Calendar girls

I'm having fun with putting my sketches together with my in-progress-paintings as background, and then searching for an appropriate text / poem / quote to go with it. Since I will use these to make a calendar that I want to sell, I need to make sure that there's no copyright infringement. So now I'm looking into quotes and poetry from authors that have died at least 70 years ago ... Takes a lot of work! How I wish I could write my own poetry ....

Anyway: here are some old sketches that I coloured in  and gave a background. Not sure yet whether I'll leave them like this for the calendar ...

Aren't those background colours yummy!? It's so nice that I can use pictures of the different stages of my paintings in other work. This is a very big advantage of working with many layers ☺ I have loads of them since I did Flora's class!

And here's another one-liner !

Thanks for stopping by. I'll be back on Wednesday with another inspiring artist! ♥

A place away from darkness

I finished my painting! It might not look much changed for an outsider, but those last details were a lot of work! I'm so happy that I discovered Paint Party Friday. It really makes me force myself to paint at least a little each week. Not that I don't like painting, far from it!, but you know how it is: life sometimes gets in the way and before you know it a few weeks have passed and you didn't paint.

Well, with PPF not anymore! Even though I have been really busy this week, I painted and it sure felt good!

I'll show you the process from start to finish:

This is the way it looked when I took it out of my closet. Just some leftover paint scraped out over it, and a sand background (fine sand mixed with primer and put on the painting with a palette knife.

Finally used some of my stencils (I have a whole bunch but rarely use them)

Doodled a bit on top (because the sand background makes the surface really rough, I used different techniques than the ones I use with my Flora-paintings)

Doodled some more and tried some drips

Contrary to my intuitive paintings, I didn't look for something to jump out at me. Instead I use a sketch from my sketchbook that I wanted to turn into a painting.

Started with the figure but thought it was too dark

So I lightened it up ☺

Starting on the face

Started working the background but changed my mind several times. Tried painting waves: blah, tried painting lines: blah, painted a bird: yes!

Finally decided on painting corals. This is where I stopped last week.

Thought it'd be fun to add some bubbles

Worked a bit more on the fish and the corals (and boy that was a lot of work!)

Gave the bird some legs, finished the eyes, gave her an earring and used my white paint pen to bring out the details in her hair. Although, now that I see it next to the other one I'm not sure I should've done that.

Oh well ....

And since I discovered sketching again, here's another sketch:

Sketch with graphite and coloured pencils, then scanned it and in Photoshop pasted a picture of an in-progress painting as background.

I'm going to make a calendar out of these sketches with painted background, and add some words to it. But I'm not sure which service to use. Does anybody have experience with Redbubble, CafePress, Zazzle or Lulu for making calendars? Tips and advice are very welcome!

Well, thanks for your visit! I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday, be sure to check out all the beautiful work on there.

And once again: I wish you a wonderful Friday and a restful playful weekend! ♥ ♥ ♥

Artists that inspire me: Francis Kilian

Today's inspiring artist lives in the Netherlands. I've discovered her years ago, and was fascinated by the depth in her work.

There are so many layers in her work, and I remember staring at it and wondering how on earth she managed to do that.

I even sent her an email once to ask whether I could do a workshop with her, because I really wanted to learn the technique.

I received a nice reply, that her way of working was not really "teachable" (is that even a word?), that it's just layering and layering until you have the feeling it's "done".

Now I understand better what she meant. On her website is an interview with her, where she says that when she starts a painting she doesn't have a clue what's going to come out of it. She just starts, and lets the painting speak to her.

She has a very specific style. There are often birds in her paintings

and I also like that sometimes there's a kind of angel watching over the woman.

Mmmm, such yummy colours....

Francis is having an exhibition on the 28th of October in Nieuw-Amsterdam in the Netherlands. If that's too far for you (I know it's waaay too far for me ...), go have a look at her website. The site is in Dutch, but you'll be able to see more of her beautiful paintings there.

Well, thanks for visiting and I'll see you on Friday for the Paint Party!

