the last 2 faces!

It's finished! The challenge has come to an end. And as always relief mixes with regret. But I guess it's good that it's finished, because I really need to do some things with my shops, and I also want to make a Pinterest board. I'll have to monitor my time on Pinterest though. I  know I could easily get lost there for hours on end ... ;-)

This painting is the first of this kind I did since a long time (except for the commission I did in October) . I was looking through my old sketchbooks, and I still have so many drawings in there that I want to make a painting of one day ....

And since I need some more paintings for upcoming exhibitions I decided to paint this lady. She's also face nr 28:

I'm not sure it's finished. It's not so small (50x40cm - 19,7"x15,7") and I'm not used to having so much empty space on my paintings. I don't want to draw anything else on there, and I've been keeping myself from adding some words. But I'm still wondering. So I thought: you know what: I'll ask my friends from PPF!

What do you think? Should I add a quote or a poem, or just leave it like this? One thing I'll do for sure is add a bit of a darker border. But I'm not sure that's enough ....

And then face nr 29, the last one! It's again a painted rock. I'll have quite a few to take with me to the gallery tomorrow :-)

It's one of the biggest ones I've done so far, almost the size of my hand:

That's it for today! On Sunday I'll be sharing a mosaic of all the faces I did this month, and then it's back to posting 2 or 3 times a week.

I'll be linking this to Paint Party Friday, and to 29 faces. So much talent in both groups, go have a look! I want to thank you all so much for commenting and visiting, it has certainly kept me going this month :-)

Hope your day is beautiful, and for those of you still living with winter, I hope spring will come very very soon! ♥ ♥ ♥

29 faces challenge: faces 26 and 27!

Only 2 more to go! And I feel the same as I always do with this challenge: sad to see it end, but also relieved and looking forward to next week as "vacation"... Isn't it weird? I really enjoy it and I'm always happy with all the work I got done, but it really does take a lot of time to create every single day. Well, in fact, it's not really the creating that takes time, because I do that every day anyway, but it's because I want to show finished faces and no works in progress. It's only then that I see it as a challenge...

I've been having fun experimenting with textures in Photoshop. I'm intrigued by all the faces Joyce has been doing, where she shows the before and after pics of her faces. I am still just figuring it all out, most of the time I don't know what I'm doing. But today I got a bit further than last time. I tried different versions of my face, and I can't decide which one I like best. So I'm posting both of them :-)

It's a drawing made in my journal with coloured pencils and markers, scanned in and with textures and background added in Photoshop. I wanted to "roughen" it up a bit because I felt that was fitting to the quote....

 This is the second version:

Now I'm curious: which one do you like best?

That was face nr 26, and face nr 27 is again a painted rock. But it was already too dark to take a good picture. I'm posting it anyway, but tomorrow I'll take some new pics and post the correct one in my overview on Friday.

And now I can see I even forgot the highlights in her eyes. Definitely one I have to do again ...

Well, that's it for now. Thanks so much for visiting, and I really love reading your comments. Thanks for taking the time ♥

I'll be back on Friday with the last two faces. Woohoo!

29 faces challenge: faces 24 and 25

Well, I didn't have much time today, so I looked through my gelliprints, and I found one where I could see some face-shapes. I worked out the two faces for today and tomorrow, and when I was looking at it to see what else I could do with it, I all of a sudden saw faces everywhere ...

So I drew those too, and then used a quote from Rod McKuen that I thought fitted well.

I don't particularly like this piece, I think it's a bit boring, but it'll have to do ...

Only 4 more to go! I'll be back on Wednesday with 2 new ones. Thanks for visiting ♥

29 faces challenge: day 23 and weekly overview

Tomorrow my daughter is going on camp for a whole week, so there was little time this weekend to do much art (had to go shopping because she didn't have enough clothes .... of course .... those who have daughers will know the situation I guess ☺). I managed to finish a painted rock though.

This one was actually a bit hard, because it had a rough surface and a hole in the back. Didn't notice that when I was collecting them .... But it's a nice big size, so will make a solid paper weight.

And here's an overview of all the faces I did this week:

Face nr 17: sketch

 Face nr 18: painted rock

 Face nr 19: coloured pencil and marker

Face nr 20: collagegirl

 Face nr 21: part of a painting

 Face nr 22: part of a painting

And now off to the last week of the 29 faces challenge! And this week I'll try to visit everyone that I didn't see yet!

Thanks so much for visiting! It encourages me to keep going :-)

I'll be back tomorrow with two new faces (I hope ....) ♥ ♥ ♥

Hidden memories

Well, today's painting is a bit of a surprise-painting. Meaning that I didn't expect to work on it for at least a couple more weeks.

It was one of those paintings that I had just put beside my easel, to wipe of my brushes and clean off my palette.

