ready for a vacation

Today hubby's working his last day, and then will be off for three weeks! Yeah! Finally time to spend some time together and relax :-)

This week I didn't paint on my large canvas nor in my bathroom. Reason for this being the two little fuzzballs I'm still taking care of. They need a lot of attention which makes it difficult for me to work any length of time. So this week, in between feeding the kittens, playing with them and doing all the other chores, I made another artjournal spread. It's a long time ago I worked in my journal, but I signed up for a workshop with Roxanne Coble "Creatures" and have been longing to try out the tips and techniques.
 

I love her style of journaling, and I'm still struggling with making artjournaling more than just painting in a book instead of on a canvas. Also, I needed an outlet for my feelings of frustration and fear and bewilderment and anger about the state of the world today.

Needed to put some birds in there and some hearts and an outstretched hand, to balance out the anguish. 

Here's the whole spread. The quote is from the movie "the green mile", and I thought it fitted perfectly with what I (and I guess a lot of other people) am feeling today.

Now on to something that makes me still feel in love with the world and its creatures:

Aren't they the cutest!? They have grown so much already and are now starting to play and trying to run. It's so funny to watch.

Our cat is finally showing some interest in them :-)

And our dog is a bit fascinated with them, but when they get too close he doesn't trust it and makes a quick getaway.

They will stay for a few more days and then will go back to my sister, who will keep them at their farm. No doubt they'll have a ball chasing after mice :-)

Well, that's it for now and for the next few weeks. I'm taking some time off from blogging to enjoy the holidays with my family. Linking this to Paint Party Friday, as always. Follow the link to see some wonderful creations!

And to end, in this world of misery, I think we can all use some laughs, so here are my funnies for this week:

Sorry to keep posting about Trump, but geez, I cannot believe there's actually a risk of him becoming the next president of the United States. That would be a nightmare for the US and for the entire world. I just hope every single American with some sense in his head will go and vote for Hillary. Let Brexit be a lesson!

Thanks to everyone visiting here, thanks for your  comments and I wish all of you a day, a weekend, a week, a month, of joy and happiness and peace. Especially peace ....

See you in a few weeks time ♥ ♥ ♥

Too busy ...

I hardly got any art done this week. Managed another scribble face, and yes, this time it's definitely a woman! (until now they almost all came out as men)

And I added another face to my large canvas:

And that's it for this week! The reason for this lack of time is twofold.

First one are these two little fuzzballs:

These are two motherless kittens that were found by my niece and brought to my sister. They need to be bottle-fed every 3 to 4 hours, and since my sister has a big party this week she didn't have much time to care for them. So I offered to help, thinking our cat might be able to teach these two some lessons in how to care for themselves. But nooo, our cat isn't interested, so all the lessons have to be taught by moi.... They are the sweetest little things, but boy, they do take up a lot of my time.

Second reason for my lack of time is my daughter, who left today for camp with her youthgroup, for the first time. I never knew how much time could be spent packing things. She is very fussy with her clothes, and at camp they need clothes that are allowed to get dirty or even be torn. She spent ages  trying to find things that she likes but that she still wouldn't mind too much if something happened to them. And I spent ages trying to reassure her that it didn't matter one bit if they got torn or dirty, as long as she was having fun and enjoying herself....

Anyway, the week was over before I knew it, and I'm happy I managed at least a little bit of art, so I can participate in Paint Party Friday :-)

Here are my weekly funnies:

:-D

Thanks for visiting! I'll be back next week! Take care and have a wonderful weekend! ♥ ♥ ♥

finding images

I succeeded in not putting 30 layers on my canvas before starting with bringing out images :-) My previous canvas of this size (1m x 1m) I kept finding images in only a part of the canvas and instead of starting with those I just kept layering until I could see more. Didn't feel like doing that now, so I just started with the ones that were most obvious to me.

No idea where this is going, but that's the fun part of course :-)

I didn't manage to do anything more in our toilet, but I'll show you how it's looking at the moment:

It's very hard to make good pictures in a room this small. Hope to get more done next week.

I also made a scribble-face again. It seems like ages ago that I have been drawing and it sure felt good to play with markers again.

And then last night I started playing with Tuxpi, an online photo-editor. And I couldn't stop anymore! So much fun, it was a surprise every time to see what happened with the images I uploaded. They completely change, I don't know exactly how it's done but the images get reverted in parts. Here are a few of them, they were all made with the Kaleidoscope tool:

 this is from one of my paintings

 this is a part of the background of the canvas that I'm painting now

 Haha, this is a fun one. It's made from this painting:

weird, isn't it?

another of my intuitive paintings. See the kissing birds?

 made from a painting that I made a few years ago

 and one of my doodles

I am getting all kinds of ideas to use these as patterns. Oooh, if only I had more time to try out all of the ideas in my head ....

Well, that's it for this week! Here are my funnies:

 lol...

Thanks so much for visiting. I'll be linking up to Paint Party Friday. Have a look over there to see who else is playing! Hope your day will be a wonderful one, and the weekend peace and bliss ... See you next week! ♥ ♥ ♥

Lots of paintings in progress, July wallpaper and a give-away!

