second 2d Needle felting portrait finished

 Finally this portrait is finished. It is only my second one. It was a bit of a struggle but I learned a lot.

second 2d needlefelting portrait.

 Just startet on my second portrait. Just tiny pieces if wool and a special needle to attach the wool on a piece of 100 % woolfelt.

Still a lot of work to do. The eyes must sparkle and then ..... the fur. A real challenge.

New hobby: reborning babydolls

 Just started a new hobby: reborning babydolls.

It is also painting but instead on canvas or paper you paint on vinyl. You buy the vinyl limbs and head en paint on the surface so you will achieve a real looking skin.

Just like with fine artpainting you bring on many, many transparant layers of a special acrylpaint. What I like about this new adventure is that I have to learn a lot of new techniques. I only work with 3 primary colors: red, blue and yellow. For the creases I add some umber to the paint mix and i use some white for the nails. That's it.

I use Ultimate Fusion paint.

Indeed a challenge. Furthermore with the finest mohair en micro feltingneedles I am going to insert hair by hair to give the head a real babylook. This doll has such a beautiful skul that I leave hem bold. But the second one will get hair.

I also love to knit, crochet and sew babyclothes. So this new hobby is so divers.

This doll is the first one I made.

OILPAINTING old woman portrait black and white

A while ago I finished this portrait of an old woman. I found the photo on the internet.
The woman is suffering from Alzheimer and I was struck by her eyes.
You can see her confusion, not understanding.
I try to catch her expression with painting her in black and white. Her world is I think without colour, without details.
I hope you feel the same as I do.
This portrait is 20x15cm and painted on an MDF panel.
It took many many hours and I love to paint all those creases and folds of het skin.
A real challenge and I learned a lot.

hydreanga finished, very colorfull

In finished the little painting of a hydreanga flower. 15x20cm
What a joy to paint all those tiny flowers.
Very difficult to take photographs. The layers of colors are so subtle and the underground is shining through.

I learned so much from painting this subject.
To see and paint all the different shapes and the many many tones.

second layer on the lemon painting

This lemon is big, a lot more than lifesize and therefor it is sooo hard to paint the large parts. The little indentions are very difficult to achieve. I started with painting on to the flat surface and give it some structure. It gives me a base to go further. But like the other paintings I am working on, I wait till the my next lesson and ask my tutor how to do the next layer.
So at the first photo you can see the first layer and at the second photo I made the flesh of the lemon a bit lighter and I covered the smooth surface of the lemon with some structure. Still ...... a lot of working to do for sure before I can add some transparant layers of color to it.

second layer grapes

 This is the first layer of this small excercise. My tutor recommended me to start with grapes. I did not erased the drawing enough so I have soo much difficulties to get rid of these lines. So lesson learned:-)  As you can see at the second photo I added more white and soften the whole painting. It is a great excercise for sure.

This is the second layer of paint. I have to wait till the next lesson to ask my tutor how to progress.

first stage underlayer finished

Last night I finished the first layer of the underlayer. Now I will let it dry. I did try to make the form of the citron round and I will add details to the body of the citron in the next layer. This is the first time I work this way. I have to wait 2,5 weeks till my next lesson.

watercolour painting of a courgette

Last night (very late) I finished a painting of a courgette. What a great fun that was.
First to paint with liquid masking film all these tiny spots to cover them up. That took some time.

watercolour portrait of a Clematis

I just finished a portrait of a Clematis plant. Right now it is blooming in my garden. I have several different plants with very big flowers, so not the tiny ones. It was not easy to get the right color, and at the photo the color is more bluish. In real the painting is more purple.

selfmade greyscale finder

Today I have made a greyscale finder.

A while ago I already painted a greyscale with acrylicpaint but I wanted to make one that would be more suitable for me to work with. So I used the greyscale I already had painted and put 3 rows of them on a clear sheet of thick plastic.
Because of the transparancy of the sheet I can find the right value far better.
I put a colored piece of paper underneath it so you can see the transparancy of the greyscale finder better.

Not only I can use the gaps or holes in the grey pieces of paper but I can also look at the spaces between the greys and be able to compare them very quick.

I used doubleside tape to attached the pieces of paper to the plastic sheet and put clear tape over them to protect the paper.
I wanted to have 5 or 6 greys to use for the earlier stages of drawing and painting.
The row in the middle has a small hole in them and the other row is at one side and has larger holes.
And for the final stages of my painting I like to see more tones so I added a third row of 10 values at the other end of the plastic piece.

I know, these greyscales are not expensive, but here in Holland I could not find them and I love to make my own things. While making the pieces of grey and the grey scale I had a lot of fun and of course I learned something from it, like always