Daily face and Paint Party Friday

Okay, I didn't finish my painting this week, I didn't even touch it (boo), but I did paint a little, so I guess it's all right to still participate in PPF.

I'll just show you the things I did do, mostly things for my market on Sunday, and of course my daily one-line-girl for the 29 faces challenge.

First of all the things I did paint:

I had painted these before, but I "forgot" (read: didn't feel like doing ...) the sides. So I spent half a day finishing them. Lesson learned: ALWAYS do the sides while you're still working on the painting! Much easier that way and less work.

These are some magnets I made. I found canvas with a magnetic backing and immediately my mind went into overdrive about all the things I could do with that. So I ordered a few sheets, divided the sheet in 9 rectangles and started painting.

I used a drawing I've made a few years ago, when someone wanted to trade ATC's with me. I don't like working small, so I thought this was a good solution...

But I didn't listen to my inner voice when I started. The voice that said: "shouldn't you first put some gesso on there and sand it down, because the canvas structure is really prominent?" No, I'm an impatient person and I wanted to start right away. It was hard to paint that small on the rough canvas, but the trouble really started when I wanted to write my little quotes on there. It looked like it was written by a geriatric 90-year-old. So I put some transparent gesso on there and sanded it down. And removed some paint in the process. So I had to start over in some spots. Grrr! Since I usually mix my colors, it was hard to get the exact same tint, which meant I also had to repaint the spots that were still good :-(.
Lesson learned: ALWAYS listen to your inner voice!

These are the magnets cut up in rectangles (the size of an ATC)

This is another box that I painted without encountering any troubles. Thank goodness for small pleasures ...

Okay, what else did I do? Yes, my mosaic mirrors... Two of them are finished, still working on the third one:

 The trouble I had with these make me tired even thinking about ... First of all: it was the first time I made the mirrors myself, and following my hubbies' advice I didn't glue them down (something to do with wood that's working and mirrors that don't work so they could crack ...), but stuck them on there with special tape. Which made them about twice as thick, and thicker than most of my mosaic pieces. Which was very ugly.

What to do? The round ones were more or less okay,  I could find pieces that were about as thick, but the rectangular ones were already very thick to start with. So I had to make a frame with papier machee to put on top of the wood. That's the one that isn't finished yet. It's actually a pretty good solution, so I'll do it with the other one as well.

The round ones had their own challenges. My mosaic pieces have straight edges, so how to make them fit the round edges of the mirror? With the above one I drew a square, put glue in it and threw some glass pieces in there. Never for one moment thinking it would work, but I was desperate. And the next morning they were all glued on there very strongly! I'm still not sure whether I like it that way, but it was the only way to get it ready in time.

Because for the other one, I used different mosaic pieces, and boy, that was a LOT of work!

It's a good thing I still had that many mosaic pieces ready (I make them myself), but if I do this again, it's gonna be on a smaller scale. It's actually nice to do, it's like making a jigsaw puzzle, but not when you're stressed for time.

 Lesson learned: THINK before you do something! And don't leave everything to the last week!

Last but not least: my daily face for the 29 faces challenge:

Paddling like the devil is what I did this week, but I'm afraid I didn't always manage the keeping calm and unruffled ... ;-)

Sorry this was such a long post, hope I didn't bore you with all the grissly details. Thanks for stopping by, and I do hope you'll have a very enjoyable weekend! Might be next week before I'll be able to get to your blogs, but I'll get there eventually!

Check out the other artists of PPF and 29 faces! Lots of great work to be seen there!