a bit of journaling in between other things ....

This week I started in earnest with my todo-list for our move back to Belgium. But I managed to do some art in between. This is a journalpage that I had finished before but didn't post yet:

It's mostly collage from my own artwork, except for her hair. I love playing around with different hairdo's for my girls, and this is my latest obsession: cutting out "real" hair and glueing it on top of one of my faces. Amazing how many different looks you can create that way :-)

On Thursday I had had enough of sitting at my computer with my todo-list and decided to get out into the sun and paint some rocks. I have one order for a rock that I sold some time ago and will now try to make another one of, so I figured I could just as well give all the rocks that I still have a basecoat. That way I can just do some in between, whenever I feel like playing :-)

Felt completely energized after that ;-)

And when I was looking for something I came across this painting that I had started months ago and kinda forgot about. It has a drawing on it already, so I figured I could just as well start colouring in. That doesn't take much time, and I can do it in between other things ...

Need to keep my creative juices flowing, don't I  ... ?☺

I finally managed to get my website completely up-to-date, and listed some more original art in my Etsyshop. These miniature-paintings were not in there yet but they are now!

These'll be the last pieces I will put in my Etsyshop for now.  I will have to close the shop in October, and won't be able to open it up again until after New Years, since our container will only arrive around that time. It's a good thing that my Society6-shop and Redbubble-shop can just stay open, as well as Lulu, where I sell my calendars. Making a new calendar is next on my list.....

So, that's it for now. Thanks so much for visiting, I really appreciate all the thoughtful comments and the encouragement you guys (or girls ☺) give. I'm linking this as always to Paint Party Friday.

I wish you the best of days, and a wonderful weekend ahead of you! See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥

Journalpages and face in the world

Since I don't have time at the moment to start a new painting, I'm back to art journaling. I forgot how much fun it is. I'm experimenting a bit with shapes and forms. This one is a combination of a sketch and a doodle:

I also tried my hand at collage again. But it was a struggle. This one was pretty straightforward, but I'm working on another one that I'm really stuck with at the moment ....

And our round of the Face in the World challenge is now officially finished! Here are all the pieces:

This one was started by me, the face is done by Shelle and the background and hair by Sandra. I love what they did to it! Thanks both of you :-)

This one was started by Sandra, hair and lips by me and face by Shelle. Love her!

Of this one I don't have a picture of the first phase, done by Shelle. The face was painted by Sandra, and the hair and shoulder by me.

This really is a fun challenge. It's really exciting to open up the mail not knowing what you'll find inside.

And last but not least: you know I was in a kind of a slump last week, wanting to do creative stuff and not getting anything on paper?  Well, just when I was all frustrated and bad-tempered, I stumbled upon Clare's blog, where she showed a sketchnote she made about an "inspiration crisis". It was so recognizable that I asked her whether I could share it on my blog. Here it is:

Love love love it! Thanks Clare, it was just the thing I needed to see at that time :-)

Well, that's it for now. I've almost finished my new calendar and am now trying to figure out how to self-publish a book. More about that later ...

Thanks so much for visiting and for leaving your wonderful comments. They are so appreciated!

Linking this again to Paint Party Friday, don't forget to go over there and check at least a few of the links out. Hope your weekend will be peaceful and sweet .... ♥ ♥ ♥

2 more days to the Etsy-promotion ....

I'm getting really annoyed with Google+. I haven't been able to leave a comment on several blogs because now all of a sudden you need to have a Google+-profile to be able to comment. How crazy is that! After hearing all the negative experiences with Google+ I decided to stay as far away as possible from it, but now they're really pushing it into everone's face. And I refuse to sign up for it. I want to make up my own mind and not be forced into signing up for something I don't like. I wonder how much longer the "normal" bloggers will be able to do things ....

Anyway, today I've been having a look at the profiles of all the people that signed up for the Etsy-promotion. For a lot of you I can't find any email-addresses, so I'll have to send the list of shops you'll promote to your Etsyshop. Of the last person that signed up "Morning Prayer" I can't even find the Etsyshop... Went to her blog, but there's no email or way of contacting, except for leaving a comment. And, well, you guessed it .... I need to have a Google+-profile for that .... Aaarrgghhh!