Some sketches and a one-liner

Thanks so much for your visits and your lovely comments. ♥ ♥ ♥

I have been sketching a bit today. That was such a long time ago that at first I didn't even know how to start anymore ☺ But once started, I realized again how much I love sketching. Just seeing a face arise from a blank page is so much fun. I used coloured pencils as well, and decided to finally use some the pictures I took from my in-progress canvases as a background.

Here are 2 faces I made:

This is a drawing I made today, first with graphite, then with coloured pencils. And then I scanned it and pasted the background in with Photoshop.

This sketch I did a while ago, but today I used coloured pencils on top, and then again scanned it and in Photoshop pasted the background from one of my paintings in progress. And added the text  as well.

I'm playing with the idea of making a calendar out of these girls. I did one like that last year for my family, and they were very enthusiastic about it. I will have to hurry though, since I see calendars everywhere in the shops already, so if I want to sell them I can't wait too much longer. But at the moment I'm also trying to make a diary, and that has to be finished first.

And then there's my website .... Almost finished, have to add some more photos.

Lots to do, I'm not bored ... ☺

 But I did a one-liner too! Promised I would now and then, right ☺ ?

That's me sometimes ....

Thanks for visiting, I'm hoping to be back on Wednesday with another inspiring artist-post! ♥

Painting in progress

Well, I didn't get to finish my painting this week. But at least I managed to take some hurdles on the way, and I even know how I want to finish the rest of it. Just didn't have time anymore.

This is where I stopped last week:

And these are the stages it went through:

started painting the face

started wondering what to do with the background

Wanted to make some waves at the bottom, but didn't like it ....

But I still felt this painting has some ocean-like feel to it, so I added some coral instead. Better than the waves I think ...

This is how far I got.

And I managed to do a one-liner too!

She looked a bit too sad to write a funny quote next to her ☺

I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday. Don't forget to check out all the other artists there!

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you all will have a wonderful weekend ahead of you! ♥ ♥ ♥

Artists that inspire me: Dar Hosta

Well, today's artist is a little different in more than one way. First of all: she doesn't paint women (at least not that I know of ☺), and secondly I only discovered her this week!

Dar Hosta paints birds! And as you know birds are my second favorite subject to paint. But her birds are special. They are "cranky birds".

I found Dar through Carla Sonheim's blog. Carla is doing a blog hop to promote her new book "Imaginary animals", and Dar is one of the contributors to that book.

I LOVE them! How they look, the things they say or think. I think it's hilarious! They're so human ...

Dar was a student in Carla Sonheim's online class, and she came up with her own brilliant series of cranky birds. So simple yet so genius.

And the nicest thing? In this blogpost she shares very generously how to make these birds! And she invites her readers to join in the fun and send her the cranky birds they made. I might have a go at it myself ☺

Hahaha! Look at that bird! It really does look constipated  ;-)

And this is my absolute favorite. He's a kindred spirit, since I could've said this myself.

When you visit her website, don't forget this link: the who-what-why-where-when-how. Fun fun fun. You can find more cranky birds on Flickr.

Hope you enjoyed these cranky birds. I sure enjoyed sharing them with you!

See you again on Friday for the Paint Party! Thanks for visiting! ♥

All my faces together!

It was fun to put all my faces together in one picture. When you do that you realize how much work you've done in only 1 month, without even realizing it. This sure is the way to create lots of new stuff!

I really enjoyed the challenge, and I want to thank all who have taken the time to stop by and comment. I'm going to have a look at all the participants today to see their last faces.

Well, here's what I created this last month:

And just for the fun of it: these are the 29 faces from the challenge in May:

And these are all the faces of the very first challenge in February:

It's turning into a series! A very big thank you to Martha from Ayala Art for organizing this! And I hope next year the challenges will continue! (hint hint ☺)

For one thing it's good that the challenge is over, and that is that I don't have to post every day. Not that I don't like that, but I always tend to stay on the computer, visit the other participants and not do anything else. And I've set myself a new challenge now: FINISH THE DAMN WEBSITE! I want to have it finished by the end of the week! Because I also want to set up an Etsy-shop, and I've another idea brewing in my head since a few months that I really need to work out before the year is over.

So, lots of plans. But I'll keep posting at least three times a week, and I won't give up on my one-liners. Hope to keep seeing you here, it's been great having you visit! ♥♥♥