Not much painting

I'm still having the flu

and didn't do much this past week. Just some small quick paintings to get to mess with paint.

A tulip always makes me smile this time of year, and this one did too. It always gets me in a better mood to play with colors.

This last one was very quickly done, and I love the result. It seems I can't get enough of rough handmade papers. Have a nice week everyone.
 I'm linking to Paint Party Friday.

Preparations

Once in a while I like to paint a larger piece

and in those cases I find it very useful to research my subject.

I always try to find the right lines or the most typical movement of my subject. As you see this time it's all about magpies. I really love this bird, and I have 4 or 5 of them in my garden on a daily basis. They're much fun to watch but they can be rather mean to one another.

At this point I have no clear idea of how I want my new piece to be, the composition, I'm just playing with lines and movements until I get a feel of it all. It's also very useful to try different colors so that I can find what I'm searching. How do you approach a new larger painting?

I'm always surprised of the white color, nearly every time it's in use it's every other color than white that bring the eye to see white. Think of a white flower, how is it we paint  the white??
Oh, how I love working with colors, always so much to learn and to understand. My Neocolors have become my favorites, for the longest time I've preferred the twinks but now it's changed.

How do you like the greedy one? I so fell for this one, photo from Steve Lyddon, PMP, it just HAS to be the main focus in my piece.
To my great joy I discovered that a pair of magpies are nesting in one of our apple trees, I hope they will stay there and hopefully get fledglings. That would be great fun.

I have to thank you all for all your well wishes last week, I'm still coughing like crazy. This flue is said to last at least 5 weeks, so well, one week down.

Linking to PPF. Have a nice week, friends!

Still cold

We're still having this very cold weather

and I'm sick of it. I want spring, not more snow!! In addiction I've caught a terrible sore throat that makes it hard to swallow.......... Ok I promise, no more complaining. I have some art to share today as well.


I very much love to paint on a black substrate, so that was what I did here. I used twinkling H2O's for the initial layers but didn't like that as much as I'd hoped for. Next I did was to add neocolors on top of the twinks, and that really looks good and exciting.

The above painting was considered ruined so I didn't put much effort into the layering process, but I do see the potential here. If I don't cover all the twinks, they do shine through and add to the final result. I'll most certainly try this more

The substrate I've used on the above painting is actually matte board. I went down to a professional framer in our city and asked them for cutouts and pieces too small for them to use. I did offer to pay for them, but they gave it all to me. These pieces have a snow white and an off white side. So far I have used the bright white side only, and I love working on this substrate. Still using the Neocolors.
I'm very pleased with this one.


Just a few days before Christmas I started making a new Mochilla. It's quite a challenge to keep it all even and flat, but I love doing them. Below is the bottom of it.

To keep it smooth and even up the side is also hard and very time consuming. I have put it aside for a while  but think it's time to finish it off. Not many rounds left to go here.

 I'm going to make a patterned strap and a Kumihimo tie to close the bag. There will also be some tassels. I'll show it when done.

I'm linking to PPF, thank you for visiting and your lovely comments. I really appreciate reading every  single one of them.

For all those who require a name and e-mail to leave a comment, I will not do so. Sorry for that.

Friday again.

Where did this week go?

I've had such fun painting that I didn't notice the days passing.

Have you heard of a site called Paint my photo? I'm a member there and use the site to find wonderful photos to paint. All my paintings in this post are from pmp photos.

The owners/ photographers are allowing one to use their photos as reference, and we are free to do whatever we want with our art pieces. Most times I try to alter my piece a bit from the photo, that way it feels a bit more mine. The blue flower above was orange in the photo, so I downloaded it and turned it into a black and white copy, that made it easier for me to know where the light and dark should be.

I always upload my result to the pmp site and thank the photographer for the use of his/hers photo and at the same time they can see the result. It's a great way to have reference photos that are free to use. 

This last piece is a mixed media one, and I had great fun making it. The photographer was very surprised with this and he said he loved it.

