Artists that inspire me: Vassia Alaykova

Vassia, who lives and works in Boston, USA, held her first exhibition when she was only 14 years old.

She fell in love with painting and performance arts at the early age of ten, and went on to study fine arts and graphic design.

She is inspired by Eastern European Folklore, world history, theatre, poetry and different cultures.

Her materials of choice are watercolours and gouache. I love the transparancy of her work ...

 Her new series of paintings are inspired by yoga, spirituality and her travels to India

She believes that colour plays an essential role in conveying feelings and emotions

 and also that art should make people happy by somehow touching their souls and enlightening and rejuvenating their lives. Exactly my idea ... :-)

If you want to see more of this wonderful artist, you can visit

her blog

her website

her Facebookpage

and her Etsyshop

 Thanks so much for visiting! I'll be back on Friday with my (hopefully finished) painting! ♥ ♥ ♥

Painting, experimenting with patterns, and FITW ....

I know I keep repeating myself, but where does the time go ... !?

We had a public holiday here in Queensland on Monday, and it feels as if the rest of the week just didn't happen. It went by in a flurry.

I managed to paint a little bit, although not that much has changed since last week.

This is where I stopped last week:

And this is where I am now:

Monday is my birthday and as a birthday present I'm giving myself the whole day to paint ☺. Without guilt about all the other stuff I need to do ... ☺

And meanwhile, I also started participating in the Face in the World-challenge (FITW). This is another challenge by  Ayala Art, the same Ayala Art as from the 29-faces-challenges. She always has really good ideas for challenges.

So basically this is how it goes: there's 3 of us in our group, and each of us starts a face, sends it to the next person, who adds whatever she wants to the face, and in turn sends it to the third person who finishes it. So after 2 stops you get your started face back, completely finished. Really interesting idea.

This is Sandra's face:

I must admit it was a bit scary working on someone eles's face. What if I messed it up? It was also drawn on really slick cardstock, which I'm not at all used to when painting. And which part should I do? In the end I decided to paint the background and the lips, and do something with the hair ....

Not sure how I feel about it ... We'll see what Shelle does with it .....

And I also started my own face on a loose canvas sheet:

Just painted the eyes. Now it's up to Shelle and Sandra to do something with it. Very exciting!


And lastly, I've been playing with my doodles in Photoshop, trying to make patterns. And I might have a new addiction on my hands .... It's unpredictable how it's gonna turn out, which makes it very exciting and a lot of fun.

Here's (only a small) selection of what I made:

Well, that's it for now. Linking this as always to Paint Party Friday, the very popular paint party with more than 100 participants each week. Go take a look!

Thanks so much for being here and for your wonderful comments. I love hearing what you think!

Hope you're having a lovely Friday! Enjoy the weekend! ♥ ♥ ♥

Sketch and some new postcards

Time seems to be running away from me, and I hardly get the chance to make art. Very frustrating. I'm still sitting on the bed with my daughter every night, but usually it's too late before we get there, so we have only about 10 minutes or so to do something before she needs to go to sleep.

But I managed to make another sketch:

And I made some new postcards for my Etsyshop:

That's it for now. There won't be an inspiring artist post this week due to, well, yes, you guessed it, time management problems ... But I'll be back on Friday for the Paint Party!

Thanks for visiting! Hope to see you again on Friday! ♥

The joy of a new painting ...

Even though I didn't have much time this week, I managed to paint for a few hours and oh, I can't express how I enjoy this way of painting. Every time I start a new canvas I feel a bit reluctant, wondering how on earth to start and how to get past the mess I'm making on my canvas .... It's as if I have to learn everything from scratch all over again.

But then, almost without notice, I slip into another phase, where I find figures and start to get an idea where this canvas is going. And then it starts to get really fun. Which doesn't mean I don't get frustrated at times, or doubt whether I'm making the "right" decisions. But then I only need to think about Flora Bowley's very wise words: "it's just another layer" .... If I'm not happy with it, I paint over it. It's as simple and sometimes as difficult as that.

The painting I started last week moved over to the phase where I started seeing things in it. And this time I just saw figures everywhere!

I wonder how many more will surface ... ;-)

This is where I am now. I'll show the in-progress pics from start to finish when the painting is finished. I'm really loving the new colours I bought: neon pink and neon orange and neon blue, all from the new range from Golden: the "High Flow Acrylics". They're perfect for this way of painting. I love the high pigmentation of the Golden paints, the colours stay strong even when you spray water on top.

Ooohh, just looking at all that orange and pink makes me happy. It's weird how colour can have that effect on me. Maybe it's because I grew up in Belgium, where more often than not the skies are a drab grey, the buildings are grey, even most of the cars are grey. I yearned for colour living there....

And here are some more painted rocks:

Jez was wondering how big these rocks are, so I took a couple of pictures where they're laying in my hand ....