Actually, to be honest, I had only used it to mop up the floor after I'd been dripping paint on another canvas, and to clean up excess paint left in my foambrush ....

But the great thing about not having my own studio and having to work in the kitchen and livingroom, is that I have my easel right in front of me when I'm making dinner. And I couldn't help but notice two faces in there.....

Can you see them? Click on the picture to see it bigger, I'm sure you'll find them :-)

And when I see faces, I have to pull them out. Even though I had no idea what to do with the rest of the canvas. Gee, there were even spots that didn't have any paint at all ... But I'd worry about that later ....

Hmmm, now what? While I was thinking about that I saw another smaller figure in the right hand corner. So I pulled that one out too ;-) (lately I keep seeing these small figures in long dresses everywhere ...)

Still no idea how to finish it. Added some squares in white, to lighten it up a bit (I found a small box of square sponges in the depths of my closet, and can't stop using them ☺)

I decided I wanted more colour, but I wanted the drips to shine through, so I used inks instead of paint.

Hmm, still not satisfied. It didn't look (nor feel) finished to me, and I wanted to lighten it up some more. So I outlined everything with a thin white line. After I'd done that I knew it was finished.

 "Hidden memories" - ink and acrylics on canvas - 40 x 30cm (15,7"x 11,8")

Aaah, that's so satisfying to just finish a painting in 2 days without even knowing you were going to finish it :-)

So these are my 2 faces for the 29 faces challenge:

Day 21:

 And day 22:

Before I finish, I just wanted to let you know that there's worldwide FREE shipping in my Society6-shop thru Sunday ! So if you're in need of some new mugs, or pillows, or totebags, or iphone-cover, or even just a normal print or postcard, have a look here!

Thank you all so much for visiting and leaving those uplifting comments.  I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday and 29 Faces Challenge. Worth a visit, both of them!!

I hope you're having the most wonderful day, and a lovely weekend ahead of you! I'll be back on Sunday with face 23 and an overview of the week :-) ♥ ♥ ♥

29 faces challenge: faces 19 and 20

I can't believe after this it's only 9 more faces to go and then February is OVER!! So much for hoping that 2014 would go a bit slower than 2013 ....

But at least I finished 2 faces :-)

The first one is a drawing in graphite, coloured pencil and marker, scanned in with the background added in Photoshop:

And the second one is a collage. Oh, I had so much fun putting this together. My dear hubby has bought me a new colourprinter, and I'm in heaven since. I have so many ideas floating around in my brain that I hardly know which one to try out first.

I've loved the look of collage since I discovered Teesha Moore years ago. But I hate using pictures from magazines. Firstly because I don't feel as if it's "mine", second because there's always copyright issues, and third because they crinkle when you use paint on them. And I really don't like that look. Unless it's intended ...

But now with my new colourprinter I can just use my own art. This is what I made:

I used this face:

This hair:

This body:

And this - ehhh - animal....

The eyes are from a bunch of eyes that I painted specifically for use in collages. But I made them all way too big. So now I scanned them in, made them a lot smaller and printed them out. Done! I LOVE it when I can re-use things and make something completely new out of it :-)

And, oh yes, the cat is just a stamp. First time I've used it, and I really like it.

Well, that's it for now! Thanks so much for visiting, I'll hop over to Ayala's blog now to visit some more links.

Hope you're having a nice day! See you again on Friday ♥ ♥ ♥

29 faces challenge: faces 17 and 18

Yes, I managed to finish 2 faces!

For today it's a sketch:

And for tomorrow another painted rock:

I hate it that I'm so short on time. I would love to have a leasurely look around all of your blogs but I just can't seem to find the time to do it. So I'm going to try to see 10 each day. Maybe that'll work ...

Thanks so much for visiting! I really appreciate it ♥
 

29 faces challenge: face 16

I'm not sure what I was thinking when I was doodling this girl. I'm also not sure how I feel about her....  But since she´s the only face I´ve got she´ll have to do. Well, actually, when you want to be strict about it it´s 6 faces at once. But I won´t count the small ones ...  Unless of course I get in trouble this week and won't be able to make any more faces ;-)

And here's an overview of this weeks' faces:

Day 10: sketch

Day 11: sketch in coloured pencil. And YES! I finally managed to upload it by changing the extension from jpeg to gif. Weird, isn't it ...?

Day 12: quick sketch with marker

Day 13: oneliner

Day 14: mini-painting

Day 15: painted rock

I'll post the faces for the next 2 days tomorrow (if I manage to finish 2 ...)

