A month of faces ...

I finished, for the 7th time, the 29 faces challenge, hosted by Ayala Art! I'm always amazed by all the work I got done in a month, and although it's hard sometimes to produce a face every single day, I'm always happy with the possibilities all the new faces give me (for making postcards or use in my Society6-shop etc....). Plus with the new things I've learned, because when you don't have much time you don't think so much about what you're doing and how you're doing it, and sometimes the "fast" faces are the ones I'm most happy with. And there are some techniques that I'll definitely use again.

Here are the ones from last week:

Numbers 25 and 26: pen sketch

Number 27: another page in my journal: collage and paint

Number 28: painted on top of a wooden box (that is not finished yet):

And the last one: number 29: pen sketch with background added in Photoshop

And then, of course, as always: a mosaic of all the faces for this month:

I'm happy with the variety of faces. I don't like to stay with the same technique all the time, I have days that I feel like painting, and other days I just want to sketch or collage.

I have also been painting on my big canvas. I finally know agan where I want to go with it, and it's nearing completion. Here's a sneak peek:

Hopefully next week I'll be able to finish it, and then I'll show you the in-progress pictures.

Thanks so much to everyone who has been following me and encouraging me throughout the challenge! I'll be linking this to Paint Party Friday, to Show your Face and for the last time to 29 faces. Click on the links to take a look at all the beautiful work that's being produced every week by talented artists all over the world!

Here's my funny for this week:

 Can't remember if I used this one already, but even if I have, it stays funny I think :-)

The only thing left to do is to wish you a beautiful day and a relaxing weekend! Thanks for being here, I'll be back next week ♥ ♥ ♥

29 faces: the end ...

Well, time ran away from me today, and in the end I only had time for a quick pen sketch. But I did it: 29 faces in 30 days! There were days that I thought I would have to give up, but I'm glad I continued :-)

Here's the final face:

I made the pen sketch in my journal, scanned it in and then added a background in Photoshop.

Tomorrow I'll be back with a mosaic of all the faces I created this month. Thanks for making this journey with me, I really appreciate all the lovely comments ♥ ♥ ♥

29 faces: number 28!

Today's face is on top of a big wooden box, that I've been meaning to paint for ages but never  finished. It's still not finished, but at least the face is :-)

It has this texture because I did the background with a sponge (a long time ago!)

Only one more! Seems like a lot of people have already finished their 29 faces. I'll be back tomorrow for my last one. See you then!

And here's number 27!

Didn't think I would make it today but I did :-)
Here's another paint and collage face in my journal:

Not sure whether she's finished. I might do some more with the background, or with her arms, or with something .... But no time for that now. This makes face nr 27! Only two more to go!

Thanks for stopping by! See you tomorrow!

Faces 25 and 26!

In the nick of time for my next two faces! Told you I wasn't gonna get much art done this weekend, and I was right. Just had time to do 2 very quick faces. Here they are:

So that makes number 25 and 26! Only 3 more!! Can't believe September is almost over ....
Will be back tomorrow with the next one! Thanks for stopping by ♥

29 faces and Paint Party Friday

Yep, it's the end of the week. Again. I measure September in terms of faces, so only 5 more to go!

Here's face number 23: collage and paint in my artjournal:

And face number 24: (very) quick (and a bit weird) pensketch in my sketchbook:

And here are the other faces I did this week.

Faces number 18, 19 and 20: collage and  paint in my journal:

Number 21: sketch

Number 22: (ugly) messy painting with some Photoshop-styling ....

That's it for this week! No time at all for my big canvas. Won't have much time this weekend either, my daughter is turning 13 tomorrow and has planned a very busy weekend ....

Linking this to Paint Party Friday, to Show your Face and of course to 29 faces!

Hope you're having the most beautiful day! Thanks so much for visiting, I'll be back on Saturday (I hope...)

Here's my funny for this week:

lol...

Have a lovely weekend! ♥ ♥ ♥

29 faces challenge: face number 22

I'll be honest: I don't like this face. Not.At.All.

I'd rather not post it, but alas, I don't have anything else. It's another experiment with "messy" painting, and it's not even so much the painting in itself that I don't like, but I don't like her. Her face is too wide, and I don't like her expression. But so be it. Here she is:

I played a bit with her in Photoshop, to see whether I can make something out of her. I'm not nearly as adept in Photoshop as Joyce is, I just played with a few layers, but I do like her a bit more because of it....

That's it for now, I'm off to bed. Thanks for visiting, see you tomorrow!

29 faces: face nr 21 sketch

made a sketch today:

and played a bit with her in Photoshop

And this makes face nr 21! Only 8 more to go! The only thing I don't like about this challenge is that it makes the month go so fast. Even faster than usual .... And in October it's Inktober again! Would love to participate, but not at all sure I'll manage. We'll see....