I try to take some time to paint each day, even if it's just some dripping and splashing of colours, and I'm feeling so much better since I started my new canvas. I'm even working on multiple canvases at the same time. But first I'll show you my new wallpaper for July, which has a different size than the ones before. I'm working on my desktop again and the ones I made before were specifically designed for my laptop and didn't fit on my desktop. The size it is now should work for most desktops and laptops. Here it is:

You can download it here.

 I have been having lots of fun with my new canvas, and this is how it's looking now:

I was a bit hesitant to put more layers on there, because I really liked the background, but with this kind of painting you cannot get too attached to the layers underneath. I couldn't do anything with it, I couldn't see any figures emerging, so I just put all thoughts away and went for it. Although I must say I'm now planning a bit more. My last painting had about 30 layers on there, and I don't want that anymore. We'll see where this one ends....

And because it is now hanging on a wall, I was able to put some blank canvases underneath so they got some wonderful drips as well:

No idea what I'll be doing with these yet, but I like how they look. The reddish colour was made with a foambrush by using up leftover paint from the drips that fell down on the plastic, and then I put them underneath the canvas to take the rest of the drips.

This canvas is one that I had laying underneath my easel when I was working on my previous painting (also to catch the drips), and since I was spraying and dripping anyway, I decided to give this one some more background too.

Oh, can't wait to finish all these :-)

Then of course I have some more progress-shots of our little toiletroom:

I love letting my imagination run wild in there :-)

And last but not least: do you remember the "Colour me positive"-challenge? I posted about it in the beginning of the year, but with moving house and renovating I have hardly had any time to participate. It's a yearlong weekly challenge where you get to make a journalpage inspired by a positive quote. This week the lovely Lisa from Lulu Art, who organizes this challenge, featured me on her blog.

I could choose this week's quote, and I chose "Never regret anything that made you smile", and made a kind of journalpage inspired by it. By "kind of" I mean it looks like a journalpage but I made it on a separate piece of watercolour paper, because it'll be the prize you can win if you participate in the next two weeks! Have a look over here and join in the fun! You can join anytime, you don't need to participate every week, you can just see how it goes and do it when you can.

This is the (original) painting that you can win (size A4):

You have two weeks to make something based on this quote! Hope to see you there!

Well, that's it for now. I'll be linking this to Paint Party Friday and to Colour me Positive. Thanks for visiting here, and for leaving your wonderful comments. I'll be ending this week with some funnies :-)

:-D

Wishing you a lovely day and beautiful weekend, and don't forget to do something that makes you happy! See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥

start of the summer! (in theory ...)

The summer holidays have started here! Two months vacation for the kids, which we have all been looking forward to. We might finally find the time to get this endless renovating done. As long as the sun doesn't show (the weather has been horrible here: storms and hail and lots of torrential rains) we might as well do something useful in the house.

But, we're taking it easy. There still needs to be time to have some fun, right? So I thought today was the perfect day to finally start my new large canvas. The people from the gallery have been asking me to make a second large painting, and I've kept postponing it because there was still so much work in the house. But the weeks just keep flying by and it seems there's never an end to the renovation work, so I thought that's it, I'll just start and see how it goes. Here's what I have so far:

It's another one from 1 meter by 1 meter (39,4 x 39,4 inches), so it's hard to move around and it's pretty heavy. I decided to follow Flora Bowley's advice and find a wall somewhere in the house where I can hang it while I work on it. In our cellar we have a room that's very light and that we don't use at the moment, so I put some plastic on the wall and some strong screws, and now I can just hang it and turn it the way I want it. Perfect for spraying and dripping paint. Once I start with the details I'll bring it upstairs and work on my easel.

It was so much fun to paint on canvas again. I always love to start a new painting, not knowing what I will be painting and what the drips and marks will reveal to me. Here are some detail shots:

Don't the colours make you drool ...!? I love how the drips make these small patterns that I could never make myself with a paintbrush. I'll be using these detail pictures as backgrounds for drawings, and I might also make some leggings and t-shirts and who knows what else with it on Society6 :-) It's about time I update my shop again!

I've also been adding more figures on my bathroom wall. It's funny how I keep on discovering new faces or animals while I'm sitting there. It sure gives me something to do :-)

 This is a fish and something else, not sure what .... But they seem to like each other :-)

And another kissing couple (although that bird could also be picking at his eye...., but I prefer the other option). Funny how this week they seem to spread love around on my walls. Maybe it's a kind of subconscious reaction to all the hate in the world, whenever I've had enough I can just close myself in my bathroom and find comfort in my fantasy.

Anyway, that's it for now. Haven't been able to make a new wallpaper yet, but I will be doing that tomorrow and send it to my newsletter-subscribers. I will put in on the blog next week.

I'll leave you with some funnies for this week (because this world not only needs more love but also needs more laughter):

Linking this to Paint Party Friday, as always. Thanks for being here, I hope your day is sweet and the weekend ahead will be peaceful and bright. See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