Finally blogging again ....

It has taken me longer than anticipated but here I am again! This week is the first week in almost a month that I finally feel as if I'm in control again. Phew ...

My market is behind me and in the end I was glad to have participated. Lots of people and they even bought things ;-)

Remember this mosaic?

I finally finished it and it sold right away :-)

After experimenting with different kinds of faces I now decided to make a "real" clay face. I like it better than the last ones I did.

I also made a new mosaic mirror, in the shape of a figure:

Hubby is having a lot of trouble with the fact that she has no arms, but I just wanted a basic shape and not too many details. It's just a matter of preference I guess ...

Meanwhile my group exhibition has started. I was in the gallery today and I love the variety of art on display there. It'll be on until the 24th of September.

It would be nice if I sold some paintings. I have been trying to make a living as an artist since 2013, but it's damn hard. So I finally gave in and decided to follow my first love: psychology. I started working as a psychologist in a group practice with 4 other people, only one day a week for the time-being, but I really enjoy having colleagues again. I'm also doing some extra training, so my schedule is pretty full. Especially with the end of the year lurking around the corner, which means it's time for my yearly calendar.

But I'm going to try to keep blogging every week. I missed it and I missed the interaction with other artists. So I'll be linking to Paint Party Friday again and this weekend I'll finally pay everybody a visit :-)

One thing I also kept up is my daily diary-entries. Here are a few from the weeks when it was still summer ... (already pining for those lazy summer days ...)

That's it for now, except of course for the funnies :-)

and some to think about ....

Thanks for visiting! Hope everyone is safe out there, safe from water and wind and fire and smoke. And from stupidity and ignorance and hate ... Wishing you love and warmth and compassion.

See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥ 

Remembering

Today is exactly 4 years ago that one of my sisters died unexpectedly (I wrote about it here). I "found" these images in one of the pages of my gelliplate-journal, and it immediately reminded me of her. And then I found the perfect words by James Frey to go with it. Hence, this journalpage was born ...

I also "had to" make a new mapface to deal with the horror in Manchester, and in the world in general.

So much hate, so much sadness.... And to top it all off: Trump was here in Belgium for 2 days :-( It kinda gave me a yucky feeling. I was appalled by his behavior at the Nato. But proud that 10000 people came to Brussels to protest his arrival :-)

Anyway, today was a beautiful sunny warm day, and I sat outside in the sun to work on my  mosaic. It's a very long time ago that I did something with mosaics, and I'd forgotten how much I like it. This is how far I've come today:

I will be linking this to Paint Party Friday tomorrow. Click on the link to visit artists around the world!

And, because we need it: a few laughs :-)

Hahaha, I needed that!

And here are the ones to think about ....

Thanks so much for your visit! I hope you are having the most wonderful day, and that your weekend will be full of joy. Stay safe ♥ ♥ ♥

making decisions ....

I've finally finished another page in my art journal. It seems I always work in stages, I have my journalphase, my sketchphase, my doodlephase, my boxphase, my rockphase, my mosaicphase, etc ... and sometimes all of these together when there's a market or a show coming up ;-)

The only phase pretty much constantly there is my canvaspainting-phase. And I have come to the difficult conclusion that that phase will have to be put on hold 'till the end of the year...

*gasp*

Why? you ask. Well, because there is too much going on at the moment. After living in Australia for 3 years, we have decided to move back to Belgium in October. It was a very tough decision, because we love Australia and we love the people here. And the climate. And the beautiful nature. But all that beauty and all that kindness cannot replace the people you grew up with, your family and friends. Our family is very important to us, and we've come to the conclusion that we don't want to be so far away from them anymore. We want the kids to grow up in a big extended family, instead of just the four of us. And we long to speak our own language again, to not have to search for words or completely miss the point of a joke. We had a fantastic time in Australia, but it'll never be really "home" for us.

