29 faces challenge: yes, it's that time of the year again!

I only hesitated a little bit this time. Can I do it? Do I have enough time? And then I thought: yes, let's do it again. I'm trying to get into the habit of daily creating, so what better motivation than to participate in my favorite challenge. I won't be posting every day on my blog (I'll try to post on Facebook daily), but I'll show an overview of my faces every week.

And since yesterday was the first day, here's my first face: watercolor and marker

A few months ago, I bought an old road atlas in a thrift store, but until now I didn't really know what to do with it. And then I thought I could use it for weird faces with quotes that reflect a bit of what is going on in the world today.  I decided to use the lines of the map to "find" faces. This is how it started:

   And here's face #2:

I love the effect of the road maps shining through. It's also a really nice size. Might become one of my favorite journals :-)

I also finished the dark background in my painting, and gave it a second coat. The under painting still shines through a bit when you look up close, but I like it better this way. Now I just need to finish the figures, and I can call it done! Hopefully next week.

Lastly I want to share with you a picture of the sunrise last week. It has been really cold here, but the sun was shining almost every day, and this is how it looked when I went out to the car to bring the kids to school in the morning. Isn't it beautiful ?

I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday and to 29 faces. Click on the links and take a look, and maybe even participate yourself!

Thanks so much for all your heart-warming comments last week. I'll continue to share my funnies, and some thought-provoking memes too, because I think it's important that we stay vigilant, now more than ever. But don't worry, there are non-political ones too ;-)

 This one might need some explanation: these are elephants that were rescued, I think it was somewhere in Thailand, and the weather was unusually cold, so these women made "coats" for the elephants. Isn't this great!? I love it!

Some to think about ....

by Brian Andreas

And the last one:

did it work ? ;-)

That's it for this week!  Thanks so much for your visit, it is greatly appreciated :-) Wishing your worry-free days ahead! Take care and see you next week ♥ ♥ ♥

another fast week

I managed to do a bit more this week, but didn't finish my painting yet. It's getting there though, I guess it'll be finished next week, if I can manage to work on it that is... :-)

I'm still not sure whether I like this darker background. I think the next one will be white(-ish) again.
Here are some detailshots:

 Lots of birds, as usual :-)

I also made a journalpage, inspired by the womans' march. Because, after the depressing inauguration, the womens' marches all over the world cheered me up immensely. I was so proud so many women (and men) stood up, it restored my faith in humanity, and makes me believe and hope that maybe, all together, we can do something and stand strong.

I started out on a page in my artjournal that had only a bit of colour from leftover paint and gesso. I took a marker and just let it slide very randomly over the page, so I got this:

Then I started looking for figures, and brought them out.

While I was working on it I had the line in my head "we won't back down", so I decided to use that, and then remembered this song by Tom Petty. Looked up the lyrics and used some more of his lines.

This is how it ended up:

Linking to Paint Party Friday again. Click on the link to see more art from all over the world.

My funnies this week will mostly center around everything that's going on in the US. And there are a lot, because I can't choose .... I have noticed that there's a lot of bitching going on on social media, and some of the artists and poets that I admire and follow have been attacked by people thinking they should just keep to their art and shut up about politics. While this is no political blog, and I don't intend to make it that way, all that's happening in the US at the moment has a profound effect on me. It worries me, it scares me, and it angers me. One way of dealing with it for me is looking at funny memes, because, let's be honest, laughing takes the edge of everything. I very much believe in the healing power of humor. As much as in the healing power of art. So I won't separate the two, even if I risk alienating visitors to my blog.

So let's make a deal: if you don't like me making fun of the new president, I suggest you just skip the funnies (although maybe read the ones to "think about" at the end ;-) ) . But please refrain from giving me a lecture and telling me to butt out, because I won't. It's as simple as that!

So here they are :-)

Here are some great signs from the women's marches:

these last 2 pics are the best. Love these people ♥

And here are a few (because it's necessary) to think about:

Let's end in a good way:

Thanks for visiting and leaving uplifting comments. Enjoy your day, and have a great weekend showered with love and kindness. See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥

Hectic days .....

This week started well with a sketch, but then all of a sudden it was Thursday and I still hadn't worked on my painting or in my journal. Arggh! I can't seem to get into the habit of creating every day, I'm always a few hours short each day. Still, when I do it, it feels so good, so I really want to make this my yearlong resolution. I'll keep trying .... :-)

Managed to finish a journalpage, although it was really really hard at the start. Some days I can't get into the flow, I keep thinking too much about what I'm going to do instead of just playing and trying things out. In the end I finally found my mojo and then it was easy to finish it.

This is in an old medical encyclopedia, and my goal is to finish all the pages this year. It shouldn't be too hard, since about half of it is already finished. That will be my first "real" artjournal that I finish. I'm working in about 5 at the same time, plus some more for sketches and watercolour.  It just depends on my mood which one I want to work in at a certain day.

I also worked in a new sketchbook. I opens up really flat and I like the paper, so I'll probably be working more in this one as well.

And that's it for this week! Linking to Paint Party Friday, as always :-)

And, also as always, here are some funnies. Because, let's face it: today there's not much to smile about, so we neeeed them!

And one to think about ....

Thanks for being here, hope you'll have a beautiful day, despite the orange-haired moron whose name we won't mention .... And for all the women worldwide who are marching tomorrow: love u ♥ ♥ ♥