Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all my friends, talented painters and unique authors, my readers and commentators. I wish you happy life, inspiration, love, health, inner freedom, laugh and joy!

Portrait

A3, Oil pastel, craft paper
My contribution to Karin Jurick's "Different Strokes from Different Folks" challenge.
This time we have to paint the portrait of another participant of the challenge, Karin sends us the photo via email. We had three weeks to do the task, but I finished only today morning.

I easily agreed to participate, it was like playing the game. Only when I got the portrait of this pleasant person, I realised how serious the matter is. Real person, with his character, individuality, high painting skills. And me, with short painting experience, almost no experience in portrait painting at all.  But I did it. And I hope very much that the man in the portrait has strong sense of humour and HappyNewYear mood.
Well, if he does not recognise himself, then no point for me to panic?

On the plane

On my flight back to Moscow from Georgia I did these two pieces. There is no direct flight, so I have transit stop in Erevan, Armenia. So two pieces fitted well: the lady is Mrs. Tbilisi-Erevan, the copy of Gaudi's building is Mr. Erevan-Moscow. The colour to the building was added at home.


The drawing had many advantages: I was practicing, I studies values and I was excluded from the non-stop conversations of old couple neighbors. I never could talk for three hours without a break. Actually, 15 minutes is my best result.

Still life

A5
Well, it is difficult thing to write something clever (or just to write something) about your painting. And usually I keep the post as it is, shortest comment or no comment at all. I did the same today. Then went to my favorite part - googlereading of the posts of my lovely bloggers and found this comment at Tommy Kane blog, agreed completely, laughing.
Well, from now I will try to be a real blogger, writing - inventing text. So:
I was sitting and waiting for my brother to take me to see one of the greatest Georgian churches (and I will sketch it later), had nothing to do for an hour. Suddenly realized how I could spend this hour. First draw still life, then eat still life. The dark red stick is Georgian sweets, churchela, walnuts on thread covered with grape juice mixed with sugar and wheat.
I am not sure about correct blogging, looks like I get culinary blog here :-)
Merry Christmas to all my readers and to so many talented bloggers all over the internet.

Tbilisi

In the Yard

A5

I am enjoying December days in Tbilisi, with +12C and sun (comparing to Moscow heavy snow and -10C). This sketch was done in very small yard of "Prospero's books" English bookstore+cafe. Excellent coffee and books in English - the place where I would like to live forever.

I've recently realized that sketching stamped the memory of the place/mood/feeling of the place in my head forever. I am leafing through the pages of my sketchbook and even feel the smell of the place drawn.

Giraffe Contribution

Two friends decided to prove that they can collect  one million giraffes  images with the help of internet. My contribution to the idea of huge internet possibilities.

Rainy Day in Tbilisi

A5

The Frog

My lovely Monday ArtDays group task for this week is Frog. And this is my contribution.

Little Yard (Tbilisi)

This my first sketch in Tbilisi, Georgia. I'm visiting my relatives and foresee many interesting photos and sketches, as the place in very inspiring.

Prussian Blue

A4********The main color of this painting is Prussian Blue (Yarka), which I completely forgot to use, but suddenly recalled. I like how warm it turned out. ********* There is no good Russian watercolor paper, and I was trying to find some solution to get heavy weight paper which holds water OK. I always hope to find cheap things with great quality (strange, but this seach almost never works :-)). There was a lot of experiments, no good search results. This painting is done on the last sheet of my experiments, la-la-la!And I made very good NewYear present for myself - roll of Arches 300gr cold pressed. It is New Year, by the way! *********So now I have Russian 200gr paper for further study and Arches for meditation and inspiration and ... for painting, too (not so sure). Happy me.

Study Room

A4, Aluminium mug
It took 6 hours to draw this mug. (2 lessons, 3 hours each with 30 min. tea break) With the help of my teacher, who marked the details. It happened that I am not strong in the details, don't see them, same in life. I catch the task in full value, find the main ways to solve it and do not pay attention to small details. Funny how drawing/painting style points out the style of your character.

Morocco

A4
Next light/shadow experiment.

Does the Sun exist at all?

With all my 100% optimistic nature I want to forwarn that I will go mad, if I do not see the sun in the nearest days. It occured to be so hard challenge to live without seeing the sun...
What do you think: do I have to add yellow to the sunny side of the buildings to make contrast stronger?

Yellow!

A4
Another experience from my watercolor class.

In these grey time in Moscow (almost 7 weeks non-stop, 49 days!) the only possibility for me to catch some sun is to find  yellow and red in anything I see around.
Why two? The teacher saw several mistakes in first one (to tell the truth, I think it's genius!) and I decided to try another one (another genius work but with few more form and color deformations :-))

Everyday matters #4

EveryDayMatters #4 task - Draw your bed.
I had a thought: All that EDM tasks fulfiled and joined together (draw your house, draw your watch, draw your favorite jewelry) can be a good study material for the potential thief or maniac :-)))

Posemaniacs.com

Posemaniacs. com is the gem for the learning to draw as I am. They have all possible versions of poses for drawing and sketching, and it is for free. Long ago I added the link to their site to my blog, but only recently started following them attentively. The back of my cat is added only to make them four.

Cityscape

A4
Morocco cityscape. I can not believe the sun exists at all, after 6 weeks of no-sun in Moscow...
It was interesting for me to try cold/warm contrast.