Love is all around

Finally finished my painting! And it feels so good because now I know I can start another one! I'm not sure yet whether it'll be a "Flora"-one or an entirely different one. Maybe both ....

My head is swimming with ideas at the moment and I'm sure that's because of the 29 faces challenge. When I'm "forced" to create every day, I'm getting into a kind of flow that's sometimes very hard to find when I haven't been creating for a while. So I should take advantage of that. Sadly, a day still only has 12 hours ....

I had a hard time coming up with a title for this painting. I had something in my head about protection, but then it would (in my opinion) put the emphasis too much on the male in the picture, while he's just one of the many beings surrounding her.

But when I woke up this morning, the title was right there in my head. So simple, how come I didn't think of it before? I'm calling it "love is all around", because for me that's what this painting is about. If you look hard enough, you can find love everywhere. In the people surrounding you, in the animals, in the beauty of the nature. Of course, hate and doom is all around too if you look for it, but I choose to look for the positive ☺

I'll just take you through all the different steps this painting went through (there are a LOT!)

I forgot to take pictures from the very beginnning, so there are some layers on here already. Mainly started with cleaning my palette from leftover paint

just making random marks

stamps, stencils, marks and drips ...

very hard to draw on there with all the different marks .... This is a sketch I had in my sketchbook, so it's not something I "saw" in the painting.

starting with pulling out the figure

From here on you've seen most already in previous posts

too green for my liking...

 too pink for my liking ...

ah, better .... And there's the male ....

way too domineering ....

phew, glad I got rid of that shoulder ....

This is where I stopped last week

 Continuing with working out the fish, and starting on the bird (forgot to take pictures in between ...)

I first wanted to paint another bird in between the two heads, but then decided against it. I wanted something to unite the painting, so I started adding circles and bubbles.

And tadaa ... the finished painting:

This photo is taken outside, so the colours are more like they are in reality (most of the other ones were taken in my kitchen while I was painting).

It was a long journey and I'm glad it's done. Up to the next one!

Since I already used the 2 faces in this painting for the 29 faces challenge, I needed to make another one.

You might think these are two faces, but in reality it's only one. I painted it on a separate piece of paper and then cut it in half, glued it in my art journal and collaged the eyes and the body.

Here's face # 23! Only 6 more to go!

Didn't have time anymore so I added the text in Photoshop, but I will write it on there (might even choose another quote if I find a better one☺)

Well, this was a very long post, hope you made it to the end :-)

Thanks for visiting and for taking the time to comment. I really enjoy hearing your thoughts and ideas about what I make.

And if you haven't already, go have a look at what other people create in Paint Party Friday and the 29 faces challenge. I promise it's worth it!

Next week is the last week of February, which means I'm almost on my deadline to open my Etsy-shop .... Stay tuned ... ☺

See you tomorrow with face #24!