Thanks for visiting! I'll be back tomorrow ♥ ♥ ♥

29 faces challenge: 3 faces in one :-)

Okay, I admit: I did these faces in preparation for my Soulfood workshop. But: the page wasn't finished yet, so I finished it now and am counting these as my next three faces. Or maybe 2. Depends on whether or not I'll find time on Monday to make another face. But for now these'll do for the next ones:

In the weekend there's always very limited time for me to do anything artsy. The closest I come to art usually is visiting other people's blogs :-) Which of course is inspirational and nice in itself.

I will be back in a few days, for the last week of 29 faces! Can't believe the month is almost over already ....

Thanks for visiting and see you then ♥

Faces, faces and more faces ....

Today I took some time to paint on my big canvas. And I painted faces. But I decided not to show them yet. Why? Because I'm not sure where I'm going with the canvas anymore. I had some really clear ideas in my head of what I wanted, but when I started to put them to the canvas, it never came out the way I had intended to. So I tried something out, didn't like it, went over it again, tried out something else, didn't like it, went over it again, and I kept repeating this cycle the whole time I was working on my canvas. Frustrating, I can tell you. So now I've decided to give it a rest, and just keep looking at it from time to time to see which way I want to go next. Don't worry, I'll show the in-progress pics when the painting is finished :-)

So for today and tomorrow, I made a quick ink drawing with two faces. I'm trying to make more of these small ink drawings so that I can use them in patterns.

These are faces 16 and 17 for the 29 faces challenge. Still keeping up, although it's hard some days.

And these are the other faces I did this week:

Face number 12: sketch

Face number 13: page in my journal, where I showed a way to make hair for my Soulfood-workshop, but never painted a face. So now I finished it by putting a face on there as well :-)

Face number 14: lyricsgirl. Long time ago I made these, and I decided to make her in my brown paper journal.

And lastly face number 15: acrylics and collage in my artjournal

That's it for this week! Linking as always to Paint Party Friday, to 29 faces and to Show your Face.

To finish, I'd like to share with you this beautiful picture of a parade in the Netherlands celebrating Vincent van Gogh. The region is known as a global supplier of Dahlia flowers, and each year they have a parade where they show sculptural floats made with thousands of Dahlia flowers. This year they celebrated the life and the work of Van Gogh, who was born in this town 162 years ago. It is breathtaking, have a look a this link to see more!

Made from flowers. Isn't that amazing!?

Thanks so much for visiting and leaving those lovely comments. I hope you are enjoying your day, and I wish you a warm and restful weekend! Here's my funny for this week:

See you in 2 days with my next face! ♥ ♥ ♥

29 faces challenge face number 15

Had a bit of fun today with collage in my journal. Here's face number 15!

Acrylics, print-outs of my own art and magazine eyes :-)
And a beautiful quote by Patrick Rothfuss.

Thanks for being here, see you tomorrow ♥

Lyricsgirl face number 14

Quick post today, here´s face #14: lyricsgirl

Time for bed now! See you tomorrow :-)

29 faces: face # 13

I skipped yesterday: no time, too many other things on my plate, and more important: no face ;-)
But since September has 30 days, and we "only" need to create 29 faces, I had a day extra, right?

So here's face number 13: girl in my journal:

The hair was already there (demonstration I did for my workshop in Soul Food), so I just needed to add the face :-)
Thanks for visiting! Hope you have a lovely day ♥

29 faces challenge face 12: sketch

I made another sketch for face number 12. Might colour her in with coloured pencils later, not sure yet.

I'll be back tomorrow! Thanks for visiting :-)

29 faces challenge Faces 10 and 11

Two faces again today: collage, paint and markers. Makes it a bit easier to keep up ;-)

It's a poem from Rod McKuen, who I only recently found out passed away in January. I felt sad when I read that, I have been a fan of his poetry for so many years, and it feels like such a shame that there never will be any more new poems from his hand. Luckily he has left behind such a wealth in writing, I haven't even read everything yet.

Here's an overview of the other faces I did this week:

Faces # 5 and 6: the weekend is always hard for me to do any art. So a pen drawing with two heads is about all I could manage ...

Face #7: trying to be more "messy" with my technique, hmmm ...., not sure if I succeeded

Face #8: Not liking what I was doing and starting to swipe the paint away, and then the idea of a guy falling apart was born ....

