Lots of paintings in progress, July wallpaper and a give-away!

I try to take some time to paint each day, even if it's just some dripping and splashing of colours, and I'm feeling so much better since I started my new canvas. I'm even working on multiple canvases at the same time. But first I'll show you my new wallpaper for July, which has a different size than the ones before. I'm working on my desktop again and the ones I made before were specifically designed for my laptop and didn't fit on my desktop. The size it is now should work for most desktops and laptops. Here it is:

You can download it here.

 I have been having lots of fun with my new canvas, and this is how it's looking now:

I was a bit hesitant to put more layers on there, because I really liked the background, but with this kind of painting you cannot get too attached to the layers underneath. I couldn't do anything with it, I couldn't see any figures emerging, so I just put all thoughts away and went for it. Although I must say I'm now planning a bit more. My last painting had about 30 layers on there, and I don't want that anymore. We'll see where this one ends....

And because it is now hanging on a wall, I was able to put some blank canvases underneath so they got some wonderful drips as well:

No idea what I'll be doing with these yet, but I like how they look. The reddish colour was made with a foambrush by using up leftover paint from the drips that fell down on the plastic, and then I put them underneath the canvas to take the rest of the drips.

This canvas is one that I had laying underneath my easel when I was working on my previous painting (also to catch the drips), and since I was spraying and dripping anyway, I decided to give this one some more background too.

Oh, can't wait to finish all these :-)

Then of course I have some more progress-shots of our little toiletroom:

I love letting my imagination run wild in there :-)

And last but not least: do you remember the "Colour me positive"-challenge? I posted about it in the beginning of the year, but with moving house and renovating I have hardly had any time to participate. It's a yearlong weekly challenge where you get to make a journalpage inspired by a positive quote. This week the lovely Lisa from Lulu Art, who organizes this challenge, featured me on her blog.

I could choose this week's quote, and I chose "Never regret anything that made you smile", and made a kind of journalpage inspired by it. By "kind of" I mean it looks like a journalpage but I made it on a separate piece of watercolour paper, because it'll be the prize you can win if you participate in the next two weeks! Have a look over here and join in the fun! You can join anytime, you don't need to participate every week, you can just see how it goes and do it when you can.

This is the (original) painting that you can win (size A4):

You have two weeks to make something based on this quote! Hope to see you there!

Well, that's it for now. I'll be linking this to Paint Party Friday and to Colour me Positive. Thanks for visiting here, and for leaving your wonderful comments. I'll be ending this week with some funnies :-)

:-D

Wishing you a lovely day and beautiful weekend, and don't forget to do something that makes you happy! See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥

start of the summer! (in theory ...)

The summer holidays have started here! Two months vacation for the kids, which we have all been looking forward to. We might finally find the time to get this endless renovating done. As long as the sun doesn't show (the weather has been horrible here: storms and hail and lots of torrential rains) we might as well do something useful in the house.

But, we're taking it easy. There still needs to be time to have some fun, right? So I thought today was the perfect day to finally start my new large canvas. The people from the gallery have been asking me to make a second large painting, and I've kept postponing it because there was still so much work in the house. But the weeks just keep flying by and it seems there's never an end to the renovation work, so I thought that's it, I'll just start and see how it goes. Here's what I have so far:

It's another one from 1 meter by 1 meter (39,4 x 39,4 inches), so it's hard to move around and it's pretty heavy. I decided to follow Flora Bowley's advice and find a wall somewhere in the house where I can hang it while I work on it. In our cellar we have a room that's very light and that we don't use at the moment, so I put some plastic on the wall and some strong screws, and now I can just hang it and turn it the way I want it. Perfect for spraying and dripping paint. Once I start with the details I'll bring it upstairs and work on my easel.

It was so much fun to paint on canvas again. I always love to start a new painting, not knowing what I will be painting and what the drips and marks will reveal to me. Here are some detail shots:

Don't the colours make you drool ...!? I love how the drips make these small patterns that I could never make myself with a paintbrush. I'll be using these detail pictures as backgrounds for drawings, and I might also make some leggings and t-shirts and who knows what else with it on Society6 :-) It's about time I update my shop again!

I've also been adding more figures on my bathroom wall. It's funny how I keep on discovering new faces or animals while I'm sitting there. It sure gives me something to do :-)

 This is a fish and something else, not sure what .... But they seem to like each other :-)

And another kissing couple (although that bird could also be picking at his eye...., but I prefer the other option). Funny how this week they seem to spread love around on my walls. Maybe it's a kind of subconscious reaction to all the hate in the world, whenever I've had enough I can just close myself in my bathroom and find comfort in my fantasy.

Anyway, that's it for now. Haven't been able to make a new wallpaper yet, but I will be doing that tomorrow and send it to my newsletter-subscribers. I will put in on the blog next week.