So "Morning Prayer", if you read this, please send me an email or leave a comment on this blog with the link to your Etsyshop, otherwise I will have to remove you from the list .....

I'll close the linkylist on the first of May Australian time. So for some people it will still be the 30th of April. If you are thinking about signing up but haven't already, better do so now.

I haven't been doing much art in the weekend, except for the nightly art journaling with my daughter.

Here's another page in my Rod McKuen art journal:

I felt like doing really wild crazy hair. So much fun ....

And I finally finished another doodle while working in the art gallery:

And lastly: another oneliner:

I'm making these oneliners into postcards. Hopefully by Wednesday I'll have some listed in my Etsyshop.

That's it for now. In the month of May, I'll replace my inspiring artist posts on Wednesday with the promotion posts for the Etsy-shops. So do come back here and have a look, there are some wonderful Etsyshops to promote ....

Thanks so much for stopping by and for sharing your lovely thoughts in the comments. See you on Wednesday! ♥ ♥ ♥

A bit of everything ....

It's been a bit of a chaotic week. The kitchentable is full with all kinds of work in progress, I'm multitasking like a maniac and slowly but surely driving myself mad .... And I'm reading everywhere that multitasking is a very baaad idea. I should just concentrate on one thing and get it over with, and then start the next one. But all the time these ideas and things I need to do pop into my head and I'm off again writing it down or trying it out.... My time-management is still not the way it should be ... ;-)

looks like something exploded on my work kitchentable ....

This week is also the week that I needed to make something for Paula's blog. Paula is doing a project on her blog where she takes a picture a day, and then makes a cover page for each week. She also invites other artists to make a page for the week's number. My week was the 17th. So I needed to make something that had either the number 17 on it, or something that people can count.

I chose this week in January, for no particular reason other than that the Easterholidays were over and I expected to have more time (ha! what a joke ...). So the number 17 had no special meaning for me. My mind drew a blank. What to do?? I started thinking about what was special about this week. And yesterday was Anzac Day (ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps). That day we commemorate all the Australians that have died in wars all over the world. It was originally a remembrance of the battle of Gallipoli in WW1. And an idea popped into my head. I decided to draw 17 young men surrounding a beautiful poem (well, part of it) by Laurence Binyon.

I felt it was a fitting tribute to this week, and also a reminder of the lunacy of war, which has taken so many young lives, and still does ....

At the same time I'm working on a few wooden boxes:

some mosaic mirrors:

journalpages in my Rod McKuen-journal while I'm sitting with my daughter on her bed every night:

and a new painting with a technique I used a few times years ago and felt like doing again (every now & then I need to do something different, and this is a way of painting that doesn't ask to much of me, it's just colouring in really ....). Nice to do in between cooking the potatoes and helping the kids with homework ;-)

It's difficult to make pictures because it's a very long small canvas. When I've done some more (hopefully next week) I'll explain the method. This is a painting I did with that technique a few years ago as a commission for someone's wedding:

And that's it for this week! I'm linking, as always, to Paint Party Friday. So many wonderful artists play every week, do have a look over there!

Meanwhile, there's only a few more days left to sign up for the Etsypromotion in May. 27 people have signed up already, you can join them here.

And, oh yes, I really need to give you a great tip from Donna, a fellow Brisstyler (a group of creative entrepeneurs here in Brisbane). If you have a Facebookpage, and you have an online shop on Etsy, Amazon, Ebay, ... there's an app that you can install that automatically copies all of your listings to your Facebookpage in a matter of seconds, so that people who visit your Facebookpage can easily shop there. This is the link, you can set it up from there in less than 5 minutes. You can see it on my page here if you want an example, it's the button with "shop" on it. One drawback (but it's a minor one i.m.o.) is that it can only be seen when you're using a computer, it's not supported on mobile devices.

