Abstracts, books and faces

I had friends at home all week last week and couldn't post. Here's some stuff I did the week before that.

I spent a lot of time adding layers on this one. I may be the only one, but I like it! 

In my head it's called Veins (probably inspired by Julia Cameron's Vein of Gold!)
Books, of course! On the left, awesome story from awesome Sarde author Milena Agus. She's unique, with a very original mind, and I love her books.

On the right is a best seller by James Redfield. A friend advised me to read it, but I didn't like it much. I thought it was a bit "easy". Some things were interesting, but not really new to me.

Faces, because I try to practise regularly. Each time I forget for too long, like more than a few days, I regress.
A lot. I like this practise because portraits are completely unforgiving : you've got to be accurate, so it's a great exercise.

And finally these are small squares I experimented on for hours (days!) before I was a little satisfied (less dissatisfied...). Well, I learned a lot even if the result isn't very interesting. The process was great!

Hope everyone is all right, especially those of us who live in the US East coast.
See you soon for new adventures!

A seahorse, 2 books, a flashlight, a singer and a wolf

  Another acrylic. I saw the little seahorse on a photo and wanted to draw it right away. The rest is color play, mostly! I really like this media, it's a lot more forgiving than watercolors - even messes turn right, sometimes, and anyway you can always paint over them if you want.

And books, at last. I've not stopped reading at all, but I'm a lot behind with drawing the books I read. Actually I don't draw everything I read. It would take too much time.
On the left is an awesome manga by Khoji Kumeta that's very funny with a lot of original and surprising ideas. I just love how this author thinks, it's delightful.

And on the right is another great story by Jim Harrison, in English it's called "The English Major". It was funnier than his other books, I thought.

I wanted to do another challenge, so here is my flashlight. It's not a very good drawing, and I had a problem with the shadow as the bottom of the page drank all the paint and wouldn't let me paint the shadow correctly.

And now, for something completely different...
I did this a while ago, wanted to finish it and never went back to it. The girl and wolf are inspired from photos found on the net, and I colored with Paint.net. I'm not very happy with the coloring. I could change it easily, but it takes a lot of time and patience (I have the time, not the patience).

I still have a few days of completely lonely and free time, so I'll be using it to the last minute, hopefully creating as much as I can!
I don't want my vacation to end, but I'll be so happy when the loud cohorts of tourists will finally head back home, it'll help swallow the pill!

Playing with acrylics, bathroom stuff, my weird face, Aix en Provence

Continuing my experiments and playing with acrylics. It's really fun, and freeing.

I like how this one turned!
This other one, with the horses, I'm not so sure about it. Maybe I'll go back to it later, I don't know.

I missed doing real drawings in the spirit of Every Day Matters, so I sorted out all my drawings on Flickr and made an EDM album, and then I went back to the challenge list to tackle some more challenges!

So I spent some quality time in my bathroom!

And then I drew my face, just because.

I had my ears redone twice but the right one still doesn't want to play nice. I kept my hair long for a long time because of it.

Last week I was near Aix en Provence with my daughter, to spend some times with my best friend and her family. We had a great time. I can't resist showing you one photo, Aix is such a beautiful and pleasant city!

Manon and my best friend, in Aix.

Oh, this was a big post! Hope everyone is enjoying this summer as I am!

Bananas (sort of), egg head, faces, and a treasure map

I've been very busy these last few days. My daughter is with her grand parents in Bretagne, learning to sail and enjoying the rain... And I've been playing with acrylic paints, totally new for me, and totally fun!

Some kind of strange bananas appeared.
Then things fused out of this egg head.

Meanwhile, I kept my routine of drawing faces, just not to "lose my hand" (that's a loose and unverified translation of a french expression - too tired too check it up, hope you'll get it : ) !)

And then I felt like drawing a map of what I want in my life, in the spirit of Shakti Gawain's Treasure Maps, and I made this :

Some things I already have, some I hope I'll have someday.

I also found a buyer for my flat (almost signed, crossing my fingers), worked on my thesis, and done almost everything on my to-do list.
I have a lot of other things in various stages of advancement, and not enough time to post, so who knows when I'll post next!
Morality : vacation is good!

Shells and books

I was very intimidated by shells, but finally I realize they're not that terrible. I really like the blue I made for the background, it's just like the sea. My daughter said it's confusing because the shells aren't supposed to be floating on the surface like they seem to do in my drawing. She's right, but I don't care! I'm happy anyway.

My last two reads. On the left, a sad book, bittersweet, it said on the cover. Mostly bitter, I think, but I still liked it, I like Alice Hoffman and the way she tells her stories. On the right, a beautiful story of redemption. Very deep and touching, it made me cry at the end, but in a good way!

I'm about finished with uncluttering and sorting everything in my flat and basement. And I mean, everything. So now I'm left with other things to do that seem a lot more difficult to me. I wish I had a second basement, or a forgotten room so I could procrastinate some more...

Flowers, a bird, and flowers again

Pages I did drawing from photos I found here and there, and adding quotes I like. I like how this one turned, I almost felt like I was controlling the way the paint went, for once. Nice feeling : ) !

This one, I'm disapointed with it, it looked a lot better when still just in black and white. Only thing I like is the branch, and I really learned something while doing it, so I'm glad anyway.

And this one I really like. I added the thick lines after the paint, I usually don't use that thick pen but I like the result.

And I love that quote, even though I'm not sure I understand it correctly. I helps me in my daily life, anyway, gives me some kind of guidance to where I need to go, what I need to do.

Quotes, doodles, faces

Quotes and little drawing experiments, again. I still don't know what I really want to do, but I've begun cleaning  and sorting everything in my little flat, and apparently this was what I really needed to do.

Quote says : Love is friendship set on fire. I wish.

Quote by Rumi : Let silence take you to the core of life.

So important, so hard to accept, silence and stillness...

Quote from Francesco Clemente : Every day you have to make sure the door is open.
I love that one. It's so easy to forget.

Faces from magazines. Sometimes it just doesn't flow, the lines are awkward, I feel stiff and the face is just wrong. And sometimes I get it and I still really don't control the process at all... Practice, practice...