They're all different sizes, the biggest one so far is the size of my palm.

Well, that's it for now. I'm linking this to the weekly party at Paint Party Friday, where more than 100 artists every week participate and play. Go have a look, or even better: join in!

And if you have the time, take a look at my previous post about inspiring artists. I'm so in awe of this guy I just need to share it with everybody....

Thank you so much for being here, and also a massive thank you for answering my question about shipping in my last PPF-post. Very interesting, and a big help for me! So thanks ♥

Hope you're having a beautiful Friday, enjoy your weekend and don't forget to relax and play ;-)

artists that inspire me: Bruno Torfs

Today's artist is a man I greatly admire, not only for his art, but also for his spirit and his courage.

 An artist-friend of mine, that I painted with every Thursday, told me about him when she heard that we were thinking about emigrating to Australia.

 He was born in South America, but moved to Belgium at the age of 15. That's where she got to know him. Later, he emigrated to Australia with his family to create a sculpture garden that he wanted to run as a permanent attraction.

They moved to Marysville, a small village in Victoria, on a property with a large section of rainforest.

After 5 months of hard work, he opened his art and sculpture garden to the public. On the property was also a gallery that housed over 200 of his artworks brought over from Europe, that included oil paintings, sketches and smaller sculptures.

But on the 7th of February 2009, a devastating bushfire raged through the region, destroying everything in its path and killing a total of 173 people. 90% of the buildings in the village were destroyed and 45 people died in that town alone. Bruno was extremely lucky to survive with his family.

For 2 months, people were not allowed to go back to their town. Bruno knew his home and his gallery were completely destroyed, but he didn't know the extent of the damage to his sculpture garden.

The terracotta forms of his sculptures resisted the heat of the fire almost completely, but falling branches and tumbling trees had reduced many of the life-sized artworks to rubble and dust.

Bruno chose to stay in Marysville and start the gigantic task of rebuilding his home and restoring the gardens.

It will be many years though before the forest resembles the lush wonderland that it used to be.

 I can't even begin to express the respect I feel for someone with his courage. Looking at the pictures on his website, seeing all the devastation and all the work that had to be done, it blows my mind.

 His art is amazing, it just fits so well within the natural setting.

It is one of my biggest wishes to one day visit these beautiful gardens. It must be such a joy wandering around there, encountering sculptures everywhere.

If you want to see more of this artist, please visit his website.

Here's a Youtube-video where you can see the devastation the fire caused, and how the garden was rebuilt. It's heartwarming to see the support he got from friends and neighbours, and it's simply amazing how it looks again.




Hope you likd today's inspiring artist! Thanks so much for visiting, I'll be back on Friday!

Discovering the joy of sketching again ....

After the busy month of July we had, with my sister visiting and us going on trips all the time, my daughter and I finally got back into the habit of sitting on her bed each night while I'm sketching or drawing or doodling, and she usually is reading.

This is a sketch I did, which I'll probably use for my new 2014 calendar.

I also tried my hand at watercolour again, and I'd forgotten how much fun it was. I might print out all my sketches on watercolour paper, and paint them instead of using coloured pencils ....

This girl will most likely end up on a card. It's almost time to start doing my Christmascards .... (no, I won't say again how time flies ...☺)

And 2 more painted rocks ....

The last one was really bumpy, so not easy to write on ....

That's it for now. I'll be back on Wednesday with another inspiring artist post.

Thanks for taking the time to visit! I love having you here :-)

Painting again ....

August already! Can't believe we're halfway through the year. So many things I still want to do before the holiday season starts. I'm afraid August will be a really busy month ....

Thanks so much for visiting and leaving your lovely comments. I was a bit late this week to get back to you, but now I'm going to try and visit all the participants on PPF again.

My sister and her family flew back to Belgium on Wednesday night, so I was feeling a bit lost and lonely yesterday, and what better way to beat that than painting? I finished some more rocks, and worked on my painting that I started during Summer of Color.

Here's what I have so far:

Not having painted like this since so long really made me rusty. I wonder what will come out of this .... But I had a lot of fun trying out some new paints and colours.

And here are some more painted rocks, front- and backside:

Ready to be varnished ....

I'm thinking about starting to sell my smaller paintings online, but am struggling with the shipping costs. So I'm curious which option you prefer when you buy online: fixed price and separate shipping costs, or fixed price with free shipping. It always bothers me when I buy something online and the shipping costs are really high. It would be interesting to know what you think ....

And then to finish: a picture of all of us (2 families) on the last day in beautiful Rainbow Beach:

We had such a great time, it was so much fun having them here. We surely miss them ....

Well, that's it for this week. Linking this as always to Paint Party Friday, the weekly paint party hosted by Kristin and Eva. More than 100 artists join every week, go have a look, it's worth it!

Thanks so much for your visit! I hope your Friday and weekend will be filled with laughter and fun and harmony ♥ ♥ ♥