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!