Circle of comfort and faces nr 7 and 8!

First of all, I want to thank all of you who took the time last week to give your opinion about my painting. I was really stuck and reading all your comments really helped me to get a new perspective on the painting.

I was surprised that so many of you saw the little face that was there as distraught and even evil. That was not how I had meant it at all. But looking closer at my painting I understood that that was probably what had been bothering me about it.

So pretty early on I decided she'd have to go. And boy, that felt so good! All of a sudden it was fun to work on the painting again, while before it had just been a struggle.

The trees were a lot of detailed work, so it took me quite a while to finish it. But now I feel good about it and I declare it done!

As always, I'll show you all the pics from start to finish. But I have to warn you: there's a lot of pictures.... So if you came here to look at my 7th face, you better scroll right to the end of the post ;-)

I realized I don't have a picture from the start of the canvas. That's because this canvas was on my easel all the time while I was working on other stuff, and every time I had leftover paint (which was almost always) I put it on this canvas. So the first time I made a picture of it there were already quite some layers on it.

 adding some contrast

 playing with my beloved Golden high flow acrylics again. Aahh, the brightness of those colours ....*sigh*

 starting my mark making

 the going overboard again with the dripping and dribbling. Will I ever learn?

 

So I need to start making marks again. Oh well .....

Finally getting somewhere

Can't find any figures in there, so mark making once again ....

I'm starting to see a rabbit. Not sure I want to go with it .... I also see a face with a long neck.

I was so intent on getting out my images that popped up everywhere, that I forgot to take in-progress-pics .... All of a sudden, they're there ;-)

Too dark, don't like it. Dribbling again to lighten it up ....

 Bit better ...

The small face .... She insisted on being there but I don't know whether I like it or not ....

I decide to get rid of the big bird

Nah, I'm stuck! This is where I asked your opinion last week. 

Going, going, gone! YES! I feel so much better ....

Getting the bird out again and starting to work on the trees

And yes, I had to add some more faces .... I felt they belonged there ....

Brought some more sun and warmth into the painting and declared it done!

I call it "Circle of comfort", because it feels like she's surrounded by beings that want to comfort her. I feel as if the trees are all around her protecting her from harm, enclosing their little circle with warmth.

So happy it came together at last. I am now planning on making some "easy" paintings for the upcoming exhibition. I love making these intuitive paintings, but they can sometimes take very long to get where I want them to be. So I hope by next week I can show you another finished painting!

And this week I discovered the ease of posting 2 faces at once for the 29 faces challenge, and then having "a night off" the next day. Way easier that way, while I'm not really cheating since I still create a face every day.

So for the rest of the month I will do that :-)

I had wanted to post a review of all the faces I did this week, but since this is already such a picture-heavy post (and getting waaaayyy too long ...) I'll do that on Sunday, when I'll post faces 9 and 10.

Today I post faces 7 and 8. While I had my paints out I decided to paint some more rocks, since they're selling pretty rapidly in the gallery and I need to make some new stock.

This is day 7:

and day 8:

And both of them together, so you get an idea of the size:

Now I'll finish, I promise ;-)

Linking this as always to Paint Party Friday. If you're not familiar with PPF, go have a look here, and you'll discover lots of talented artists who share every Friday the artwork they did during the week. Lots of inspiration, lots of creativity, lots of eye-candy. And the best part: you can join in if you want!

The link for the 29 faces is here. 152 people have signed up for it, and I haven't even visited half of them. Oh time ... where do you run to!?

Thanks so much for visiting me! I hope you're having a wonderful day, and I wish you a weekend full of creativity and fun. I'll be back on Sunday! ♥ ♥ ♥

29 faces challenge: faces 5 and 6!

When I was drawing this girl, I had the brilliant idea to hang another face on the other side of her hair. So now I have two faces and I can take a break from blogging tomorrow. Isn't that handy!?

I really need to spend some time on other stuff, so if I want to finish this challenge I'll have to cheat every now and then. I'll still be creating every day, just not blogging about it.

Here's the second face (or actually the 6th!):

And here's the 2 faces together. Like Siamese twins, connected by the hair ;-)

Okay, looks a bit weird, I admit, but hey, I love drawing crazy hair.... And sometimes there's a person in there somewhere ... ;-)

Thanks so much for visiting me! I managed to almost finish my painting today. Have to look at it a bit more to see whether I want to change or add anything else.

I'll be back on Friday for Paint Party Friday, and I'll show you the finished painting then. As well as my 7th face of the month ...

Just one quick note: when you're on Google+, I'm not always able to comment since I don't have a Google+-account.

See you on Friday ♥

29 faces challenge: day 4

Hmm, it's kinda hard keeping up with all the wonderful art that's being displayed everywhere, as well as creating a face and blogging each day .....

Only day 4, and already I'm in trouble. I'm afraid there won't be much "trying out new things" this month, I'm happy when I manage to finish something ....

