Painting 28 days colorful in February

Hi all! I'm going to participate in a blog-hop in February with Maiken Damsgaard. She has asked artists to join her creating colourful art through the month of February, "28 dage i farver"
I am going to combine this challenge with the 29 Faces challenge from Ayala Art, which I mainly follow on Facebook!

My wish to schedule my blogging time more consistently hasn't worked out so far, because I have started working more and I lack time for everything now ;-) I am not complaining! It's great, I just have to get used to the new situation.

Last week I have started working on a painting for my daughter. She asked me to paint a canvas with the colours of this painting:

My daughter asked me to paint some birds and if there are any blue birds. Luckily there are and luckily there is a great photographer, who shares photos for artists to paint! So the birds are coming to life slowly on my canvas. Here are two birds that are sitting on the canvas by now:

Another project I have started during a class is evolving in my living room now:

I collaged some lamps and the lady dressed in black from a magazine and slapped some paint on an A2 sized cardboard. In the last lesson on thursday I started drawing the face to the right and gave her a crown. That's when I came up with a title for the painting: "Königin im Lampenladen" "Queen of the Lamp Store". Following are a few process pictures, the painting is not completely finished!

It has been fun to play with paints and collage and I'm looking forward to the two challenges I'm going to start on the 1. February!

Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy some art!

Sharing this on Paint Party Friday, go over and see some wonderful art from around the globe by some art enthusiasts!

Finally Friday

It's been a working week, so I didn't have much time for art. Therefore I'm showing you some paintings I have done in December.
They are all made from portraits by old masters.

The first is part of a larger painting, 1square meter, where the reference is from Agnolo Bronzino (again):

The next portrait is a portrait I painted as a book cover after a painting by Ivan or Jacob Argunov, it was not quite clear which of the two painted the unknown woman:

Below you see a portrait I did of Kunigunde of Austria (ca 1485) after a portrait by an unknown artist:

Lastly I show you this portrait of Alexandra Pavlovna ca 1790, (princess of Russia) I painted on a box as part of a birthday present for my niece:

I enjoyed painting these portraits. I hadn't done a lot of painting so the change from the pencils/graphite was wonderful!

Thank you all for visiting and have a wonderful weekend!

I'm sharing my post on the Paint Party Friday

some more faces

Hi everyone! Today I'm sharing some progress works. I didn't have time to finish any of the pieces I'm working on at the moment. First comes a drawing of an owl from a photo I've found on the PMP site. The Barn owl was photographed by Mike Gullick. I'm grateful for all the wonderful photos that great photographers share for artists to draw and paint!

The owl, sketched on a small moleskin journal.

The next few pieces are done on lose paper, all Bronzino portraits with additions

(One of the old Italian masters):

1. is a lady with sheep and birds photographed by Valerie Jael. She takes a lot of beautiful photos on her walks and I got permission to use some as reference for my drawings. Thank you once more Valerie! :-)

2. a Young Man, and I gave him a set of cow-horns.

Finally I'm showing a few photos of a portrait I'm working on. She seems to grow on me, the longer I work on her :-):

3. is Lucrezia di Cosimo with flowers added.

I really enjoy drawing and I would love to do something really big, a few square yards/meters!

Wishing everyone a wonderful sunday, don't get blown away by the storm! (For those affected by the weather)

Sharing this on Paint Party Friday

and Art Journal Journey!

Bronzino study

Another visit at Art Journal Journey

As I'm working with portraits by the old masters I surely have to add another blog post with a portrait I have done lately.

Here is a study of a portrait by Bronzino his birth name was Agnolo di Cosimo (November 17. 1503 - November 23. 1572) but he was known as Il Bronzino probably referring to his complexion. More information from wikipedia.

The animals are drawn after photos from Valerie Jael. Thank you very much for the permission to use some of your photos as references!

This is a work in progress and it will be a present for a friend, who appreciates my art very much.

Have a great week!

Happy New Year!

Hello dear friends and fellow bloggers!
I miss blogging and I miss you all! So I have decided to schedule my time for blogging and other computer related time more strictly this coming year. I hope it will work!
I have been practicing faces all year long and I enjoy it very much. I have mostly done drawings in graphite and charcoal and recently I've started painting again with acrylics, which I enjoy very much. There has come a lot of color into my paintings :-)

Now here's some of my art inspired by the old masters:

"La Bella Pricipessa" by Leonardo da Vinci, this painting is acrylic on watercolor paper. I've got it framed, which makes it look like a real piece of art! 

 Isabella d'Este by Titian, graphite and pastel drawing on my favorite "drawing paper", not finished

 Catharina van Aragon by Juan De Flandes. 

I'm still working on this! It is hopefully going to hang on a wall in our local hospital in the cancer tracing/control section. I've accompanied someone last summer, who was diagnosed with cancer and it was such a dreary place. So I immediately thought it would be nice, if there were some beautiful pictures hanging on the wall. I'm going to ask the hospital, if they would like some art for their walls. Luckily the person I was with, did get an operation that was able to remove the cancer.

Wishing everyone a year of hope and with possibilities to move on in your life in a way that you wish for. Sometimes that can be hard to accomplish, maybe we need to change our point of view to be able to move or to see other possibilities…

And sometimes only the tinyest steps are possible.

My best wishes to you

Ilona

Sharing this with the wonderful people at Paint Party Friday

And also at: Art Journal Journey (which is a first for me)