A bit of this and a bit of that ....

I am in a bit of a slump this week. Too many things that I need to do and not enough time to do them. Which is not conducive for my creativity.

As a result, when I decided to give myself a few hours of art time, nothing came out. Do you know that feeling? When your head is full of ideas but you can't get anything down on paper? I had made a whole list of things I wanted to try out, but one after the other didn't go as I wanted and in the end I felt more like screaming ....

The only thing I finished was a sketch I did a while ago and printed out on watercolour paper to give it a bit of colour.

Might use this for my calendar, that I also have to start working on if I want to get it finished in time ...

Meanwhile I've been making ipod- and iphonecases for my Redbubble shop, and also some ipadcases.
Here are some examples:

Made 10 different designs, and it's possible a lot more will follow, because this was FUN! You can check them out here.

These are 2 of the ipadcases, also 10 different designs. You can check them out here.

Remember the paintings I made for Summer of Color? These?

I've put them up for sale now in my etsyshop. Free shipping worldwide!

Did you know the 29 faces-challenge is about to begin again? On the first of September! Head over to Ayala Art's blog and sign up for it if you want. It really is a lot of fun. Not sure yet whether I'll participate, probably not since I can't do the whole month. Which makes me kinda sad, 'cos I've been doing it since the start last year. But, well, I need to prioritize a bit when I'm short on time.

One last thing: a friend who bought 2 of my prints sent me pictures of them framed. She goes around recycleshops and searches for great-looking frames. Here are the 2 she bought:

I LOVE how my prints look in those frames! And what a great idea to search for frames in that kind of shops. Good for the environment, and a unique look. Thanks Tina!

Well, that's it. It doesn't look as if I did much this week, and that's true, at least artwise. Hopefully next week will be better .... (although my taxes are still not finished :-p)

Thanks so much for being here, I hope your day's been good so far, and your weekend will be bright and happy! Linking this as always to Paint Party Friday. ♥ ♥ ♥

Artists that inspire me: Katie Young

Katie Young is a young Australian artist from Melbourne.

She works predominantly in oils and watercolour.

Her work is almost always a collection of portraiture or figurative work. She's also a photographer and a designer.

I like the soft dreamy tones she uses, and the contrast with the line-drawings on most of her canvases.

I am not sure whether the paintings on her website are organized according to date created. If they are, she seems to be changing her style a bit to more male figures and stronger face colours.

I have a preference for the paintings I'm showing here. I can't find a blog or a Facebookpage for her, so I'm guessing she doesn't have one.

She does have a website though, so if you want to find out more about this artist, go have a look here.

That's it for now. I am being busy with all kinds of projects, that needed to be finished by yesterday preferably. Needless to say I'm running short on time again. I will be back on Friday for the Paint Party though, because I promised to treat myself to at least a few hours of painting or drawing tomorrow..... Hopefully that'll make up for all the hours I spend trying to figure out my taxes .... UGH!

Thanks so much for being here! See you on Friday  ♥ ♥ ♥

For all you touch you cannot keep

Thank you so much for all the sweet birthday wishes! I celebrated it by painting all day Monday, and finished my painting! I named it "for all you touch you cannot keep", after a favorite poem of mine from Rod McKuen. Because for me, right from the start, this painting was about loss.

As with all of my more intuitive paintings, I had no idea what images would emerge, but I had the need to start a new painting and pour all of my feelings onto the canvas.

Now that I've finished it, I feel that this painting is about loss and the different ways people deal with it. Some look up, trying to find a piece of that what's lost, trying to find a ray of light, others live in denial, or close themselves off from the outside world, want to be left alone, still others fall down, maybe for a long time, maybe forever.

However way we deal with it, it hurts, for everybody. There's so much sadness in the world. But it's also important to keep seeing the good, to appreciate what's left, to keep going even if you don't want to. And especially: to be compassionate to others. Show understanding, show patience, be there for them, even if they push you away.

I have to warn you that this is a very long picture-heavy post. If you only want to see the finished painting, just scroll down to the end. If not, here's the in-progress journey from start to finish:

leftover paint from other projects. I always have a canvas laying nearby to clean up my brushes and my palette.

I decided to do some collage. First time I tried this on a painting, and now I know I should've waited until I had some more layers, because there's no sign of it anymore in the finished piece ....

Some spray-ink, and the leftover paints from my Summer of Color paintings (all colours are on there, except sage, sepia and grey ...)

Okay, the groundwork is done, now it's time for some serious scribbling and dripping

Love the strong pigment-rich colours of Golden paint

working in some images and shapes, all very random, no idea yet which side would be up.