It's free to create an account over at Paint my photo, and there are thousands of photographs to choose from. Give it a try and I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

All colors used is Neocolors ll. The last piece was done on a black substrate using gesso washed book pages and white and gold ink. 

Thanks for visiting and also for all your lovely comments.
I'm linking to PPF.

A lot has happened

A lot has happened

in my life since I was last time blogging. Last August I had an accident riding my bike and I broke my right hand wrist. It was, in fact, smashed to many pieces and it won't really heal again. That doesn't mean I'm in an awful lot of pain, it's just that it won't function as it should.  I'm waiting for a new surgery to remove all the added parts, like screws and pieces that has been placed there for support. Being in this waiting stage is driving me crazy, it seems I can't get anything done.

But finally I'm painting again. I have these lovely hand made papers that I want to use and flowers are always fun to paint.

 For this project I'm using Neocolors 2 and they're good ones. I started to lay down shadows using paynes gray watercolor. As you can see in my first photo, it looked a bit hard.

 It's quite a job painting all the petals, and get each one to stand out from the rest. But I so much love painting again it doesn't matter how long it takes. I love making one and one petal and make the most out of it.

I'm very pleased with the result. I chose to outline the petals using gold ink, not sure I'll do that over again. You see, I've decided to make at least four in this style, and while painting, more and more ideas keep coming. Oh how I love this.

Thanks for visiting and have a nice weekend.

I'll link this to PPF.

Winter work

What I did during winter.

To create and be creative is part of who I am and there will always be something new brewing in my mind. This last winter it was all about yarn, needles and hooks. Especially crocheting is near to my heart. It's such a joy to pick up some yarn and a hook and be able to create something beautiful with such simple remedies. It amazes me each time how little it takes to make something wonderful.

Through facebook I found a group making Mochilas and I just had to try that.  To make a flat bottom with much pattern was a hard nut to crack but oh so fun. Below is my first.

The next one is easier because of that pattern. I'm still working on those two Mochilas. Not sure when they're going to be finished but sooner or later they will.

The first one I finished, is a small one and it's quite nice. It might come to use during summer.

The last one were made for a friend who turned 50 in February, and who love love love sculls. I had so much fun making it, and I had to look out if she turned up at my house. It was a hide and seek kind of thing. Needless to say she was over the top happy for the bag.

Yarn and one hook, that's all it takes. This is just a small part of what has been made so I'll have to make a post or two later on to show you some more.

Linking to PPF, happy Friday everyone.

Self portraits

Have you ever made a self portrait?

Self portraits are very interesting to look at, they convey some of the artists views and thoughts of themselves. Even if one know the person, one might get some new insight to their personality, or perhaps change some of our beliefs.

To make my own portraits is quite another thing, very interesting and it might touch ones feelings as well. The one below is tiny me, and it was very challenging to make. Mostly because of the technique, small patches of paper torn apart from  pre-paint magazine pages and of course to get a certain amount of likeness. Even though the mouth isn't right, I'm very happy with this one, and it was unexpected to meet all the feelings that came along. Quite a journey, I'd say.

This next one is done in the same technique, and was a try to locate the different values in a face. From the lightest to the darkest, and I think I did it quite well. I didn't like not to make my teeth white, but that was part of the task. Not as detailed as the baby picture, but that were out of my focus. It is me, but it feels a bit strange. I think it's the hair that doesn't feel familiar, it's too short I think.

The green one is practicing values as well, but this time with paint only. It's made on a very special paper with lots of bits and pieces in it. This is a very good portrait of me, if I might say so myself, and it amazes me each time I look at it. It feels like "we" share a secret or two.

The last one is the newest and the one one could use to point me out in a crowd. It's made with my profile pic as inspiration, have a look at the top of this post and compare them. I made it towards the end of 2016, and it's carved in lino and hand printed. I'm happy with the result even though the space between my front teeth isn't quite that big.
I still haven't tried to just paint one, too afraid to try I believe. Perhaps some other time.

If you haven't tried to make your self portrait yet, I challenge you to do so. It's unlike everything else.