Dacha Life

20x25cm Neocolor sticks; 30x40cm Oil pastel on tempera background

Sketchbook pages.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!

Watercolor and Oil Pastel on Arches, 30 x 40cm

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate!

Cry for "Visit Norway" Poster

That was very interesting experience. Trying to repeat colors, strokes and movement of the famous painting, I have suddenly got into some special mood. Was it the shadow of Mr. Munch or the shadow of this crying guy himself, I do not know, but I have felt like I was the part of this performance. 

Night Sea and Lamppost

Drawing of night scene is a new challenge for me. I draw it with oil pastel sticks and help from my memories of night sea views in Montenegro.
The darks in the original drawing are much more colorful than the camera version of this work.

Flowers

Watercolor with oil pastel accents.

I turned off TV, I do not read news in internet, I try to turn off radio news in the car. I can not stand more evidenciary of the disaster my country is speeding into.
I am so deeply sorry for 295 innocent people  of  MH17.

Flowers

Flowers in our little country garden inspired this sketch. Watercolor, ink pen, oil pastel.

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 8.

Task #8 - I have to use gesso as background, add watercolor, zentangles.
As usual I do it my way. As usual, I use all the materials on my table, this time ink and calligraphy  pen (new experience!) is added.
A friend of my commented (she is also in this project): "At last! we buy materials because of empty stock and not because we like shopping". 

21 Days of Creativity. Day #7.

Day 7 task is to use more layers and more stamps.
A bit obsessed with orange and reds in general as I look back at 7 days of creativity.

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.

The Cat

A3, Oil pastel on tinted dark grey paper.


Posted by Irina.
www.irinapictures.blogspot.com

Zinnia and Cabbage

Now I catch inspiration at my parent's summer house, in the middle of the woods.
I drew veins of the leaves with yellow oil pastel stick.

Fish on Red

This painting is inspired by A Nos Pinceaux blog, one of my favorite blogs of art challenges. Evhe posted the photo of fish in the basket at French market in summer 2012, but only this February I could get to the image, stuck deep in my head for all this time.

Today I test web-service IFTTT. It is very simple, in comparison with its complex name. Now, when post is ready and I push  "Publish" in my favorite Blogger, the post will be automatically duplicated in Tumblr, Flickr and Facebook. Of course you can duplicate manually (if you are interested to do it at all). But I always considered and proved with my actions that laziness is the main engine of progress.
I look forward to see how if it works.

And now my short notes about latest reading discoveries.
"I Remember Nothing" by Norah Ephron seemed full of banal and obvious statements when I started the book. But when I finished everything was different. Book is so wise and simple in a way when "simple" means experience and depth of  talented, clever, funny and wise 69 years old woman, dying of cancer and knowing it.

Another book is "Art and Fear" by David Bayles and Ted Orland.  It is about fears and doubts living in a head of the creator, about rivalry and originality. The book helped to realize that my reflections about artwork are on one wave with many artists - painters, writers, musicians, and that fear and doubt are serious enemies, but they can be overcome.

Cold February

Portraits painting is such a challenge. Oil pastel on craft paper.
And also the poppies bookmark and boat sketch from January.

5cm x 17cm, two sides, watercolor and watercolor pencils

I miss your blogs, but I will be back some day!

Vase on Blue Cloth

30x40cm, oil pastel on light-grey paper

My contribution to the "Paint and Draw Together" challenge.
It is oil pastel. The medium which gives me most comfort and confidence.
The photo is so rich, I fell in love with it and was sure that oil pastels would be glad to help to do the challenge.

Big Size Paper

It started when I bought big size wooden painting surface. I decided that time has come and I was ready for big art. 75x55cm (29.5"x21.6") is no funny size, believe me.
Only when I soaked and stretched paper, I realized how really big this frame was. And that I had no clear idea about the "masterpiece" content. So it took almost 2 months to find the subject, to draw it and to finish it with oil pastels. And to realize how difficult and responsible the artist's activity is. And how much work and practice lays ahead.
These girls are the angels on my kitchen shelf. They watch and protect me (yes, I believe). The friend of mine, when saw this painting was surprised: "oh, you started children's pictures?" The artist is so often misunderstood.. It was serious work, somehow turned into lot of fun and joy..

Train

30cm x 40cm, oil pastel on craft paper

Inspired by the photo of some South American town where the tram track was put at very narrow street. So the inhabitants of the houses could sell fruits and vegetables directly to the passengers of slowly moving tram. And the products were places on the ground near the track. Amazing world.
It was fun to draw in oil pastels, crazy colors. Oh, the train is smiling...

Faces

New portrait. I love doing faces. Here I was experimenting with colors, using reds as dark tones. Then realizing that reds make the face expression ill and neurotic. Good that it was oil pastels, I can correct damage. Partly.
Good that the guy will never recognize himself)) Three hours work, felt so tired when finished.

I realized that I often forget to press "Follow" button, when meet new interesting blogs. The reason is simple. I subscribe in Google Reader and enjoy the pleasure of reading, but completely forget how important it is, specially in the beginning, to see your followers, to see how the number grows in time, proving that your blog moves in the right direction. Sorry about that, I will be more attentive.

Faces

Karin Jurick and her "100 Faces BUST-ED" project are huge inspiration source for me. Her work gave me the courage to draw and paint my first faces at the times of "Different Strokes". And she inspires me two years later.
I was cherishing an idea of portraits for several months, started today and would report about the results here.

My uncle's huge photo-journalist archive provides a lot of faces material. And there is no fear that the models will recognize themselves, at least for the nearest projects)).
 
I did this piece on craft paper with oil pastels in 3 hours from photo reference. Tell me what you think about it.

Did not draw anything in 2 weeks (business got all the time) and it felt so wrong. Please do not think that I forgot your talented blogs, I will be back soon. I promise.

Swadhisthana

A3, Oil pastel

I was trying to be free and relaxed here, had the idea to draw the Swadhisthana chakra (wiki writes about it here) in some abstract manner, which turned into this flower.
I used oil pastels, then brush with solvent (it thinned the pastels and mixed the colors, then oil pastel again when the solvent dried). Breathed a lot of chemical, felt funny...


Now few London photos, they help to keep the fragile memories alive.
That day I went to Oxford by train.

Christ Church Meadow.

The town of young inhabitants, everyone rolling a suitcase. It was my first impression. Only young people. Leaving the town rolling the suitcase behind (it was Saturday morning, they were going home for week-end)).

River Cherwell

Trees, older then old.
After oxigen-free Moscow I could not stop doing deep breaths there, trying to breath fresh air as a reserve.

You can not be loser-student when you live in such decorations. You just can not.