Here comes new Misty Mawn Workshop

I cannot overemphasize how incredible Misty Mawn art workshops are, and how much they will do to your development as a beginner or established artist in a very short time span. The amount of tips and tricks I learned, the amount of great artists I became friends with, I even sold my small artworks online, which I never even though of before. You will never regret taking her workshop, that happens every year in January, and massive comunity of online artists literally live from January to January to participate in it. Not to mention that Misty Mawn herself has incredibly magical artworks, once few of them appear on Etsy (which happens rarely), they usually sold within 3 days, I hardly managed to catch one myself. The course starts tomorrow, 20th January 2014, but you can join any time later and catch up at your own pace, it's usually stays open for a year or longer. These are just a few of my artworks I created during Misty Mawn last year workshop, and I am so looking forward to the new one:

Index Card Challenge – Week 3 & 4

I had some lost camera battery issue for two weeks, now that it's resolved, I am posting 2 weeks ICADs - index card challenge happening now on Daisy Yellow blog:

Index Card Challenge - Week 2

I must say I am madly in love with collage, for many years. Sometimes to the point, that I refuse to paint, only cut and glue. I do however add pen, stitching and paint in the end, as it integrates collage better. But nothing makes me happier than a bunch of paper junk, scissors and a glue stick. Here are 6 more index cards, altered for the Daisy Yellow ICAD challenge 2013: List of Favourites & Paisley:

Camera & City

Rubber Stump & Junk Mail:

How I made "On My Way" painting

I just collected my painting from framing and thought of sharing my process of making it. You may be that lucky person who is able to paint straight out of imagination, but I am not one of those. I need reference images for every part of the way, or I am not usually succeeding in anything decent. Below are pictures I used, to arrive at my composition, colors and patters. Most of them I usually google, by typing words "pictures of wing", "pictures of patterns", "pictures of pathway". Here we go:

I used this reference for a model's face, hand a overall pose. I like it that it looked as if I could put something in her hand.

I thought of various options and liked this compas. It was added as collage and lightly overpainted.

I collaged this bird and heavily overpainted it. This image is from Graphics Fairy - free vintage images to use.

The wing was also collaged, made larger and overpainted. From Graphics Fairy.

This napkin from my collection was collaged at the bottom of her dress, and also overpainted.

I used this photo of G.Newton "Golden Path" for reference of my background. I collect many images of pathways for my art reference.

Dress pattern over the napkin.

Arch on top.

Flowers at the bottom.

Basically, I used to really get stuck with my paintings lacking interest, complexity and detail, until I started using references. If you experience the same problem, than it may be the way to go for you. In the end, you don't copy anyone's art, but make it your own.

Index Card Challenge - Week 1

I made 6 cards for the 1st week of ICAD Challenge, held by Daisy Yellow. It was lots of fun to follow prompts of this week: wallpaper, zebra, crown, candy-land, calligraphy, recycle or re-purpose, faux stitching. I had concern working on such cheap thin surface, but it actually worked out better than I expected, it does buckle a bit, but after putting it under weight - it straighten up again. It does lifts pressure off you when working on cheap paper, you just don't worry whether it will work or not - my main fear when I start an artwork on fancy surface. Initially I thought this challenge will just force me to practice art more, but it added additional benefit: I arrived at her compositions for larger paintings, and I didn't expect that. I highly recommend participating in the challenge - it does a lot for creativity. Calligraphy & Recycled Envelopes:

Faux Stitching & Wallpaper mixed with Zebra:

Candyland & Crown (I'd love to move these into larger artworks):