Artists that inspire me: Elena Iwanowa

This week's artist is a bit of a mystery to me. I have found his art on Artodyssey, and that's all the information I can find about him. No website, no blog, nothing. I even doubt whether he is a male. Elena doesn't sound "male-ish" to me, does it? I found his work in some galleries, but all the text was in an Eastern European language that I don't understand. So I'll just let his art speak ...

He uses very strong colors. Always a favorite of mine ...

dreamy scenes

I like the contrast between the transparant layers and the opaque layers

beautiful beautiful background

While I love this composition and the colors, I am not so keen on his men with moustache. 

Wonder why that is ....

oh those vibrant colors! 

Hope you like it! Thanks for stopping by. I'll be back on Friday with my (hopefully...) finished painting!

Smile and be happy

Felt like doing a whimsical art journal page today. Although I need to learn to get my pagebackground  ready before I start drawing, because I find it very hard to make a nice background after I paint a girl on it. So I went with the dots again ...;-)

I used some watersoluble Neocolors on there, but I guess not all of it dissolved, since almost none of my markers wanted to work on top of some parts. I know a lot of art journalers use Neocolors in their journals, and markers on top, so I'm kind of wondering which markers do you use? I'm afraid of ruining my "good" (read "expensive"...) markers....

Thanks for stopping by! I'll be back in a few days with another inspiring artist!

Not quite finished, but getting there ...

I concentrated on one of my Flora-paintings this week. I reserved Tuesday and Thursday for painting, but didn't get as much done as I thought I would. But I think next week it'll be finished.

I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday. Have to get the button to put in the sidebar since I want to do this weekly ;-)

Here's where I am now:

And this is how it all started:

There were a few layers on there already before I took the first picture ....

warm colors on top

adding contrast with black and white

making more marks

drawing and making marks

starting to make order out of chaos

At first I could only see birds and fish, and then I saw a head. But for some reason I didn't feel like going with that. So I tried drawing something else on there, but kept coming back to the head. She just wanted to be on there, so here she is ...

some more dripping ...

some more dots ...

lighten it up again

looking too clean for my taste, so dripped some more ...

Oh, this painting style is just soooo much fun. Before this workshop with Flora I used to sketch something and then paint it, and I often changed things along the way, but overall I knew how the painting was going to look in the end. Here I just start playing with colors, dripping, spraying, twirling, stamping, making marks, and I have absolutely no idea what's gonna come out of it. It is totally freeing. And it makes me yearn to paint, because I'm curious about what I'm going to find.

And I have big news! I finished my Facebook page! Well, for me it's big news anyway, since I'm not very technical and I had a really hard time figuring out how to do it. I started in June already and then left it alone for more than a month before I could muster up the courage to look at it again. I even have a Facebook button in my sidebar. If you click on it, it should bring you straight to my page and you can "like" it if you want. If I get more than 30 likes on my page, I get a view into the statistics, which should be interesting. At least, that's what the people in my businesscourses keep telling me. I will first have to figure out how to interpret it though ... ;-)

Thanks for stopping by! And have a GREAT and wonderful weekend!

Artists that inspire me: Erika Husselmann, alias ARIKE

I discovered this New Zealand artist a few years ago, and fell in love with her work right away.

One of her typical styles is long stretched figures of women, usually somewhere in a dream landscape with birds or flowers.

 She usually works in oil, but also uses acrylics and mixed media.

I love the dreamlike atmosphere of her work

She has a blog and a Facebook-page too. Go check it out for lots more eye-candy!

It's funny how I always seem to be drawn to those artists that paint mostly women. Maybe it's because that's what I like to paint myself. Sometimes a man sneaks into one of my paintings, but mostly it's just women, birds and fish. I guess it's because women have those graceful, elegant, curvy lines that add a kind of movement and vulnerability to the work.

How about you? What attracts you in a painting? Do you always tend to paint the same kind of subject? I would be interested to know!

I'm off to see the rest of the PPF-list artists, before it's Friday again and I have to start a whole new list ...

Thanks for visiting and leaving your lovely comments. It means so much to me :-)

Art journal page

Just a quick post today. Spent too much time doing other things and now it's bedtime again... But I've scheduled some art time this week. Tomorrow and Thursday I will be painting, and trying not to get distracted by other things that need to be done. Looking forward to it!