And finally face #9: wild-hair-girl

Remember that I wrote about the refugees fleeing to Europe last week? That same night I found a beautiful haunting picture with an even more beautiful poem about refugees, and it touched my heart so much that I read it and re-read it over and over again. I want to share it here with you, it's a poem from Warsan Shire, a Somali poet who is fast becoming one of my favorites. But be warned: it's very long!

picture from David Ho

"HOME," by Somali poet Warsan Shire

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbours running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won't let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it's not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilet
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn't be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child’s body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i don't know what i've become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here.


That's it for this week. Next week I'll post another funny, promise :-)

Thanks for visiting me here, and thanks for your wonderful comments. I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday, to Show your Face and to 29 faces.

Wishing you a beautiful day and a happy peaceful weekend! I'll be back on Saturday with another face! See you then ♥ ♥ ♥

29 faces challenge face #9

Quick face today, no paint. Somehow, paint always takes much longer. Might have to make more and more pen drawings, or maybe oneliners, for those days that I'm short on time (which seems to be almost every day lately ....). Anyway, I felt like drawing "complicated" hair again :-)

See you tomorrow, thanks for visiting!

Falling apart: face #8

I was playing in my journal and not at all liking what I was doing. So I just swiped my brush sideways meaning to start over, but then I quite liked the effect, so I swiped a bit more, and here he is: my falling-apart-guy :-)

And this makes face nr8 in 8 days. It's becoming harder to keep up, I hope I'll manage ....

Thanks for visiting and leaving your lovely comments! I'll be back tomorrow ♥

29 faces challenge: face 7

Today's face was an experiment with Christy Sobolewski's messy acrylic portraits. She made it look so easy, but as it always is with these things: it wasn't ....

In the end I did it my way, but it was still more messy for me than usual. So it was certainly a learning experience :-)

Can't get the colours right with my scanner. Her cheeks are much more pink, but that's a colour that's never visible on my scans. Pity, because I like to use that colour ....

Thanks so much for visiting, I'll be back tomorrow!

29 faces faces 5 and 6

In the weekend I almost never have time to do art, so I made a quick ink-drawing today with two faces. Who knows, I might find some time tomorrow and I'll do another one, but for now this one will do for the next 2 faces:

Still have to get by all of your blogs. Don't worry, I'll get there :-)
See you on Monday ♥

29 faces face 4

Wow, I kinda forgot how much work it is to produce a face every day and also post about it. It makes me realize how often a day goes by without me doing any art. Just life getting in the way, and this past week it got in the way big time. School started again, I had a ton of paperwork to do, the kids needed all kinds of things for school, and this week was also my most favorite bookfair of the year, where I spent a whole day browsing tons of books. I'm actually amazed that I managed to get 4 faces done!

This face #4 is a page in one of my journals that has been there for ages. I had glued some magazine-pictures on there, and the paper buckled and it looked ugly, so I ripped it off again, part of it stayed stuck, I put some leftover paint on there and then just left it. For months and months. But while I was looking through my book to find a page that I could put a face on, I saw a face in the smears of paint. This is how it looked:

So I decided to work on this page, and that's how face #4 emerged:

With her wild hair she reminds me of a woman from a faraway country, and with the whole tragedy today of refugees trying to escape war in their home-country, I thought the lyrics of Natalie Merchants' song "Motherland" fitted her well. I love this song, but never really understood what it stands for, but this is what Natalie Merchant is saying about it herself: "the song is a desperate plea for innocence, to be 'faceless, nameless, innocent, blameless and free,' expresses a craving we all share now for the world we took for granted and lost. Suddenly there seems to be no hiding from our past as a nation or our present, or our future. For me it's the death of nostalgia and dreams."

Kind of depressing, but isn't the whole situation depressing? People having to leave everything behind and embarking on a dangerous journey where too many people die, trying to escape violence and cruelty, fleeing to countries where they are seen as a burden, where they are not welcome. Wanting nothing more than staying in their own country with their own people. Pictures of the refugees, seeing the despair on their faces, carve in my soul and tear at my heart. And I'm not even speaking about the picture of the little boy that drowned. I don't even have words for that.

Anyway, don't want to get too heavy in this post, so I'll just show the other faces I did this week:

Face #1: I'm finally starting to use my Stabilo-all pencil. Still have to get used to it, but it's handy when you don't have much time ;-)

Face #2: coloured pencils experiment

Face #3: quick sketch

That's it for now. Didn't have time for my big painting, hopefully next week...

I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday. to 29 faces and to Show your Face. Great blogparty's, so do take a look over there and admire the lovely and diverse work of so many people.

Thanks for being here and leaving your lovely comments. I really appreciate it and I'm trying to get to all of your blogs this weekend! Take care of yourself, and enjoy your day. Wishing you a weekend full of joy and warmth. I'll be back tomorrow ♥ ♥ ♥