Okay, that's it for now. Thanks so much for visiting and for leaving those wonderful comments that fill my heart with joy. Hope your Friday is happy, and your weekend filled with sunshine and laughter. ♥ ♥ ♥.

being busy ....

I have decided that I need to focus on my time-management. I was at a workshop this weekend for creative entrepeneurs, and one of the topics that came up was how you spend your time. When you want to make a business out of making art (or anything else handmade for that matter), you need to find a balance between time IN your business and time ON your business. Time IN your business is the time spent creating stuff; time ON your business is the time you spend networking, blogging, facebooking, researching, administration, listing, photographing etc.... Mostly time spent on the computer basically. Ideally the balance should be about 50/50.

Well, since I lately spend almost all my time in front of the computer, and only a few hours a week creating,  there seems to be a problem. So I took out pen and paper and made an overview of where I spend most of my time and how I can get a better balance. And I set some fixed days and times for creating.

It still needs some work though. But I'll get there. Eventually ... ;-)

Meanwhile, I have been working in my art journal:

This is from my "Rod McKuen-journal, where I want to use (parts of) the poems of Rod McKuen in combination with my drawings.


 In order to get into the habit of art journaling every day, I started a little ritual last week, together with my daughter. Half an hour before she needs to go to sleep we sit together on her bed, me with my art journal and she reading or also drawing. It's really fun and we both look forward to it every day. The half hour is over before we know it, actually, she hasn't gone to sleep in time yet since we started this ☺. We might have to start an hour before bedtime ....

This is another journalpage. Not sure whether it's finished. It's a little experiment with bodyshapes for women.

And I'm also working on 3 mosaic mirrors and 6 boxes! I finished one of the mirrors today:

It's a long time ago that I did some mosaic, and I had so much fun making this. I've sold all my mosaics that I had in the gallery, so I urgently need some new ones. Only have 3 boxes left also, so that's what I'll be doing the next weeks....

Well, getting to bed in time is not really working out yet. Almost midnight again ...

So I'm off, I'll be back on Wednesday with another inspiring artist post. Thanks so much for visiting, I appreciate it so much, and I love reading your comments! ♥ ♥ ♥

Not quite finished but getting there ....

Well, I thought I would be able to finish my painting this week, but school holidays and trying to catch up with everything after our week away proved to be more time-comsuming than I thought ....

Never mind, I had fun playing and even though it may not look like it, I still worked a couple of hours on this.

This is where I stopped 2 weeks ago:

 I figured it needed some brightening up, so I added some dots:

It always amazes me how adding some dots can completely change the feel of a painting. It makes it look much more fairytale-like in my opinion...

 Making the dots "disappear" again behind some colour ....

Working out the tree. I now notice I forgot to extend some branches behind the figures ...

This is where I am now. Needs some more tweaking and then it should be finished....

And while I was on holidays, I received a pleasant surprise: turns out I'd won the giveaway from Jessie Lilac ☺ !! She sent my present from England, and only one week later I had it in the mail already!

Look at this:

Isn't that gorgeous!? And generous!? Her giveaway was for the original watercolour painting at the top, and the orangey print at the bottom right. And the other print bottom left was a surprise gift!! Woohoo, can't wait to get some nice frames and put them on display. Thanks so much Jess, you're wonderful! Check out her blog if you want to see more of this eye-candy.

And to finish this post: inspired by the Sketchbook-challenge over at the Studio, I decided I really needed to get into the habit of drawing every day. So I started playing in my art journal, trying out some things with composition. Just playing really. Had fun with it and will also start linking to Art Journal Every Day at Julie Balzer's blog.

I decided for this art journal to use parts of poems by Rod McKuen, one of my all time favorite poets.

I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday. Haven't participated last week and due to my limited  access to internet haven't been visiting the other participants. Will make up for it this week ;-)

Thanks so much for stopping by, and don't forget: if you have an Etsyshop and want some free promotion, please have a look at this page and sign up if you agree with the promotion-rules! The more people that sign up, the bigger the party!

Hope your Friday is wonderful, and that your weekend will be filled with sunshine and laughter. ♥ ♥ ♥