Girl # 6 / 31

My best so far.

Hello out there.

Well, the vacation is over and things back to normal again. We've had a nice and useful time at home. Cleared out a lot of old stuff and get rid of it.

I'm very satisfied with todays painting, and I can hardly understand that I've made this. Ofcourse I could point out some things that I wish was better, but I won't. One can't have it all.
I spend quite some time on the drawing because I'm not that familiar to the shapes to just paint without a good drawing first. I believe this girl lived in my pencil and wanted to come out, it almost did itself.
My biggest "fear" is to start painting, I'm scared to ruin it all. Funny thing though since I've experienced that most things can be fixed.

The blog Clare told me about , All Norahs art, has been very useful. For mixing colours and to watch her paint. Thanks a lot again to Clare. I really recommend you all to have a look at her Morning art videos.

When it comes to hair I'm struggleing. I like it much better when the hair is assembled in some way or other. Natural downhanging hair is very difficult to paint.
So that's why my girls have all these strict hairstyles.
Todays girl was painted Saturday.

Yesterday I did my first face in a different angle so I had to use a picture as a reference. I find it very difficult to draw a sideway face, but I'll just have to practise.



I find it very exiting each day to draw a new face. Who will I meet today? Most times I'm struggleing at the beginning but all of a sudden it just happens, that's why I like it so much.

Wish you all the best.

Girl # 5, Very pleased and not.

Todays girl looks familiar to me.

Hello friends.
This girl looks familiar to me but I don't know who she is. It might be a former customer she reminds me of. I really feel connected to this painting even though I messed it up. There's something wrong. The photo below shows her before I messed her up. I could have tried to fix her but there's something about just going on.
Today I can see that I could have done sommething about the shadow spot under her nose and strighten out her nose a bit. I think that would have done it.



Instead I painted a new mouth and all went wrong. She looks weird. I did fix a little on her hair because of the shape of her face. My husband pointed at her right shoulder and asked me if I couldn't see it was different from the other one. I had to please him and made a wrinkle on her top as an excuse.(funny thing about my husband, he's so symmetrical.)



Although she looks weird I like her and her fragile looks. I would love to know who she really is. Perhaps I should ask Olaug, my former colleague, if she recognice her.
The girl I'll show you next is my best so far. (From my point of view)
From Monday I'll have to draw faces from another angel, I believe in variation and need it too.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I do.

Wish you all the best.

Girl # 4 / 31

Step by step.

Hello again.
Today I want to show you my 4th girl in 3 different stages. The first one is when the drawing is done. At this stage I'm usually quite satisfied with the result. Todays hairstyle is inspired by the hairstyle of our lost Queen - Crownprincess Màrtha. (King Olavs wife) As you know I got myself a new studio resently and on the wall hangs my collection of royal plates. That's where I got the inspiration from.
Well, so far so good. ( I'm sorry for the quality of my photo.)



The next stage shows my girl half painted and every time at this stage I just want to throw my painting away. I always get the feeling that it's ruined, but I tell myself to stay in and continue and even paint over if something fails. I've learnt to not beeing afraid to try. And I'm amazed how much one can fix during the process. The paper is a bit bulky in this photo because of the wetness.



In this last photo she is done. I could have done some more about her hair, now it looks a bit like a wig. I can see that I need to practise more on doing hair. As I see it the overall impression is that she looks a bit stiff/unnatural. But hey..it's ME who have done it!



The background (greens) is good enough but the border is far too busy.
All my faces are drewn on a size A-4 watercolour paper. I'm planing to assemble them and make a book with faces only.
Now I'm going to start todays task, I wonder who I'll meet today. :-))

Wish you all the best.

Girl # 3/31 (hopefully)

Facination from childhood.

Hello everyone!

As a child nothing facinated me more than African girls/ladies with those big holes in their ears and all those rings around their necks. I could spend hours looking at pictures if I found some.