I'll leave you with some funnies for this week (because this world not only needs more love but also needs more laughter):

Linking this to Paint Party Friday, as always. Thanks for being here, I hope your day is sweet and the weekend ahead will be peaceful and bright. See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥

a little bit of progress

Where oh where does the time go!?? I cannot believe it is the end of the school year already. A few more days and July will be starting. This year feels like the fastest year ever.

Needless to say I didn't nearly get as much art done as I would've liked. Just a bit of progress in my toilet / bathroom, some sketches and some preparation to finally try and participate again in Colour me Positive.

Here are some glimpses of our toilet:

The swirl on the wall gave me the inspiration for this face. It looked like an eye. Now I'm not sure whether I should leave it like this or give him/her a "real" eye. What do you think?

Next are 2 pages I sketched in marker, all kinds of faces, stylized mosty, which I think I will be using in collage.

And that's it again for this week. Wish I could show you some progress on my big canvas, but alas, no progress at all. In fact I still need to start ....

Linking this to Paint Party Friday! Thanks for visiting, thanks for commenting! I'll finish this post with a few funnies :-)

:-D

Wishing you a great day and a happy weekend full of fun! See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥

sneak peeks of our bathroom

Didn't get much done this week, so just a few glimpses of the small changes in our bathroom / toilet :-)

Thanks for all your suggestions last week! Most of you suggested working with dark and light instead of stark black lines, and I must say it feels much more me. That's often the problem when you're inspired by another artist and need to make it your own. It sometimes takes a few try-outs and frustrations before you get it the way it feels right. I find it much easier now to work on it, I don't really need to think about it anymore.

Because I really like this technique I also started two very similar canvases. These are to experiment a bit more, my artjournal turned out a bit too small for what I want to do :-)

Still in the early stages, but the colours cheer me up, which is something I've been in need of this week, what with all the horror happening in the world, all the hate too many people feel, all this fighting and yelling and shooting and stabbing. I'm sick of it. So I take refuge in my paint....

This is all I have to show for now. Still didn't get in the habit of creating every day, and it is not because I don't want to. It's actually quite frustrating that I can't seem to find the time. I wonder how other people do that. If you happen to have a tip, please share!

I'm sharing this with the good old Paint Party Friday, the weekly bloghop that I don't get tired of :-)
But before I end, here are my funnies for this week:

:-D

Thanks so much for your visit! Wishing you days filled with love and compassion ♥ ♥ ♥

in progress ...

I have been working in our bathroom this week. Well, mostly I've been thinking about how to continue and trying things out in my journal. Don't know whether you remember but I got the idea for the bathroom from this artist. I loved what she did, but after I tried it out on a wooden box, I decided that just flowers isn't really "me". I wanted to include birds and fish.

But since I painted all the different colours in there, I keep discovering faces. Mostly profiles, but still. So I decided to just go with the images that appeared to me. But how? Sandra Kaye used a black Sharpie-marker to draw her flowers, but I'm afraid that the black is going to make it too dark. I still like the result though. So I decided to try two different styles in my journal. The first one with figures lined with black:

I made the background a bit less chaotic by painting it with gesso and then adding a transparant colour to it.

The second one is using different colours for the contours of the figures, and only use black very sparingly:

In this one I left the background as it is, I just added some highlights to the figures to make them stand out more.

To be honest, I'm still not sure which technique I should use. So I would love to know what you think! Black lines or no black lines (or at least not many). I'm really curious as to how you would do it :-)

I did bring out a few figures in the bathroom already. They just kept jumping out at me, and I really wanted to start. I didn't use black for these (except for the eyes), because it's easier to put some black on top than take the black away.

It is going to take a (long!) while before I finish it, but it's so much fun :-)

Here are my funnies for this week:

Okay, time to go to sleep! I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday. Thanks so much for your visit, and please let me know which method you like most: black or no black. I'm really curious :-)

Enjoy your day and make the weekend a good one! See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥

Back again

This whole trying to get back into creating isn't as easy as I thought. It seems there's always something else I need to do first, and before I know it the day is over and it's time for bed. But last weekend hubby and I built a big table for me to use as a desk/painting-table, and I finally was able to unpack all my painting materials this week. Today I was trying out some ideas to use in the bathroom, and in between, while I waited for it to dry, I made a quick journalpage. Aahh, the joy of dabbing my fingers in paint again.....

Guess the really nasty weather here is making me long for wings and the ability to fly away to more sunny regions.... ;-)

I also made a June wallpaper for my newsletter-subscribers. Here it is:

If you want to use it, you can download it here!

And just for the fun of it: here's a sneak peek of our bathroom :-)

Not at all finished yet, I'm still thinking about how to continue. But the colours make me happy every time I walk in there :-) To be continued .....

I'm linking to Paint Party Friday as always. Didn't get a chance last week to have a look at my favorite blogs, but I'll definitely do that this weekend!

And to finish, here are some funnies (I have so many that I'm going to share more than one):

lol :-)

That's it for this week. Thanks for your visit, it is greatly appreciated! Wishing you a day full of sunshine and a weekend full of fun things to do. See you next week ♥ ♥ ♥