playing with paint

This week I did a bit of everything, but don't have much to show for it. I finished small details on my painting and gave it a few coats of varnish, I made some ACEO's and I have been playing with my 2 new canvases, putting layer upon layer of bright colours.

Here are the ACEO's:

 And the 2 canvases:

The first one is for an intuitive painting, but it's so long ago I made one that I really have to practice again to see figures. At the moment I don't see anything, so I might have to make quite a few more layers. The second one is for a "negative" painting like the one I finished last week. I love working on more than one painting at the same time. When I'm stuck with one I can just continue with the other one.

And, in case you don't know it yet, next week one of my favorite challenges will start: The Summer of Color! I have been participating for the last three years and I love it. It makes me use colours that I normally wouldn't use and sometimes it really surprises me how I like certain colourcombinations. If you want to join in the fun, here's the link to Kristin's blog. Hope to see you there!

That's it for this week. I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday (bloghop for all kinds of art that was created this week) and to Art It Friday - Show your face (bloghop for any kind of face that you made this week). Lots of eye-candy at both places!

I'll finish with my funny of the week ;-)

lol :-D

Thanks for visiting here! I love reading your comments and visiting your blogs too. Wishing  you a wonderful day and a great weekend with lots of favorite things to do! ♥ ♥ ♥

A world that I long to see

I finished my painting! Well, apart from some small details that I still need to do (like finishing the sides and maybe do something with their clothes) I consider it done.

This was such a fun painting to make. I love adding all those small details and twirls and weird animals :-)

I ended up completely changing the face that I did last week. Her face was too small and her neck too long compared to this figure. Now they all have more or less the same size of heads ;-)

I am working on two more backgrounds. Can't wait to start another one!

I started this painting last year when I was still living in Australia. I'll show you the in-progress-pics from the very beginning:

 collage and drips in my favorite colours

more drips in more favorite colours :-)

adding random marks

and some stencilling

and stamps ...

This is the stage it was in when I left Australia. It was a joy to unpack it in the dark and dreary days of winter and I couldn't wait to continue. I added more layers, but regrettably I only took detailpictures and no picture of the whole canvas. So when I started the next layer it looked completely different.

Here I started to draw the figures and fill the background with white.

the white is taking over .....

And here's the finished painting!

"A world that I long to see" - mixed media on canvas - 61x61cm - 24x24 inches

I called it "A world that I long to see", because for me this painting is  about the connection I long for between all living things. It saddens me so much to see how we are destroying our world and the habitat of these wonderful creatures that live with us on this planet. I hope some day the majority of people will realize that the earth is something precious and that our natural resources won't be there forever if we don't start taking care of things. 

And look what arrived in the mail this week ...

Oh, so exciting to see my art in there, in a "real" book!! It's a beautiful thick book with a lot of eye-candy. Here are my 2 journalpages that were selected to be in the book:

Woohoo! It's an honour to be in there with so many great artists. The nice thing is that I know a few of the other artists in there, from workshops that I did, and some I know from my blog. Makes you realize it's a small world :-)

Well, that's it for now. I'll be linking this to Paint Party Friday tomorrow, click on the link to see some wonderful art! Hope you'll have a wonderful Friday, and some nice things to do in the weekend! Thanks so much for your visit, it's really appreciated!

And as always: my funny of the week:

haha, isn't that the way it goes ;-D

See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥

Getting there

I have made good progress on my painting. Finally finished all the white spaces. I tried out different brands of white and in the end found one that covered the background better. Still had to do lots of layers though. I now started working on the faces. Here's the first one:

And here's the whole painting:

Changed a few things here and there that I wasn't so happy with, and now overall I like it better. Still a bit of work to do though.

Also finished some more ACEO's:

 Lyrics from Dire Straits, but I didn't have room to add their name anymore ...

And look how this one looked when I scanned it in:

It's weird: every time I scan something that has fluorescent pink or orange, the colours just disappear...