So, moving from one part of the world to another is pretty time-consuming, with everything that needs to be sorted out and packed and tossed away, not to mention the administration, oh my, .... I have a todo-list that is now 9 pages long ....

The last months have been really stressful and frustrating, with me trying to do everything: keep on making art, trying to build my artbusiness, working part-time, and preparing our move back to Belgium. So in order to keep sane I've decided to cut back on my painting. My big paintings that is. I need at least a few hours to work on these, and I get so frustrated when I can't find that time. I will still be making art of course, that is something that I need to do, also in order to keep sane, but it'll be the small things, like sketching, doodling and working in my artjournal. Things I can do in between, that I can easily leave and go back to.

So today I started a new mosaic figurine. Whenever I pass the table I can put a few pieces down. Easy-peasy. And nothing too stressful :-) Plus it fills my need for colour.

At the end of October we will move back to Belgium, and it'll be another 2 months before our container arrives. Which means I will only be able to get back to my beloved canvases in the new year ....

(although I secretly hope in the next weeks to suddenly have lots of free time in which I can paint ....)

I will be making more pieces digitally, like products for my Society6-shop, new postcards, a new calendar and maybe even a diary. This week I decided to try out a little poetrybook. I finished it already, but have to wait for the printout. I've made 5 and will (try to) sell them in the gallery. If they sell, I might make new ones and put them up in my Etsyshop.

Here are a few pages:

And because this last week has been such a horrible week in terms of loss of human lives due to senseless violence, I thought this page was rather fitting:

Well, that's it for now. Another decision I've made is that I'll only blog one day a week anymore, on Friday. But I will keep on doing that, no matter what. Can't leave my friends from Paint Party Friday, right ;-)

Next Friday I'll link to Andrea and Dia, who will answer the questions for the round-the-world-bloghop some time next week. My answers to these questions are in this post.

Thanks so much for visiting! I hope your day is beautiful and peaceful, and let's hope this weekend we'll be spared more horrible news from around the world ... See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥

yes, yes, YES! Finally ....

Orange! And pink! If that isn't summer I don't know what is :-)

I've had to wait until the very last week of Summer of Color before my favorite colour finally came. This is this weeks' combination:

Raspberry and tangerine with a smudge of lemon .... Aaaah, just working with these colours makes me happy :-)

This is my first layer:

Oops .... Now that I see it like this my orange might be a tad too orange ..... I just had a need for these strong colours I guess, after waiting all those weeks ☺

Today I forced myself to leave administration and internet alone and go DO something. And I did. I painted a second and third layer on my new canvas:

 just some random marks

  fun with stencils ...

Do you see that lacy-ish print? That's not a stencil, but a piece of plastic tablecovering that was sold by the metre. I almost squealed when I saw it in the shop. This is the first time I've used it and I love how it looks! Lovelovelove it! There was another similar one like that, might have to get that one too ...

I also made new mosaic pieces:

 

Worked a bit in my journal, and painted the base for 3 new mosaics. All in all a very productive day. Good thing too, because I was getting frustrated by my lack of progress, and tomorrow I have to work so no time for play ...

And finally: Angelique from Angelic Art and Craft invited me to take part in an artsy bloghop. She answered 4 questions about her art, and linked to a few other artists, who will answer the same questions next Monday. So one of those artists is moi :-)  Next week Monday (or maybe Tuesday since Monday might be a bit difficult for me, and in Australia we are way ahead of everybody else in time, so in other parts of the world it'll still be Monday) I'll post my answers to these questions, and link to other bloggers who want to participate. If you're interested in participating, just let me know, through the comments or via email, and I'll link to your blog next week. If you want to know more about it, visit Angelique's blog here, and read her very interesting answers to these questions. Thought-provoking and informative, definitely worth a read!

That's it for now, time for bed! Thanks so much for visiting, and I'll be back on Friday, with my last piece for Summer of Color! I know I keep repeating myself but I can't believe how fast time flies ....