Friday, 19 April 2013

Hands, flowers and butterflies

I have been playing again, with collage and mixed media paintings and drawings.
Here is my flower and butterfly WIP: I collaged some gift wrapping paper on cardboard and added some acrylic washes and pastels. It looked quite cool to me and I let it wait for the right moment to add more color and stuff.


I had read somewhere about a challenge doing collage and paper art and somewhere I read about butterflies and I started playing with the background. I smeared some gesso onto the collage, and on top of that I put: dried rose petals, tulle and the cut out and drawn flower and butterflies. Then I started drawing stalks and fantasy flowers with pastels and water colours. I'm not quite sure if it is finished yet, what do you think?


Ayala Art has started a hand-drawing challenge in April. It is a bit more relaxed, as it is not a daily thing. I have started drawing after a detail of a Botticelli painting. Here are some progress shots: 
Starting with a charcoal sketch in my sketchbook on a layer of acrylic...


adding water colour...


giving the painting a wash of white acrylic...


painting out the details once more with pastels


giving it some background (I know the book's dimensions are wrong)
 and adding more water colours and pastels...


This is it for this week. Sharing on Paint Party Friday, where many other artists link to their blogs and share their wonderful work! :-) 
And with the Paper Saturdays on Manon's blog, sharing any artwork that is produced with paper in any form. See what Manon is sharing, she makes paper dolls and features a different artist on Saturdays.

50 comments:

  1. Boah, das sind wundervolle Kunstwerke, Ilona. Ich beneide Dich um Dein Talent.

    Happy PPF und schönes Wochenende

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  2. Love the evolution of your Botticelli like painting...very beautiful!! Plus your collage painting is beautiful too!! Excellent work this week!

    Hugs Giggles

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  3. Those hands are very well done!

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  4. LIke your mixed media page and those hand are lovely.

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  5. Your butterflies and flowers look beautiful with so much colour and texture. Hands are very difficult to get right but you have done a great job

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  6. hands are so difficult to draw!
    here is the whole family, even we do not see them :)

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  7. Einen ganz wundervollen Blog hast Du! Ich freue mich total Dich gefunden zu haben!
    Ich würde mich wirklich freuen Dich vielleicht heuer einmal auch als Teilnehmer bei der monatlichen Herausforderung für Art Journaling
    ART-JOURNAL-JOURNEY
    begrüßen zu dürfen!

    Happy PPF

    aus Österreich


    Susi

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  8. Beautiful, beautiful!! Thank you for showing us the progress of the hands. Great job!

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  9. lovely pieces and I like how you take us through your process. The hands are great - so difficult to draw!

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  10. I really love these pieces! Especially the work you've done on the hands...I think they are rather difficult to capture, and you've succeeded quite well. Love the layers you do and that you've shown each step! Happy PPF!

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  11. Awesome work on the hands and all. Beautiful work. Thanks for showing the process. Happy PPF!

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  12. Wonderful texture that you put into your butterfly piece. I like all the elements you used and your hand sketches are marvelous, bravo. Happy PPF

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  13. Beautiful collage and lovely hand sketches ~ Wow! ^_^

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  14. terrific work on the hands and a smashing collage. Happy PPF, Annette x

    http://nettysartadventures.blogspot.co.uk/

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  15. Love your hand sketches, they are so difficult to do and i think you captured them nicely. HPPF!

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  16. great work on the hand drawing. What a challenging composition!

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  17. Seeing your collage progress encourages me to try it. The butterflies, I think, are wonderful and have a finished look to them -- but if you want to go back and enhance particular elements for a focal point, that might be a direction. It has the feel of a lovely field now. I love that you shared the progression of hands and the mixed media you used. I also love the book -- the dimensions are fine. Great post!

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  18. Wow..your collaged painting is so beautiful..full of life , vibrancy and harmony..so wonderful to gaze at..a colorful mediation of beauty and upliftment..it feels like visual poetry to me!
    I love your hand sketches..and seeing the process come to life is so wonderful to witness! Very beautiful my friend!! Such a post full of creative bliss!

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  19. Liebe Ilona,
    Deine Collage ist wunderschön! Ich mag die Farben total gerne und das Arrangement wirkt so verträumt, was mich als Wasserzeichen sehr anspricht.
    Die Zeichnung und die kleine Doku finde ich total interessant. Es wirkt alles so lebendig, so wie der Frühling gerade.
    Liebe Grüße zu Dir und einen happy PPF!
    Erika

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    1. Habe dir gerade einen Kommentar auf deinem Blog geschrieben, klasse! :-)
      herrzliche Grüsse!