Thanks for visiting and for those lovely comments! I cherish each and every one of them ... ♥

Dance of life and faces nr 14 and 15

It was a bit of a rush against time to get my painting ready. I'm working on 4 at the same time and will probably not get them all ready this month, but at least I'll know that I've tried :-)

As I said last week, I want to make some "easy" paintings now for my upcoming exhibition. Easy meaning just make a drawing and colour it in ....

Hmm, I must say I didn't enjoy that nearly as much as I thought. To show you what I mean, this is the painting:

 "Dance of life" - 50x60 cm (19,7 x 23,6 inches)

I had fun drawing the figures, even though I got lost in the tangle of limbs sometimes ;-)
But then I started colouring them in, and boy, that was tedious work! Some colours I had to do four layers to get them more or less opaque (especially the red and orangey ones). The good thing is that you can do it in between other things, but let's just say I won't make a painting like this again very soon ...

It's a nice technique though. This is how it started:

I painted the canvas black and then drew the figures on there. After that was done I drew vertical lines over the figures, not parallel but a bit at an angle. Then I drew the horizontal lines the same way.

And then it's just a matter of colouring it in. Every figure was either completely tones of blue, tones of green or tones of red, and everytime you get to a line you change the colour. A bit similar to the technique I explained here. And don't mix up the figures! The background is done in different dark colours.

So if you feel like "colouring": feel free to try out the technique! And don't forget to show the results!

Still going strong with the 29 faces challenge, although at times it's "challenging" ;-p

Here's face nr 14: another miniature-painting (10x10 cm - 4"x 4"):

And face nr 15: another rock

Felt like making a weird face with lots of colour ... (was starting to get a bit bored with the colours of my painting ;-) )

On Sunday I'll post the next faces, and an overview of the whole week (just to motivate me to keep going ..)

Thank you so much for visiting, and for leaving all those wonderful comments! Linking this to Paint Party Friday, as every Friday, and also to 29 faces challenge. So much to see at those 2 blogs, 100s of links, and too little time to visit them all ... :-(

Hope you're enjoying a  wonderful day, and that your weekend will be stress- and hassle-free!
See you on Sunday! ♥ ♥ ♥

29 faces challenge: face 13

Phew, the time really does fly this week. I have been trying to get my painting ready today so I didn't have much time for another face. And what do I do when I don't have much time? Right, I make a oneliner ... ;-)

Here's face nr 13:

Made without lifting the marker from the paper, then scanned and added the text in Photoshop.

Not posting another face today, since I'll be back tomorrow for Paint Party Friday.

I have been trying to get through the linkylist but I still only managed to get to nr 33 ... from the 165 participants ..... Hmmm, I need some more hours in my day ..., and some more days in my month ;-)

Those google+-blogs are driving me crazy. With some it's possible to comment, for others I need to have a google+-account myself. And you have to open so many windows before you're actually there...

So if I haven't commented on your blog and you have a google+-account: it's likely that I was there but just couldn't comment. Sorry ...

Well, time for bed again! Thanks so much for paying me a visit, I'll be back tomorrow! ♥

29 faces: face 11 and 12

Ooops, I've been playing all night with Photoshop and all of a sudden it's midnight again ...

Need to get to bed, so here's a short post with 2 new faces :-)

There wasn't much time to draw today, and when I was sitting with my daughter we only had a little bit of time before she had to go to sleep. So I decided to just doodle a little bit in my brown-page-journal with a marker, so I wouldn't be able to erase anything and try to make it pretty.

Here's face nr 11:

Well, actually it's two faces, but that is only because her shoulder looked like a perfect place to put a chin, and before I knew it there was another face peeking over her shoulder.... ;-)

Here's face nr 12:

And do you know what? I've been trying out all kinds of things in Photoshop, and had something that I liked, and now Blogger doesn't want to upload it ..... Grrrr :-(  Technology is great IF it works ....

So here's just the plain sketch like it is in my journal, hopefully by the time I give an overview of this week I'll have found where the problem is ....

Okay, off to bed now. Thanks so much for visiting, I'll get back to your blogs tomorrow!

29 faces challenge: faces 9 and 10 and an overview!

Almost midnight again ... Had to finish one more face before I could post, but yes, I'm still keeping up :-)

Here's face nr 9: another miniature painting:

It's made on a small canvasboard measuring 10x10 cm (4"x4").

And face nr 10 is a sketch:

And here's an overview of all the faces I did in the first week of the challenge:

Day one:

 Day 2:

Day 3:

Day 4:

Day 5:

Day 6:

Day 7:

Day 8:

I started making these weekly overviews when I did the Art Every Day Month challenge in November. It's good to remind yourself of all the work you did, I find it motivates me to keep going.

So, since I posted face 10 already, I won't be back tomorrow but on Tuesday with 2 new faces! Thanks so much for visiting, and for those wonderful and uplifting comments. They make my day ♥