M.D.N.A

The smart name for this post I stole from Madonna's (singer) page I like on Facebook. I am sure she does not care.
The girl is inspired by David Hockney's collage. I used news paper, magazines' pages, Brullov's and Rerikh's reproductions (that explain the richness of her coat, such coat I would like for myself too).
The eyes on the left are the alternative eyes I wanted for my girl. Unfortunately, they were refused and left on the windowsill.

"Visit Norway" Poster

This is the final view of the poster, which fate will be decided tomorrow.
I used  the photos of my drawings and arranged them in Photoshop, adding text in different fonts, adding Norwegian ornament for the background.
Nice experience. My first illustration and design experience.
12 things to do in Norway this summer:
1. Ohhhh, nature!
2. To see the wooden church.
3. To buy troll and to see the Norwegian cat.
4. To go fishing and to eat fish.
5. To get scared with Munch.
6. To feel Hardangervidda.
7. To fall in love with Bergen.
8. To drink beer in Oslo
9. To experience a ferry.
10. To learn about vikings.
11. To get surprised by Vigeland.
12. To love Norway with the deep of your heart and forever.

Sketches for "Visit Norway" Poster

Trolls, cats, ferries and green roofs. This and that of my Norwegian impressions.

Hardangervidda for "Visit Norway" Poster

The place is the plateau and national park in the middle of the route between Oslo and Bergen. I love it. Here my childhood wish to be a bird was reborn and my soul was singing.

Vigeland for "Visit Norway" Poster

Strange sculpture from the forest of strange sculptures of  Gustav Vigeland in Vigeland Park. Very productive master.

Black Background

This collage is inspired by the photo. I used a lot of materials here: collage, watercolor, black ink for the background, Neocolor sticks for the details.

Collage Study

I was watching the workshop video and doing the tasks from this video at the same time (link to the workshop in Russian is in the previous post of mine).

Say Hi to Your Deepest Fear

55cm x 55cm, Mixed Media on Wallpaper

Few days ago there was a situation when one of my deepest fears held my spine so tight.
I did not like it.
So I decided to draw this fear and when the paper was dry, I destroyed the drawing with all possible passion. Maybe the action sounds crazy, but I felt so good, relaxed and free at the end of the execution!

Collage

85cm x 60cm, Gouache, Paper, Fabrics

This gouache painting includes collage technique: pieces of news paper (toned with gouache), magazine pages (pictures on wall, wood texture on planks), cotton fabric and hemp rope (on top of clay jug).
The work was executed in my new drawing class in two sessions.

Almost Done

I was interested to draw aluminum box's texture and the state of almost spent package.
And I can thank "21 days of creativity" for the idea to add old newspaper as a background.

Girls, I can recommend this cream for your hands, L'Ocittane de Provence hand cream, very good list of ingredients in huge box.

21 Days of Creativity. Day #13.

Task was "Patterns". Find/copy/draw pattern and cover the whole page with it.

I have no idea what is going on here.
I only know that it was impossible and boring for me to methodically draw one and the same pattern.

It should be idea behind any work of art.

21 Days of Creativity. Day #12.

Black and white. Fonts, B&W scans of colored images, scratching on black background, B&W copies of books' pages, whatever.

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to do B&W tree.  Yet again color interfered quite unexpectedly.
47x53cm. Wall paper, B&W acrylic, B&W markers, newspaper, oil pastel.

21 Days of Creativity. Day 11.

Task is to use many layers of colored tissue (cigarette) paper. As I do not have any, I coloured cheap napkins and glued them to ink flowers on grey background. Actually, I had no idea before that tissue paper existed in artbooking activity..

21 Days of Creativity. Day #10.

This day task is "Take any rubbish and do something artful with it".
That was real fun!
I found old IKEA catalogue and thought about another collage. But unexpectedly all this stuff turned into cozy 3-dimentional  flat with lively inhabitants.
House prone to compromise. 30x35xH13cm.
Made of wall paper roll, Ikea pages, glue and pencils.

21 Days of Creativity. Day #9.

Today's task is to learn to include texts into the pages, typography (that was hard!) and frankness (even harder..).
Burning orange is my color favorite again. Watercolor pencils for background, markers for text.

If you are interested:
5 things I want to do every day:
Breath fresh air, Read, Create, Do yoga, Love
5 things that inspire me:
Creative people, Nature, Music, Faith, My fantasy
5 countries I want to visit:
Britain, Ireland, Norway, Civilized Russia, New Zealand, USA, Australia 
5 things I love:
Be on the road, Woods, My art materials, Music, World of web. 
I felt as I was 15 years old again, when filling this page in. Great experience.

21 Days of Creativity. Day #6.

This scrapbook's style starts getting on my nerves.. I miss straight idea and order of my boring usual sketches!
But. It gives me freedom to use any possible color, to switch on fantasy and teaches me to be sincere with my blog and honest with my readers.
So 6 days are behind and 15 days to go.
Here I took oil pastels (forgotten in the fridge till today) and used them for the accents.
Wall paper roll again, acrylic paint, coloured paper collage, paper dots from punch, palette knife, plastic card, glue.

21 Days of Creativity. Day #1

I take part in Russian web project "21 Days of Creativity". This is day 1: "To art-journal your day". Funny, but my day was crazy, exactly like that pages you see here.

I am starting this experiment, because one day I realized that I lost my freedom and "process more important than result" rule in drawing/painting activity. Suddenly the positive reaction of people around me became more important than the joy of art making. And I do not like it that much.
So during these 3 weeks I will try to get back my fun.

One more sketches' page is here. There is no mentor at the event. We all gather and sketch figure without instructions, tasks or comments. Interesting experience, it makes me braver.

Collage Flowers

Keri Smith's idea # 85. Cut a random shape out of several layers of a magazine. Make a collage out of the results.
Keri Smith's blog is very useful resource for the ones like me at a moment, no creative ideas at all.

Birds

38cm x 58cm (15"x23") watercolor on Arches 300gr.

This watercolor birds collage was completing during several weeks, when I was (and still is) busy with my office work and had no time for painting big.

I want to thank Abe Lincoln and his birds' blog for the inspiration.

I posted "under cut" the details of each bird, so if you are interested, please go further and press "Read more".

Self-portrait

A3
I read the J.Cameron's book "Artist's Way". It teaches how to activate creativity and enjoy life. The tasks are divided by weeks and this week  task was to make a collage. I had to cut pictures from several old magazines, the pictures which caught my eye and to make my self-portrait. It was a surprise pleasure and fun. For the outsider view it is total mess, I think. But for me each image is full of sense and feeling. And it was a three hours beeing a child with a game experience. I will repeat it for sure.
Я сейчас читаю Джулию Камерон (ссылка выше). Книга "Путь художника". Главы = недели, и на каждую неделю ты получаешь задания. Задание прошедшей недели - сделать коллаж-автопортрет. Это такой класс, оказывается! Я часа три за делом провела (вырезала картинки из старых журналов, те, к которым лип взгляд, лепила их как хотелось, закрашивала пустоты цветными карандашами). Чувствуешь себя в процессе и в результате, как дитя малое, занятое игрой. Ощущение - незабываемое.  И главное, это для Вас здесь хаос и бедлам, а для меня картина наполнена глубоким смыслом, символами и чувствами... :-). И таки да, это - я. Попробуйте сами, не пожалеете!