Time to celebrate with a giveaway :-)

Thanks so much all of you for the well wishes with regards to my market last Friday. I wrote about it in my previous post here. All went well and I sold quite a few pieces.

The last few days I've been working on my experiments with the gelliplate on canvasboard.
Remember these?

These were drawings that I made into a stencil. Wasn't sure how to continue so I've been looking at it for a few weeks.

I have been experimenting on and off with these, but I completely forgot to take pictures. These are the only in-progress pictures that I have:

I collaged a dog on there, and then saw a second figure and a bird and brought them out. Because the faces were so small I decided to collage 2 of my faces on there.

It's a pity I don't have any other pictures from the one on the right, because she went through quite a few transformations hair-wise :-)

Next time I won't limit myself to one hairdo, I'll just make the stencils without hair.

These are the finished pieces:

They both measure approx. 20x25cm (8"x10") and are made on canvasboard. I will attach a string so it's possible to hang them. And guess what? One of you can win one of these! The other one will be for sale in my Etsyhop. I'll explain the rules at the end of this post.

I've been adding  some new original art to my Etsyshop. These are now for sale, and I'll be adding more in the coming days.

And I've also been experimenting with fabrics that I painted on my gelliplate. Made a little pencilcase and learned a lot.

At first I was disappointed, because it was too thick (I had put some filling in there that wasn't at all necessary for a small bag like this), and there were some other things I didn't like, but then I needed a small pencilcase for my most used black markers and it ended up being perfect for that. So I'll sure experiment some more now :-)

Okay, now for the rules of my giveaway. Only if you're a follower of mine you have a chance of winning one of these paintings.
Following me can be done in different ways: either follow this blog (with RSS, Bloglovin', email (links are in the sidebar)), follow me on Facebook, subscribe to my monthly newsletter (link in sidebar), or follow me on Pinterest. One of these is enough, but of course you can follow me everywhere, don't feel as if you have to limit yourself ;-)

By the way: the giveaway is to celebrate that I have reached over 200 followers on this blog, and over 400 likers on Facebook!

If you are a follower of mine, let me know in the comments, and also let me know which one of the 2 paintings you would like to win. Just say "one girl", or "2 girls", that's enough. Or you can add the quote.

That's all! I will be announcing the winner next Friday night (May 2nd), so you have a whole week to add your comment!

I am linking this to PPF, the weekly party of artists all over the world that everyone can join in. Thanks for visiting, and I hope you are enjoying your Friday and will be looking forward to a restful, relaxing weekend! ♥ ♥ ♥

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! ♥ ♥ ♥

gelliplate fun, printing plates and a little bit of painting and sketching

I am doing so many different things at the same time, without having enough time to finish anything, so you can imagine how my worktable looks. Actually, my worktable is spreading out over the entire kitchentable ... ;-)

Just a quick overview of what I've been up to the last few days:

First of all, I finally played (a little bit) with my gelliplate again. I didn't really have time, but I squeezed in 10 minutes just before bed last night to try out some printing plates I had made. And now I'm all excited to try out some more ...

These are the printing plates I made: one with tacky glue and the other ones with craft foam:

And these are the prints I pulled from them:

Okay, it's not much, I admit, but I'm excited about the possibilities. The ones with the craft foam gave really good prints, the one with the tacky glue was very interesting but the glue wasn't as 3D as I had hoped. I tried to make a printing plate with my (tiny and very cheap) gluegun, that I had never used before, but I find it very hard to make a figure with that glue. There were blobs everywhere and when I stopped there were still long threads coming off it that I didn't really want on there. But it was much more elevated than the tacky glue, so maybe I should try again.

I also managed to paint a little bit and started to bring out the figures that I saw in my new painting.

I found another figure in there and decided not to bring out the face that I saw last week. Still in doubt about the 2 birds. Tomorrow is the only day I will be able to paint this week, so I hope I'll get a lot done, and hopefully can show you some more on Friday.

And I finished preparing another canvas for a doodle-like painting like last week, and made a drawing on there last night when I was sitting with my daughter on her bed:

And, oh yes, I started painting some new boxes for a market in 3 weeks:

That's about it. Lots of in-progress works, and itching to get back to it, but too many meetings and too much work this week, boohoo.

I'll be back on Friday with hopefully something more to show ... Thanks so much for being here, and leaving your lovely comments ♥