Today I'm quite satisfied with my girl, she has a much more "correct" face. The funny thing is that she wouldn't open her eyes and that's a pitty because I believe she has the most beautiful eyes. I tried over and over to paint her eyes but it wouldn't work, so I had to let her be a little shy. It wasn't my intention to draw a heartshaped face it just happened, mostly because of the hairline.

I'm so amazed about her hair at the photo. In person it doesn't appear like this at all. At the photo it looks like I've made a couple of thousands french knots with yarn but it's all painted.



I'm pleased with the background too this time, the only thing I wouldn't do again is to place colour into some of the flowers.
If I use my brains I can see that she's too young to have these large holes in her ears and that there is a ring missing at her neck. But, I refuse to ask my brains!!
The fact that she is a mix of black and white is just because I don't know how to draw a native African person.

I really enjoy doing this and tomorrow I'll show you a step by step girl.
Untill then....take care.

The second face.

I have challanged myself to draw a face a day during August.

This is my second one and I'm not at all happy for it. Way to long face between the eyes and the mouth. Her hair is really dull too but I lost my inspiration to do something more about it. But this girl learnt me something so in one way or other she was important to me.
It's very inspiring to challange oneself to do things like this, and now it remains to see if I can go through with it. That will probably be the biggest issue for me. In many ways I'm a stayer but if I feel I can manage I often loose interest.



It was fun to see that others are doing this too. When I decided to do it, it was because I feel that a face a week is not optimal to get the process into my fingers. A face a day for a month and then one each week to keep the tecknique fresch.
I'm struggeling to get the skintone right but Clare was kind enough to give me a tip on a blog to learn from. I've had a look into the blog and it's great. Big thanks to Clare for that tip!
Now I'm off to do todays face, have a nice day everyone.

New York between 1910 - 1920

I have 19 images to show you.

Todays cards are not specific buildings but more like still-life pictures from the city. I really love these cards and wanted to share them with you all. I'm planing to publish a new post once a week.
The cards came into my posession in an auction were I baught a so called blind-box. I've got a lot of things that way. I would love to hear from you if there's anything recognizable, houses still there and so on.

The first card shows: Fifth avenue and 42nd street.
On the back side of the card there is a printed text reading: "Busiest crossing in the city, where traffic is heavy at all hours of the day and night. It is only a short distance to the Grand Central Station and right in the heart of the hotel and theatre district. The Public Library stands at the intersection of the two streets."

This specific card is not dated in any way but some of them are and I assume they are made in the same periode of time.



The next card is showing: Broadway and 33rd Street.
There is no printed text on this one so I can't tell you any more about it. The sign on the left hand building is reading: Wilson building. The corner house on the right hand side has a sign reading: SAMS or SAKS

Look at the flying flags, isn't it a beautiful image?



The last card today shows: Sunday Morning on 5th Ave.

It has no text at the reverse so I can't tell you anything.
The yellow "bus" has a sign reading: SEVENTH to FIFTH AV.
This is such a nice picture too and look at the sunrise in the background.



That was todays post, I hope you enjoyed a journey back in time.
Wish you all the best.

My latest girlface.

Still practicing.

I'm still practicing my drawing skills. It's quite difficult to reach the right skincolour and then to get it even. But I feel I'm on my way.

I can see I have a lot to work on and the hair is always a callange, but I really like to do this. I'll show you 2 photos this time. The first one in progress and the second one when done.
If you look you can see that the skincolour is very uneven so I had to paint over again. Her hair wasn't quite well either so a lot more work to do.



In the second photo I call her done even if I can see things that could have been better.
The background is a challange too, I'm always ending up not knowing how to create the background. Suppose it's all about training. This background is made squary inspite the fact that I really don't fancy squares. Easiest way though.....



During my decluttering I finally came over a set of postcards that I've been searching for a while now. The cards are made between 1910/1920 and shows specific buildings in New York City. They're so nice and I'm thinking of showing them off. I've never been to the US so I don't know if the buildings are still there but it would have been fun if anyone out there could tell me which buildings still exist.

That's all for now, wish you all the best.