My new Golden paints had arrived, and naturally I had to try them out on my canvas ;-)

Painting some more random marks, starting to bring out some images

can't get enough of dripping my new sparkling colours ....

Looking for figures and finding them everywhere. I also see a big fish, try to ignore it but it keeps coming up so I just go with it ...

Bringing out the images, wondering how many more I'll put on there

Painting the faces, trying to bring the fish a bit more to the background

Too dark for my liking, so here we go with the dripping again :-)

Painting the other faces, decided to ignore the face peeping over her shoulder (can you see it?), but brought in a small figure falling down.

Well, yes, of course, the bird had been waiting there patiently all the time, so I had to bring it to life .... I also felt it needed roughening up a bit, didn't want the figures and faces to be too smooth. Don't know why. Maybe something to do with grief, and the way it scars all of us ....

 Lightening everything up again and bringing in circles, the symbol for infinity and how life goes on. For me it's also a symbol of lost loved ones going up to heaven. We search for them but can't touch them anymore, they're out of our reach. Also added another little bird ☺

And this is the finished painting (finally!). I decided to also add some bubbles, another symbol for fragility and how we cannot keep what we touch.

This is to show the texture on the painting. I love how each layer adds something to the endresult.

Phew, are you still with me? Then I'd also like to show you the present I received from Sharon. She had a give-away during the Summer of Colour, and I was one of the winners. I won 2 postcards, but she ended up sending me also a cute little folder to put the postcards in. Lovely surprise, and Sharon, thank you so much!

These are the 2 cards I won. Love the colourful quirky characters ☺

This is the outside of the folder that the cards came in

and the inside. I love the loose colourful way of painting, and the uplifting quotes.

Well, I bettter finish here! Linking this as always to Paint Party Friday, lots more to see over there on their blog!

Thanks so much for visiting! Hope you're having a wonderful day, and a weekend full of fun, sun and warmth! ♥ ♥ ♥

Artists that inspire me: Vassia Alaykova

Vassia, who lives and works in Boston, USA, held her first exhibition when she was only 14 years old.

She fell in love with painting and performance arts at the early age of ten, and went on to study fine arts and graphic design.

She is inspired by Eastern European Folklore, world history, theatre, poetry and different cultures.

Her materials of choice are watercolours and gouache. I love the transparancy of her work ...

 Her new series of paintings are inspired by yoga, spirituality and her travels to India

She believes that colour plays an essential role in conveying feelings and emotions

 and also that art should make people happy by somehow touching their souls and enlightening and rejuvenating their lives. Exactly my idea ... :-)

If you want to see more of this wonderful artist, you can visit

her blog

her website

her Facebookpage

and her Etsyshop

 Thanks so much for visiting! I'll be back on Friday with my (hopefully finished) painting! ♥ ♥ ♥

Painting, experimenting with patterns, and FITW ....

I know I keep repeating myself, but where does the time go ... !?

We had a public holiday here in Queensland on Monday, and it feels as if the rest of the week just didn't happen. It went by in a flurry.

I managed to paint a little bit, although not that much has changed since last week.

This is where I stopped last week:

And this is where I am now:

Monday is my birthday and as a birthday present I'm giving myself the whole day to paint ☺. Without guilt about all the other stuff I need to do ... ☺

And meanwhile, I also started participating in the Face in the World-challenge (FITW). This is another challenge by  Ayala Art, the same Ayala Art as from the 29-faces-challenges. She always has really good ideas for challenges.

So basically this is how it goes: there's 3 of us in our group, and each of us starts a face, sends it to the next person, who adds whatever she wants to the face, and in turn sends it to the third person who finishes it. So after 2 stops you get your started face back, completely finished. Really interesting idea.

This is Sandra's face:

I must admit it was a bit scary working on someone eles's face. What if I messed it up? It was also drawn on really slick cardstock, which I'm not at all used to when painting. And which part should I do? In the end I decided to paint the background and the lips, and do something with the hair ....

Not sure how I feel about it ... We'll see what Shelle does with it .....

And I also started my own face on a loose canvas sheet:

Just painted the eyes. Now it's up to Shelle and Sandra to do something with it. Very exciting!


And lastly, I've been playing with my doodles in Photoshop, trying to make patterns. And I might have a new addiction on my hands .... It's unpredictable how it's gonna turn out, which makes it very exciting and a lot of fun.

Here's (only a small) selection of what I made:

Well, that's it for now. Linking this as always to Paint Party Friday, the very popular paint party with more than 100 participants each week. Go take a look!

Thanks so much for being here and for your wonderful comments. I love hearing what you think!

Hope you're having a lovely Friday! Enjoy the weekend! ♥ ♥ ♥