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  20. Oh my! You have done an absolutely gorgeous collage work! Love the texture and energy you created! The hands are seriously good...I grappled with hands for a while in my sketching class. Great pages here!

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  21. Beautiful WIP collages, really interesting textures, colors, shapes...love the nature feeling in the second one. Great hand practice, I should do that too! :)

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  22. Lovely work! Saying hello from PPF and Paper Saturdays. Ich glaube, ich kann hier auch deutsch reden! Klasse Arbeit! LG, Valerie

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  23. Ilona, your work is beautiful. I love the hand drawing, something I am sadly not proficient in. Your collage is great. Love the butterflies and flowers and all the marvelous colors.

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  24. Magical spring garden! Lovely! I love the hands, especially baby hand. :D so special!

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  25. Bottichelli is a hard act to follow ;) I went to Florence in february to see primarily his works in the ufitzi, especially the birth of venus, a stunning work. Gaining inspiration from great masters is a great way to learn and hands in particular very difficult, you have done so well.

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  26. Your hand drawings are beautiful - in fact all your work is lovely. Drawing from the old masters is so interesting, and I find it makes me 'know' the painting much more deeply. I admire all your work.

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  27. Ilona I am so happy you joined Paper Saturdays today and you know I admire your art very much! So pleased to come by, say hello and peer over your wonderful art.
    ManonX

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  28. Hi Ilona: I see what you mean about collaging without paper now. Your pieces are beautiful. The first looks like a really shapely womyn to me. It is beautiful! The second - it feels finished to me...does it to you? The flutterbyes are brilliant. I know what you mean about not knowing when it is finished. Now for those hands. Oh my gosh are you talented! They are fantastic. I just took Ayala's faces course, which was great. You are so brilliant with the hands. i love that you put your process down in pictures. That is really generous and helpful. Just fantastic! Lovies, Samara.

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  29. Beautiful and delicate art works. Like soft touch of something nice and good. Thank you for sharing. Love and blessings to you.

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  30. I love all of it...the Botticelli hands and the flower collage, all very beautifully done!

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  31. Drawing hands is really difficult. Looks like you have the talent for it. Beautiful
    Nicole/Beadwright

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  32. i enjoy seeing your process on both of these projects. i think the white was is effective giving the drawing a dreamy feeling. i like the addition of the book too. happy ppf on saturday :)

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  33. Hands are tough but you make them look easy... I have to concentrate really hard when i draw or paint them... and that collage looks pretty finished to me... it is quite lovely...xx

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  34. Wow, hands... a true challenge. But you are doing a marvelous job! Love this piece.

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  35. Hi Ilona!! :oD (waving my hand) I don't know if you are finished with the butterflies, but they look great!

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  36. Hello Ilonas,
    Great collage, love the idea of using dried petals. Love the hands. I always have trouble drawing hands.. :)

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  37. Love the hand painting! Super great, and thanks for showing the process!

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  38. Lovely paintings and fabulous drawings of the hands! :) I do like the background, the book! Soon butterflies will come again to dance from flower to flower.. :)

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  39. Wonderful drawings! Nice to see how the drawing progresses too! Thanks for stopping by my blog for PPF! I look forward to following your creative spirit now too!

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  40. Wunderschoene Zeichnungen! Mir gefaellt, dass Du uns die Entwicklung zeigst, das ist sehr interessant.

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  41. Gorgeous colors and texture in your collage!!!
    And...your hans are lovely!
    Hands scare me to draw!!!!

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  42. Hi,
    Thanks for commenting on He Cares for Us. I love your painting and your ideas. I have not used acrylics - just watercolours - What is Aylala Art?
    Blessings,
    Janis

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    1. Thank you for visiting and your kind feed-back on my art!
      That was a really good question. I should be aware of the possibility that not every visitor knows the same bloggers as I do!

      Ayala Art is a blogger and artist who has some challenges going on from time to time, in April we are doing hands and we are working on a collaboration at the moment.

      Kind regards
      Ilona

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  43. Love all those layers behind your beautiful flowers and your hands are wonderful. I love drawing hands...I may have to check that challenge out!

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  44. I love the layered floral piece, and it's lovely to see how that drawing of hands came together :)

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  45. So nice to see the work in progress. I think the perspectives look great! Well done! :)

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  46. Wow einfach genial, wie Dein Bild entstanden ist! Ich liebe es, solche Bildschritte zu beobachten...Du kannst sehr gut zeichnen und das Bild erzählt eine tolle Geschichte ♥ Conny
    http://piaromsartjournaling.blogspot.de

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  47. Your mixed media collage is gorgeous! I love the soft colors and the texture. Wow!

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