Mix it Monthly in January

Was very inspiring and so much so that I rather accidentally created paintings that fitted into the category. Here are two portraits that I did this month:

The Birdlady is a mixed media work on cardboard sized approximately 70x100 cm:

The page below is part of the Traveling Art Journal (you can see who is in the group on the link above). It is a combination of collage and acrylics.

And a pencil sketch and acrylic painting. I added the colours to the drawing last week. The woman in the painting has recently lost her father and somehow the idea to add colours came to my mind and the dripping paint just was a spontaneous idea.

Lastly I wanted to add this fair lady to the show, as she is wearing the most stunning headdress! She is the result of an international collaboration (and I need to frame her properly) 

Thank you very much for your wonderful challenge Conny! I enjoy it very much :-)

Visit the Mix it Monthly challenge, it is growing and beautiful and amazing to see!

Update on my "Birdlady"

I painted this portrait on a board I used for my oral exam to become an arts teacher. A few drawings were glued to the board and used to explain my ideas for a teaching-process. I wanted to paint a new portrait and was on the lookout for a painting surface and found the board. In stead of removing the drawings I painted over them and thought they could add some extra texture. They do that, but they also make the painting look a bit odd, because there are gaps in the painting.

Here is the painting as it looks now:

I enjoy the process of working on this painting a lot, it is still not finished. 

Thank you so much for your comments! They make me very happy!

I read an article in a Danish newspaper today, telling the story of a boy in well situated family being harassed and humiliated by his parents. In parts it sounds like the story of Harry Potter growing up with his aunt and uncle. It is incredible and disturbing.

I share this little piece of information so I have his story on my blog to revisit. I wasn't ready to read all of his story on the blog he has set up last year in November just now. But I'm going to visit him on his blog from time to time.

Fra offer - Til menneske

WIP

Hi there! I'm working on a portrait 39x28 inches/ 100x72 cm. I love the size! Actually it could even be bigger, but for now it's ok, as I only jump up to my workspace, when I feel I deserve a break from my studies. So it will take some more time to get it finished. 

She is growing a little every day :-)

Thank you for visiting!

Travelling Journal

Hi everyone!
I am participating in a travelling-journal-round this year that is initiated by Martha Ayala, who you all know I guess :-). She has created groups like 29 Faces, which is coming up soon again!

12 artists from around the world will create a journal and send it on to the next artist on a list.

I have created a page with links to the participating artist's blog. Here's a link to the The Travelling Journal page. You can find the link under the header of my blog as well!

Here is the first page I created in Anita Mistry's journal. I may be adding to it, but I'm happy with the outcome so far! Anita wanted us to use "the colours of India"/bright friendly colours. And so I went looking for inspiration on the net.
I started by collaging pink, yellow and orange papers onto the page and to give it a little contrast I added some greens.

I really loved the feel of this colourful collage! The bright and happy colours are quite different from, what I usually use, at least in that amount!

To evolve from there I had to find a face to paint, so I searched again, for people in India and found the image of a girl that I liked. I put some white acrylic over the collage and started to sketch the face with charcoal:

And added more paint and worked on details of the picture:

Here is the version I ended up with until now. It can rest for a while now and maybe I will get some ideas or things I would like to change.

I very much hope Anita will like the first page in her journal! I loved to work in it. It feels rather special, to do this kind of work for another person.

Because of my current situation I am going to reduce my blogging, but I'm going to post pictures from time to time without linking up with my favorite challenges and parties, as I am not able to get around to visit all the participants.

I am always happy to have visitors and I will visit you my dear blogger friends whenever time allows it. So feel welcome at all times! 

Mix it Monthly in January

Starting off with a little self-portrait in a notebook.

Here you can see a blogpost about my inspiration/model

Mix it Monthly in January is all about odd hats, so fitting very well with me! :-)

Here's the LINK

And linking to a beautiful piece of art by the wonderful and creative Karla Bardanza:

HEALING WOMAN

Paint Party Friday Week 43 Year 3

Welcome to a new year!

At our family gathering at our house on the 28th of December I had a little drawing session with my elder sister. Can you guess who did which side? ;-)

In the third picture we worked all over the place! We enjoyed it a lot and had fun with drawing! My niece in the  green framed picture was astounded at what we were able to achieve in a quite short period of time.

 

Below I drew a scene from a holiday we were on, when my second son was still very small.

It was a lovely place!!!

At last I show you a few portraits I have done/finished this week:

     

Thank you all for visiting! Hope you will visit the PAINT PARTY FRIDAY

where a lot of amazing artists come together and share their joy with art!

Getting myself ready for a new challenge

Wishing everyone a very happy new year and hoping for all of us to be able to grow and make the world a better place to be in!

On Mix it Monthly Conny has given us a new challenge working with head-dresses and beautiful colours and I'm very inspired once more and ready to pour out my colours and inspiration on as much canvas or paper as I can lay hands on!
To get in the mood for the theme I took a few selfies with some of my hats:

:-) some of them are my own creations (the blue on the left and the small dark-red in the centre) the top right I bought in London in 1991 and the green one I bought in Prague in 1993 - wonderful memories from my youth.

The little white thing I bought for my tailoring shop to fit to a wedding dress I once worked on.

A lovely day today, 1. January 2014!

Ilona