Okay, that's it for this week. Linking this to Paint Party Friday of course, the weekly party full of gorgeous and interesting art. Go have a look over there, you won't regret it! And I'm also linking to a new art bloghop, this one all about faces. Which, as you know, is my favorite subject to paint/draw/sketch. It's called "Art it Friday-Show your face", and I found it thanks to Linda :-)

Thanks so much for coming to visit me, and I wish you a beautiful day, and a relaxed weekend full of happiness.

Funny for this week:

 lol

See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥

Busy busy busy ....

... but not much to show for it ;-) I've been filling in the white background in my big painting, so it's still looking more or less the same. Can't wait to start working on the figures. I am preparing a new background for the same kind of painting, but instead of white I plan on using Payne's Gray. And I've also been putting more layers on my intuitive painting canvas. But like I said: there's not much to show right now ....

I have been making new ACEO's too, but only one's finished. I make the drawings while I'm sitting with my daughter on her bed at night before she goes to sleep. It has taken a while before we took up this habit again, but we both really enjoy it, even if there's only 10 minutes left before she goes to sleep.

This one was made with coloured pencils, markers and acrylics. It's available here.

Today I want to share art from some students in my Soulfood class. Didn't manage to reach everyone, but I got some to share already:

Lloydene calls these her "quirky collage girls". I love it everytime she comes up with yet another creation. You can see more of her wonderful art on her Facebookpage.

Joyce made 2 versions of the same girl, and I love both of them. Can't pick a favorite! You can find more of her beautiful art on her blog.

Amazing faces by Jackie Beeman. Also really love her colourful backgrounds.

And some more by Lloydene.

I really enjoy seeing what my students create. Makes me want to make more workshops, only to see what they will come up with :-)

There's another promotion in my Society6-shop (free worldwide shipping), so I decided to add some more art. Here are some examples:

 iphone skin

 stationary card

 totebag

 framed art print

I am late this week, but I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday anyway. Thanks so much for visiting! I'm wishing you a wonderful weekend with lots of warmth ♥ ♥ ♥

Funny of the week:

lol :-D

See you next week!

April ... where did you go ?

Another Friday, another month, we're almost halfway the year! Can't believe it. Except for the warmer weather, I don't like it at all that time moves so incredibly fast. I cannot remember that it was like this when I was younger... :-{

Meanwhile, I'm working on several things at the same time. Still painting away with white:

I have almost finished the first layer and added a second layer in some places already. It takes at least 3 layers to completely cover the background. For my next painting in this style I will try another colour instead of white.

Put some more layers on my canvas  for my new intuitive painting. I'm still not seeing any figures emerge, so I keep layering until I do :-)

And I made some more ACEO's. This first one is again mixed media with collage:

But then I also felt like painting one:

Takes some getting used to this small size, but it was fun. I'm a bit done with collage for the moment, it's weird, with me everything always goes in phases: I have my sketching phase, my intuitive painting phase, my collage phase, my journalphase, my markersphase, my coloured pencil phase and so many more ....  Guess I'm in the painting phase right now ... ;-)

And today was the last day to subscribe for Soulfood! It's finished already! Another example of time going too fast. It's good that I have till the end of the year to watch all the video's, since I only saw a few of them yet. The classes are as diverse and creative as their different teachers. It felt wonderful to be part of such a talented and generous group of people. And it was so exciting to see the work my students did after watching my video's. I was a bit late in asking their permission to post it on my blog, but I hope I can show you some examples next week. To start with: this is the page I made as an example for my class in Soulfood:

Well, that's it for this week. Linking this to Paint Party Friday, as always my favorite bloghop. Hope you take a look over there at all the work the artists have done this week! You won't regret it!

Here's my funny for this week:

 hahaha! Overambitious cat ...

Thanks for visiting me here, I hope your day started out well, and I wish you a beautiful and loving weekend! See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