Inspiration for future work

I'm going to this course in Denmark/Århus:

Artists' Book Course

and I'm very curious about it and hope it will be a lot of fun and inspirational!

Otherwise I'm playing with my paints on paper, trying to capture moods with acrylic and a brush. Here are a few impressions of yesterday's work:

Putting some paint on paper; choosing a photo, to sketch a face; putting glue on top; add some more paint...

Adding paint from my wet palette and adding glue on the dry paint:

Fooling around with paints and scraffitti:

A portrait sketch, starting with a layer of graphite, taking off layers with an eraser, then adding and taking away until I thought it had the right variety of light and dark:

I'm working on a chocolate box decorated with acrylics and adding small paintings, that have the size of the chocolate pieces:

A few tiny sketches of old masters' portraits:

And a "copy" in my sketchbook. I was drawing a portrait and this turned up on the backside of my drawing :-)

Finally a sketch of a sculpture from an international art exhibition

I just noticed that writing these comments about my work/process creates awareness! You might call me stupid that I only notice this now, but that's the way it is with me. I'm a bit slow sometimes!

Have a wonderful new week!

Ilona :-)

I posted this more than a year ago:

a-few-of-my-recent-sketches

I have done a lot of art for half a year, and then I started working, earning money, but art making was reduced to drawing a little and painting was next to nothing.
I really miss painting very much! And I need to find a way, to include art making into my schedule once again!

Here are a few pieces I have done in the past year that I think turned out quite well, though they are not all finished!!!  :

Paint Party Friday, Week 23, Year 4

I can't tell you how fast time is running, I can't keep up with it! :-)
I'm going to tell you, what has been going on recently and of course I'll show you some art I've been creating.

Friday last week my eldest son moved out, to live with three friends closer to their school. Wow that is a weird feeling. He's growing up! And I feel happy for him, because he get's the chance to grow up and become independent. But there are a lot of worries as well of course. I hope he will enjoy his time and be the reasonable and sensible person I know him as!
Two days later on Sunday my second son moved to a boarding school, where he is finishing his primary school education. It seems like he is doing well so far. The last two days I haven't heard from him ;-). It is a great school with a lot of varied possibilities for the pupils to learn and engage themselves in meaningful occupations. So far one of his favorites was kayaking!
This means we are three persons left in our household. And more changes will happen here with me getting into more teaching related work.

Now to my art…
For the Travelling journal I have done a page in Beth Gould's journal. Her theme is "Through the Eyes of a Child" and I have created a page inspired by one of my childhoods favorite stories/movies: Emil of Lönneberga. A story written by Astrid Lindgren about a boy who constantly gets into trouble with his father because of small accidents that happen to him.
Here is the page I did:

I used pencils and gouache for this page and it was inspired in the composition by Marc Chagall, as I had seen a documentation about him, before I started painting.

Here is a link to the song Emil's sister Ida is singing:

The most fantastic about all this is that we as a family visited the very place where the film was produced, it is an old farm in Sweden, and we loved to see it!

It is such a lovely place and it looks exactly like it does in the film.

I also drew a portrait sketch of Robin Williams this week. He is one of my absolute favorite actors. 

We can only wish for more people to be more like this man.

Have a beautiful weekend, take care of yourselves and others

bring more joy and love to the world!

Ilona xx

Sharing with Paint Party Friday

Visiting the Paint Party Friday :-)

I guess I found out why it's become so difficult for me to post regularly on my blog. It has stopped since I've finished my studies. While I studied I was at my computer almost all the time and now I've so many other things to do that I have to make time for blogging. If I want to keep at it, I will have to really schedule blogging-time in future. I'll have to get myself pulled together :-)

Now I want to show you a few projects I've been working on last week:

The first piece I want to show you is my contribution to the traveling journal of Lizzy Love. There are a lot of process-photos and some detail-photos. I very much hope Lizzy will like her!