I felt like making another art journal page this weekend. And today I finished it. Well, I'm not sure it's finished, might change some details, but I'll post it anyway. Quote is an extract from a poem by Yeats (I'm now turning to poets who have died more than 70 yrs ago , because I don't want any problems with copyright. Even if it's only in my journal.) I wished I could write my own poetry, but alas, no talent in  that compartment... ;-)

I have been trying to visit all the participants in Paint Party Friday, but wow, that's a lot of work. I expect it to take the rest of the week before I'm through...

Off to bed now. Thanks for visiting!

Finally painting Flora's again!

The last two days I've finally been adding some more layers to my Flora paintings, as I now call them. I've started 3 at the same time (ages ago already), so I can work on one while the other ones dry. I'm a very impatient person and even acrylics don't always dry fast enough for me when I'm in the flow ;-) I just want to keep going.

Here are some WIP-pics:

I love to make all those "in-between"-pictures, not only so I can see later how the canvas has developed, but also to use as backgrounds in Photoshop for one of my postcards.

layer number 8 (I think ...., I've lost count tbh)

Aaaah, to get paint on my hands again .... heaven ....

My Flora's are the paintings that are inspired by Flora Bowley's workshop of course. I did the workshop in February and I'm so happy I did it. I've learned so much and am still learning. I will have access to the video's until September, and I've been watching them again because I forgot so much already.

She will start another workshop in September. I can highly recommend it!

I am linking this post to Paint Party Friday. At least I hope that's okay, since it's only some WIP's. But I've discovered I need an extra challenge to produce things. If I don't have that, I tend to procrastinate and stay too long on my computer without getting any work done. And since I've just entered an application for an art show and art market in September, I really need to get going!

About my last post: thanks Conni and Jenny, for your opinion. I never really thought about copyright that way. Violating copyright for me means taking work from another artist and presenting it as your own. But I guess you're right, and I will from now on be a good girl and ask everyone's permission before posting pics. I just hope they will answer me, otherwise I'll have to stop these "inspiring artists"-posts ...

Well, I just want to wish you all a lovely warm weekend with lots of rest! Thanks for stopping by!

Artists that inspire me: Sol Halabi

I was immediately drawn to the work of this Argentinian artist. Her paintings have an otherworldly quality which I enjoy very much.

 I like the contrast between the dreamy vague background and the realistic faces.

Actually, the background reminds me a bit of the paintings of Flora Bowley.

  The brightness of the colors is another thing I really love

 

Hope you enjoy her work too!

And now I have a question for you: When I started my series on inspiring artists, I asked you whether I should ask the artists beforehand if it was okay for them to feature them on my blog. And you thought I should.

Well, until now I only needed to do that with one artist, Conni from Tante Trulla, because the other ones are sadly not living anymore, and one has a blog in a language I don't understand (Russian).

But now I'm starting to rethink things. I sent an email to an artist I wanted to feature, and I didn't get a reply. Now this is an artist who does about a zillion things at the same time, I honestly don't know where he finds the time. And since I follow his blog, I happen to know he's now off to New York to work on a commission. So I think he probably read my mail, and decided to maybe give me an answer later, and then totally forgot about it. You know how it goes, you get emails, you decide to get back to them later, and before you know it they have disappeared into the depths of your inbox, never to be seen again...

Anyway, since he is very busy, I don't want to bother him by asking again. But now I don't feel right featuring him either. Which is a shame.

So that got me thinking. Featuring someone on your blog isn't a bad thing, AS LONG as you give your readers a link to their website or blog, and as long as it's very clear that the work is not yours. So is it really necessary to ask beforehand? For the featured artist it's really just a free promotion for their art, and that's a good thing, isn't it? I definitely wouldn't mind someone featuring me on their blog, as long as I get the credits. They wouldn't have to ask me beforehand. But I would like to know afterwards that they featured me, with a link to the post.

So what do you think? Would you like to be featured on someone's blog, if your name and website was mentioned, even if you weren't asked beforehand whether it was okay for you? Would you be happy, feel honoured, or be insulted or angry that you weren't asked?

It really interests me to know your thoughts about this!

And FYI: I didn't contact Sol Halabi to ask permission. Why? Because she is already an established artist, who has been published and featured in numerous places. I just don't think it's a big deal for her, she's used to it. Plus I don't think she has a blog. At least, I couldn't find one ....

Well, thanks for stopping by, and I do hope  you'll share your ideas on this topic!