Back online

Ah dear readers (if there are any left)

As many promises I have broken in the past, I am back! ;)

New year, new motivations, new expectations. 

Throughout my vacations I have finally accepted my pathetic status as "unemployed" and have decided to make the best of it, instead of falling into a black pool of despair. 

So for this new year, I have subscribed myself to oil painting classes, I am thinking about learning German or Japanese and of course the continuation of the epic search for a job. Keeping this blog regularly updated is also something I want to continue, as well as my webshop project at Dawanda (already got a call to ask if I was planning on continuing..) So I am hereby inviting you to my (quite empty) shop :D SHOP LINK I have also found other nice websites like Society 6, but I first have to get my paypal account working again. 

Enough of the rambling!

I first want to share my holiday season cards :) Sadly I started as always a bit too late.. so I could only make 5 hahaha. But I want to use the stamps I bought for upcoming birthdays and Valentine cards as well.

The next two are sketches. The EDM challenge number 5: Draw your bed! I quickly sketched out of memory my room with my bed in it. The cat on the bed is a stuffed animal... yeah.

Next sketch is my final version of Tjido in cartoon style AND I LOVE IT! He looks awesome!

             

This last drawing was an idea of my good friend Star. She told me about a painting she had seen on TV  and I though I would recreate it, but apparently I didn't understand what she meant haha but ended with this: A 2 sided drawing!

Autumn has begun

The perks of having a dog include the trips to the forest!
I live quite close to the city's forest, but rarely went there...

Now I have been there 2 weekends in a row! And looking for mushrooms is the best haha.

So of course my autumn drawings are mushrooms. I have been fascinated with them since I found that children's book and did THESE in mixed media. But now some drawings:

To finish this post I am adding some sketches of my dog Tjido, which I am happy about because they are the first and in the end, dogs are hard to draw... I have cheated though :P I used pictures instead of sketching him live. That will be the next challenge! The shape of his muzzle is hard...

Continuation of Mixed Media

As promised I wanted to show you other thing I'm working on with Mixed Media: collage, painting etc.
Sadly I haven't been able to do more drawings, some pre-work stuff and of course our new pooch! :D

First things first!

This is the work in progress of the first painting:

I like the cherry blossom and the same style as previous post with the background lining, ending up in thick lines around the main subject. 

For my second painting, I wanted to use a "mask" as I had seen at a recent post by Caatje's blog. But of course it didn't really go as planned...

Tape basically ripped most paper off hahaha :P

But then I continued and this was the final result. With so much going on in Spain, Greece, Syria, Mexico.. allot of violence on the streets. I thought some lyrics of Calle 13 would be appropriate. 

Finally to end this post I welcome Tjido! "ch-ee-doh" our Icelandic Sheepdog puppy!
I might start a small blog about him, his breed is not very common, and it was quite hard to find information about him apart from the breeding standards and history. I will let you know :)

Thank you for stopping by!

Prints, again dogs and EDM challenge!

As promised, today I want to share with you my prints.
Back in high-school, when I still had the dream to become an artist (before my mom, rest in peace, basically told me to get a "real" degree in the brutal way that mom's can be...) one of my favorite disciplines was printing. We had a huge printer-roller and not only linoleum, but wood and plastic/glass. It was great! Actually, I found a picture of my prints that I send to England at the time for the A levels. (So yeah my mom did put everything I did up on the wall :P)

I never really thought I would do prints again. I had learned of course the classic way with oil based ink and the whole printing machine.. you can't really buy those hahaha. Now in Mexico I refound my tools and found out that its actually very easy to buy linoleum haha, and you can get water based inks! Yay!
The printing machine is still missing, but a good bottle or can has worked as roller.

For those who don't know how this works: (maybe i'll make a real tutorial next time)
- You make a drawing design, preferably on paper (very hard to draw on linoleum)
- Put the drawing face down onto the linoleum and scratch the pencil drawing.
- Start carving!

Here i'm showing you 2 styles, the tricky thing about prints is not only appearing like a mirror image, but you have to think hard as what will be "black" and what will be "white". How do you want to make volume or distance? Thickens of lines and separation are key.

And finally a continuation of the dog comics! We are really excited about it, reading, researching etc about different subjects in having a dog. We have decided on the breed and already have asked for information at their offical association, and we are now on the "list" :) but well, I know we will have allot of comments of people around us thinking we are nuts.

Finally, as you know i was having a bad case of drawings-block. But I must say I found inspiration in the EDM challenges and decided to draw one that I had "added" previously in my sketchbook :) so yeah good idea!

A slow comeback

Agian... late...

I hope you haven't given up on me!

So actually I have been a bit slow since we've been back from vacations. Not much inspiration. I guess also a bit busy with a friend visiting and working on a paper we want to get published from my time in Spain. Kind of cool  as well :)

In the cool news, I have accepted a job offer and will be working when I go back to the Netherlands, and its a nice part time job with the same EU project of Spain! :D My boyfriend and I have also decided to get a dog.. yeah i know! Crazy! I know its a big responsability, but I'm really looking forward to it and reading allot. I think it will be good to have a companion and a good reason to go out! Training the dog sounds also like a good challenge of discipline. Plus, Holland is a perfect place to have a dog! With parks, bicycle lanes, beach close by, etc!

This is why this is the first sketch:

It has been hard work to find the right dog for us. But I think it is good to know what you are looking for and study the different races you had in mind. Allot of people get pets without knowing what they are going for (myself being one of those people with Bob the chameleon). Also nowadays you have so much information and people that are patient enough to maintain a blog with their experiences :) really nice! We have contacted different kennels after deciding on 3 races, and now its down to 2! I will keep you posted!

I also wanted to show you the final product of the snorkeling blog :) (i have to apologize for the quality of the pictures). The moleskine paper is interesting with aquarel, quite a thick paper very different to aquarel paper, i guess its very soft. I hope now I'm back on routine I can get more inspiration from other bloggers! Get a project again! 

Ah yes, and the baby card is a success! It is now being printed for a try-out, and well baby will be born soon so we will receive a picture if this happens before we get back :) And of course you'll get to see it!

Oh and next post I will show you the results from the printing session today!