long time

Well, I havent been very disciplined to write once a week, but a tremendous change happened in my life with which I was totally preoccupied. I have left my home country, Belgium and moved to my husbands home country, Turkey. It is a big change, but one which was already in my head, when I first met my husband 11 years ago and now finally we are here. I have started a blog (only in Dutch) for my family and friends in which I explain a little what is going on here.

Now for my artistic ambitions... we have rented a place here, which I will be using as gallery and atelier. I will be a fulltime artist...scary but really exciting. Since I have moved, my website is gone offline, since the provider isnt available here in Turkey. I was planning to make a new one anyway, and I hope to do this within a couple of months. I am going to work together with a fellow artist who does mainly landscapes with oils and palletknives and I hope to make him a site as well.

Well... so far the big changes in my life. Now, the portrait of the boy which I was working on didnt get finished. I really feel a little bad about myself, since I promised him. Definitely I am going to finish it, but right now more important issues are going on. My first commission portrait did got finished (way back in May or such - money I earned from it is also finished ...lol ) and here is the result.

Again a baby portrait. For my next portrait I definitely want some hair to paint. I like to do hair, but I am not yet completely an expert to it. If you happen to have a nice picture and have great hair and are a woman (I prefer women or girls to make portraits) please mail it to me. I need something to do for fun, no promises though.

Well... I have done other artisitc things also but apparently dont have any pictures of it on my pc. Probably for later.

Three finished

Well, I have gotten an enormous amount of energy last week (must be due to the sunny weather) and I finished my last three projects. I am especially happy with the baby portrait of Daen which I made for Marion. I consider it my best piece uptill now. I feel with each portrait I am doing I am getting better. So this is the time to order a comission portrait, especially with all these positive vibes I am getting now (definitely the weather:) I got a comission request from a guy who came to repair my kitchen and saw the portrait of Daen with which I was busy on that time. He thought it was a good idea for mothersday :) I am so thrilled. I will post updates when I start it (I still need to get a picture though)

Well, here are the three children which I made in sepia effect. The likeness is definitely there. It is size 17x17cm.

















Then the bird... I am not totaly satisfied with it. I feel though it is the best I can do for now. I think I need alot more experience in our feathery friends before comitting myself to these kinds of projects. Sabrina (the woman for who I made this one) on the other hand liked it very much, so if I can make somebody happy, I should be happy with it also I guess :) The size is 10x18cm












Then the last one, like I said my best piece uptill now is baby Daen. Could be also due to the fact that I am getting alot of requests for baby portraits lately, so I am really getting the hang of it. The size of the portrait is 18x18cm



I also started a new portrait of a boy, but it is still in a preliminary state (not good enough to post an update) I actually promised him a little while ago to make one for him. Its just because he looked like a difficult subject (no offense) that I have been waiting for so long. I will post an update or I might post when it is really finished.

More promises

I am busy making three portraits in the same time. Maybe this doesnt sound like a good idea, but I have noticed if I continue on one piece only I get bored and at the end I tend to hurry too much because of this. Now if I am bored I can continue on another one. I hope to finish all of them by the end of next week.
The first one I started in the beginning of the easter holiday. It is done in three colors only, with the intention to have kinda sepia-effect. It looks already kinda finished, but I have a few more details to add.













The second one is a portrait of a bird. I started this one on monday. I feel I have a little overestimated myself to accept such a subject, since I dont have any experience at all in birds. Well, here is my humble try. I still have to add a more feathery look to the main body (I am still figuring out how I can make this realisticly looking)














The third one, again a baby, but this time a boy. This one I started on thuesday. Its going pretty fast and I am really happy with the result already. It needs some more layers and more detail in the shirt. The colors on the picture I took of the portrait are a little off, but when its finished I will post a better one.













So, next week hopefully I will get heaps of discipline and finish all of them. In between I have some jobinterviews also, since being unemployed has too many negative financial consequences and I also miss the social interaction.

Little Kiana (3)

I finished the portrait of Kiana, just like I planned by the end of the week. In case you didnt know, if you click on the picture, you can see a much bigger version with more detail and it actually looks alot better than the small one.

Now I am off to another portrait, since I made many promises to people for making their portraits (maybe I shouldnt do that - then again if I promise something I at least finish what I started :))

Little Kiana (2)

Though yesterday I had alot of other things to do, I couldnt resist to continue a little on the portrait of Kiana. I think I actually spend four more hours. Ohh, how I love to draw. Too stupid all these administration tasks in life eat my precious time. Time which I cannot spend on my passion. So, here's the update so far.

Little Kiana

I promised Stephanie to make a portrait of her little babygirl .I really love to draw children. Babies are something different, because they are so fragile and to put that fragility on paper is something hard to do. But I will give it a try and do my utmost.

I will show you how I started. Again it’s not yet finished, but I just want to show how I work and maybe fellow artists who pass by will critique or might learn (though I prefer the latter, the first would be more usefull for me personaly). I will definitely finish this portrait, since I promised it and to me promises are sacred. I intend to finish it by the end of the week and hopefully I will succeed in it.

First you have the reference picture of little Kiana. I just loved the eyes and the way they smiled to me in the picture.

And this is how far I am for the moment (after 4 hours of dedicated work – I know I know I am slow) Weekends are always so difficult to draw when a young toddler constantly wants to play with you and your husband is also craving for attention. Anyway I think starting the day after tomorrow I will definitely get in full speed to finish the portrait. Tomorrow some boring tasks are waiting for me to be finished so I cant continue then :(

One finished, Three to go...

Well, I finished the one on which I didnt have so much more work. Mainly I just added the background on this one and putted more detail into the cabin of the boat. I thought the reflections in the water were gonna be really hard, but I tried some white wax crayon to give it a watery look and I find it worked out well. Now that I see it on my computer, maybe the grass on the right side needs to be darkened a little.... nah I am gonna leave it like this before I mess it up. I will try to finish the belly dancer for tomorow... or I might start something new :)