Working on my painting and more gelliplate fun

Oh, this has been a bit of a frustrating week. Very busy with work, and at the same time my head was overflowing with ideas that I wanted to try out but didn't have time for. But when it itches, you scratch, so I made time for it and as a result I have been diving in my bed after midnight every single day while having to get up early. And now I'm starting to feel it ....

The only day I've been able to paint for a few hours was Wednesday. Remember the picture of last week where I asked you whether you could see the images in there?

I admit it's not easy to see them, I only saw them when I was standing really close to my canvas. I've circled the 2 figures, the 2 birds and the face that I saw (click to see it better):

But when I started to bring out the face, I saw a third figure and decided to get rid of the face. I'm still in doubt about the birds. Asked my housemates, and my daughter reckons I should keep the bird on the left, my son thinks I should keep both birds, and my hubbie thinks I should get rid of all the birds ....

Hmm, not much help this way ;-)

Here's what I have so far:

And a bit of detail:

I have also been experimenting with my gelliplate. Just had to try out some things. These were made last night with selfmade stencils, and the more I look at them, the more I think of things I can do with these. Ooh, if only I could lock myself in a studio one day and not surface again until I've truly painted my heart out ....

These were made on canvasboards, but I noticed they are a bit harder to use on the gelliplate. They don't pick up all the paint because they're too stiff to make really good contact with the plate. Which gives some interesting results too, but is not always what you want. I'll be back with more of these ...

Remember the painting I finished last week? This one?

It's sold! The very next day! Never had a sale that quick :-) Thanks so much Jessica! I have been giving it some coats of varnish, and now I'm leaving it to dry completely before I'm sending it off to the United States. The first time I'm sending a painting by post. I'm a bit nervous about it, have been trying out all kinds of packaging materials, and I'm still not sure what to use. I just hope it'll arrive safely ...

And last but not least: 2 days ago I started the 100 happy days challenge. For 100 days in a row, you post a picture of something that made you happy that day. Here's more information if you would like to join. The purpose is to make you more mindful of the moment that you're in, to notice the things that make you happy. Sounds like fun to me. I'm posting my pics on my Facebookpage every day, so feel free to follow my daily journey here :-)

And I'll also make a new board on Pinterest with all the pictures. Looking forward to putting them all in a book at the end of the challenge...

Okay, that's it for now. Linking this as always to Paint Party Friday, the wonderful community of artists that come together every week and share what they've been doing artwise.

Thanks for being here and thanks for commenting. It makes me happy .... (see, I found another thing that makes me happy ☺. When you start thinking about it you can find a lot of things actually).

I'm wishing you a wonderful Friday, and a restful and peaceful weekend! ♥ ♥ ♥