Next is a sketch of a Mufflon on 300g water colour paper. I used pencils and pastels, a brush and water (The reference photo was provided by Karina Sturm)

Finally I'm working on Frida Kahlo portraits, which I enjoy very much. I am going to do a collaboration with postcard sized Frida-art. I blogged about that a few weeks ago here.

This week I did this painting:

Sketching in graphite:

Adding, acrylic, pastels and a bit of structure-paste:

Adding more structure-paste:

…and dry pastel:

…and some glue:

More dry pastel:

This where I've ended up for now…:

I hope you annoyed your visit! I certainly enjoy sharing my art with people at:

Paint Party Friday

and

Paper Saturdays 

Have an awesome weekend you all! 

A few of the recent sketches

Hi everyone!
There is still too little time to really make art with all my body and soul, just a few sketches get done here and there.

Malissa Priebe, thank you for letting me draw your portrait!

Referencephoto by Shannon Haughton Gill

Referencephoto by Dawn Albert

Francisco de Goya

I'm really looking forward to having more time for art, really splattering paint on canvases and creating collages and paint and draw and do all that funny stuff!
Hope to be around more often soon!

Have a wonderful weekend
Ilona

collection of pieces I have worked on in the last two weeks and Pay it forward

The first two paintings are my contributions to two of the traveling journals I joined on Facebook.

I have made a page with information/links to all the participants' blogs.

The hen is going to be for Audrey. It is still a work in progress:

The second one is for Lauri, who asked for our ideas on "positive headspace".

This is, what I have come to until now with her journal:

Below you see the head of a cow. She is painted after a reference photo from a new group I joined on Facebook, where we post our own photos and give permission for other group members to use them for their art. That's a pretty cool idea and there are a lot of wonderful photos of animals, nature and also some people. 

This cat is also drawn after a reference photo from the Fb-group:

And finally "Snowwhite" in graphite (in my sketchbook):

And I will add a little game today. I joined Marji's "Pay it forward" challenge and offer my own work now for the first five people, who comment with "Yes I want in"

Here are the rules:

* Pay It Forward Art-making Project for 2014 *

I promise to make a small work of art for the first five people who comment on this post and say "YES, I want in". A 'like' alone is not enough of a commitment, nor is a comment about thinking Pay It Forward is a great idea.

You must in turn post this as your status update and make something for the first five who comment on your status.

The rules are simple:
– It has to be your work, made by you, and the recipient must receive it before 2014 ends.
– It can be anything art-based: a drawing/illustration or a conceptual work of art, a photograph, a knitted item, cross-stitch, paper maché – or anything in between.

I'm paying this forward thanks to Jack Oudyn.  Yes, you can be on each other's pay it forward lists.

First five, GO!

PS. It doesn't matter if you aren't an artist, try something out, google/ YouTube how to make stuff, step out of those boundaries.

 Step 1Copy&Paste this (see below) as your latest entry on your favourite social website (in my case, its this blog) 

 
Step 2For the first five people who comment on your blog entry saying they want to participate, you will do an art trade with them that must be completed by December 31st 2014. I would count as the first person so technically you only need another four. If you find your friends are keen you can do as many as you want. 


Step 3All forms of art count including creative writing , photography, digital anything goes!
 
If you have any more qustions, just email me and let me know

29 Faces in February 2014

I made them through the month and posted them in the Facebook group 29 Faces. And now I'll show them to all my blogger-friends and foes ;-)
No, seriously! I'm studying again and have a hard time keeping my mind at it. Making art is so much easier for me. And I would love to do nothing else, but hey, this education was started for a reason and it's only a few months before I've done it. I can get through these months without the regular party with you all! Somehow…!

I used graphite, water colour, charcoal and art bars for my portraits. I enjoyed doing these a lot as a welcome break from the studies.

So here they are:

Have a wonderful weekend everyone, miss the blog and you all and visiting your beautiful places and spaces!

Sharing with Paint Party Friday :-)

And here's the link to the one and only: Ayala Art Thank you for putting this up! It has connected me to wonderful artsy communities!