally catching up with the participants from 29 faces. There are so many wonderful works on there, it's amazing how many different interpretations you can get with just one simple instruction: "make a face". Some very creative people out there!

Here's my face for today:

Reminds me of me trying to create a website ....

And I found this on Facebook today and just HAVE to share it. It's so funny. And it describes exactly my feelings when trying to figure out how to do all this online stuff, like making websites and creating Facebookpages (although I got THAT figured out now ....)

Hahaha! I keep laughing every time I read it! Look at his pained face, poor guy ...And poor me. And poor everybody who is trying to understand how to do something that seems so easy for everybody else :-)

Well, I'm off to visit some more blogs. I hope I'll be back tomorrow with another inspiring artist. Didn't hear back from her yet, so thumbs up ...

Thanks so much for visiting! See you tomorrow!

Face nr. 16 and lyricsgirl

A while ago I placed an online order with Blick Art Materials, and I had to wait a while for it because one item was out of stock. But now I finally received it and oh, I felt like it was my birthday! I LOVE new materials, it's so exciting! Got all kind of goodies in it, like new Inktense pencils, acrylic ink, fluid acrylics from Golden (which I still haven't been able to find here in Australia) and a lot of new markers that I want to try out to found out which are my favorites.

So I wanted to use my new markers and decided to make a lyrics-girl again. That seems like a very long time ago! But I also made my daily one-liner. So for today I have two faces to share with you!

Here's the one-liner:

Wouldn't it be handy if it had ... !?

And here's my lyrics-girl, with lyrics from Adele:

I kinda missed making these lyrics-girls. Oh, if one only had more time! There are so many things I want to do, I just don't understand people who get bored. I'm never EVER bored. Although I know the feeling, when I go somewhere and have to wait and didn't bring a book or something. But usually I take something to do and time flies by like always. I wished I could just grab it once in a while and tell it to stand still and stop rushing.

Oh well, it's almost bedtime again, time to get this posted ... ;-)

Thank you for visiting! It's so much appreciated!

Face nr. 15: Sometimes I think

Hope I'm not offending anyone with today's quote, but everytime I read it I have to laugh. So I think it belongs with my "funny girls" ;-)

Off now to visit some blogs before it's bedtime. Hope you're having a great Sunday and I'll see you tomorrow with a new one-liner. Thanks for stopping by!

Face nr. 14: Home

I'm playing catch-up this weekend with my online "things". I have been subscribing to an awful lot of newsletters lately, and my mailboxes were congested. So I deleted some subscriptions again, since I also want to do other things besides spending time online (which I do too much already ...).

I am also working on a new website, which should hopefully be ready by the end of next week. I decided to go with Weebly and not Wordpress, since Weebly is supposed to be really easy. Hmmm... , you can say that again. I'm still having problems with it. It's definitely a good thing that I didn't choose Wordpress, that would've been agony.

But, well, we'll just keep trying and in the end I'll get it I suppose. Meanwhile, here's my daily oneliner:

Very true quote by the way ... ;-)

Thanks for visiting! Hope you're enjoying your weekend!

Celebrate yourself

I finished my painting yesterday! Well, actually, I saw some things this morning that I didn't like so changed a bit more, but now it's done. And I'm not gonna touch it anymore!

I call it "Celebrate yourself", and it's in honor of all those women who regularly doubt themselves, who think they're too fat or too thin, too ugly, too wrinkly, too old, too clumsy, who feel inferior, who think they have too much of this and too little of that. Don't let anybody put you down, you are you, you are unique and you should go and celebrate that. To hell with all the rules that society puts on us, the rules that tell us to stay young and beautiful forever and otherwise disappear out of sight. Just show yourself as you are and enjoy life.

Well, that's what it means to me anyway, maybe someone else sees something completely different in it. And that's okay too :-)

It went through a lot of transformations in the end. Here's all the pictures in progress:

The very first layer. Just some leftover paint from another canvas ...

warm colours on top

all kinds of drips and dribbles added, and also some black and white already (I must've forgotten to take some pictures in between)

Hmm. This is really a case of TOO MUCH. I just remembered that I had some tar gel, and decided to make some dribbles with that. So I mixed it with white and started dribbling. Only, the dribbles didn't come out as planned, and I was left with some big blobs, that I had to spread out over the canvas. Very ugly at this point ...

So I tried to cover it up again ... 

At first, couldn't see anything beyond some birds and fish, but when I looked at the picture on the computerscreen I suddenly saw two figures.

It was really fun to bring them out

Decided that the bottom needed something ...

Added some circles and some more drips

Didn't like my ovals at the bottom, so added some more paint / drips.

Worked on the figures some more, still unsure about what to do with the ovals

no, too opaque, but I kinda liked the light colouring

so here we go dripping again (what would I do without my spray-bottle ...)

Better, but still not to my liking ....

Okay, I'm finally satisfied (I think ...;-))

The figures were the easiest part of this painting. I can't believe those ovals took me that long.
I have two new canvases in preparation now, looking forward on starting with them!

And here's my daily girl for the 29 faces challenge:

She doesn't look very happy. I wouldn't either if this happened to me ...;-)

Well, this week I'm going to try and visit everybody on Paint Party Friday. Didn't manage that this week, but at least I don't have a market this weekend (and boy am I glad about that!)

Thanks so much for visiting! Enjoy your weekend and don't forget to go celebrate yourself!