Here's a sketch I did. I'm using a lot of "dry" art materials this time, since it's easier to do while I'm sitting with my daughter on her bed every night.

Tomorrow I will schedule in a few hours of painting. Still have to try to make something out of that painting I showed last Friday ..... ;-)

Thanks for visiting, I love reading your comments and I try to visit everyone's blog as well. Just not all in one day ... I'm guessing most of you know what I'm talking about ... ;-)

See you tomorrow ♥

29 faces challenge: day 3

When we were on holidays, I taught my 11-yr-old-daughter how to draw a face with shadows. When I looked at the drawing she made, I was facinated by the way she drew the eyes. I loved how big and round they were. This is the drawing she made:

Isn't it gorgeous? (even though she didn't like it at all ...)

So I used these eyes as inspiration for my next drawing, which is the 3rd drawing for the 29-faces-challenge:

I drew the girl in coloured pencils, painted the hair black and then scanned it in and used one of my in-progress paintings as a background in Photoshop.

I love making these eyes. There might be a lot more to come ... ;-)

Off now to visit as many of you as possible ..... Thanks so much for visiting ♥

29 faces: day 2

I made this sketch just in the nick of time while I was sitting with my daughter on her bed this evening. Not so happy with it but no time to make anything else. Will probably work some more on her, but this is what I got now:

Thnx Sal, for giving me the idea to use white for the highlights, it does work well on these brown pages. Have to experiment a bit more with it ...

Thanks so much for visiting and for your wonderful comments! See you tomorrow!

29 faces challenge: day 1

The start of the 29 faces challenge on a Saturday, well, THAT is a challenge. Somehow the weekends in this house always seem to fly by without getting a chance to do any art.

I managed to finish a sketch I had started already, so at least I have something to show.

I had bought this little notebook with brown paper years ago, and every now and then I took it out and lovelingly gazed at the pages and then put it back again, saving it for I don't know what.

So when we were going on holidays I decided to take it with me and USE it. What good is a notebook when it's just sitting in your bookcase, right?

I like working on these pages. Might try to make a white doodle or something on it. 

That's it for today. Tomorrow I'll try and visit the other participants, see who's participating this time around. I'm kinda curious ;-)

Thanks for visiting! See you tomorrow ♥

Getting ready for my favorite challenge ...

Oh my, this week has been so busy I didn't even find the time to blog .... Coming back from holidays and a few days later the start of the new school year didn't leave much extra time. I'm still having trouble getting into the rhythm of getting up early every day, having to watch the clock again, getting to sleep early (didn't work at all this week!) and generally running around trying to get everything organised for a family of 4. Thank God it's Friday, I NEED the weekend badly ...

Despite not having much time, I managed to paint a bit. I finished another journalpage that I started in Orly's workshop:

This was a collaborative pieve where all the participants in the workshop added a little bit following Orly's prompts. When it came back to me it looked like this:

I didn't really know what to do with it. I'm not used to using a lot of black in my art,and it was a challenge to try to make something out of it. But then I saw a figure running away and went with that. I like how the black makes the colours pop.

The next one is an experiment I did during my holidays. I wanted to try out some ideas, but I didn't like it at all.  In the end I decided to use some black to make some areas more defined, and it made it a bit better. Still don't like it though ....

And do you remember this painting?

I really have been struggling with this one. I kept seeing a face in the upper left corner and despite trying out all kinds of things it didn't go away. So I decided to just use it. But then I still didn't like it.
And then I remembered Flora Bowley's wise advice: "When you're stuck: be brave. Do something drastic. Something that scares you a little bit but do it anyway. After all, it's just another layer".....

So I got rid of the bird and decided to put trees and branches there. This is where I'm now:

And guess what? There's still something bothering me. I think it's the small face. Or her hand. I don't know. I'm not gonna try to get rid of her face altogether, since she'll just come back, but I might get rid of the hand, or make her face more vague.... I'm getting a bit sick of this painting, but I have to finish it since I'll be having an exhibition in March and still need to finish some paintings for that .... What do you think? Should I get rid of the small face in the left corner? Or the hand? I really would like to hear your opinion, it might give me some ideas.

Oh yes, made another doodle especially for Valentine.

Well no, not really. I was just drawing this couple and when I was writing down the words it occured to me that it would be a nice Valentine-present for someone. So I put it in my Society6-shop and made mugs and pillows and totebags out of it. Here's the pillow:

And last but not least: do you know what's starting tomorrow? My favorite challenge..... The 29 faces challenge!

I've thought about skipping it since time seems to be running away from me as it is, but I skippd it in September and didn't like it. So I'm gonna do it anyway, I'll make time, even if it's only 5 minutes. You can find out all about this popular challenge here.

Okay, enough rambling for now. I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday. It was so nice to see you all again last week, thanks for visiting me! Hope you'll have a beautiful Friday and manage to catch up on some rest and relaxation and play during the weekend! See you tomorrow for the first day of the 29 faces challenge! ♥ ♥ ♥