"Portrait of a Bear"

Today I'm showing you a portrait of a bear. You know that I love painting animals. This one is one of my favourites, because it allowed me to experiment with using the texture of the board to make the fur more interesting. I hope you like it too :) 

"Portrait of a Bear", 17x23cm, oil on board

See you all next week!

"The King"

The king wiped his forehead with a silk handkerchief as he looked down at the busy streets below his royal balcony. It's been four years since the coronation and not a minute of that time seemed to be wasted. Taxes, decrees and ambassadors filled every single day from dusk till dawn. He was respected for his majesty and for his highness and yet each time he looked in a mirror he would see a face that did not share that respect. When was the last time he took time to smell a flower or to lie on a grass and watch the clouds? Doing such simple things can be very difficult for a king. He looked beyond the city walls at the trees he had used to climb as a boy. Those days had been filled with laughter, dreams and endless promises of never growing up. Aging comes slowly and has an army of earthly cares to fight its way to a human heart. Is it possible to... The king stood for a while watching the trees moving in the wind. Their branches seemed to wave at him gently. "Wait for me", he said at last, "I'm coming".

"The King", 30x40cm, acrylic on canvas

I hope you like my painting and the short story I wrote about it. 

See you next week!

"On a Shore After a Storm"

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where there seemed to be absolutely no way out and you had to choose between options which could make things better as well as make them even worse than they were? I hope you haven't, but that's exactly what happened to me last week and it was really, really serious. Today I can say with a huge relief that everything turned out well in the end and I made the right decision.

Because it was stretched in time, I decided to make this painting to find some comfort and clear my mind for a better decision-making. It is called On a Shore After a Storm and it expresses my longing for a happy ending which at first seemed to be as distant to my troubled mind as a lighthouse to a lost ship. It gave me strenght and I think I will always keep this painting to remind me that there is always hope. Just in case :)

"On a Shore After a Storm", 18x23cm, oil on board

2 Sketches of a Nude

I've been reorganizing my art supplies and sketchbooks lately and I came across these two sketches. I completly forgot that I had them. I don't do many ballpoint pen drawings now, so seeing these made me miss this technique. Take a look at the incredible simplicity the ballpoint pen gives to a sketch. Isn't it amazing? 

But what I like most about it is that although you're making very hard contrastive lines, the drawing may be delicate and subtle with a lot of air in it. Sketching people with ballpoint pen is especially difficult but the expression it gives is well worth the effort. Wouldn't you agree?

Enjoy my sketches while I'm going back to my new experiments with this technique :)

20,5x13,5cm, ballpoint pen on paper

20,5x13,5cm, ballpoint pen on paper

See you next week!

"Lion"

It's always so much fun to study animals. Some are cute, other mysterious or majestic and they are all beautiful in their variety. We probably already know all the existing species but for me drawing them is always like a rediscovery. You start drawing an animal which you think you know very well and after a while you notice that there is so much more to observe and that the possibilities are endless ...

"Lion", 15x20cm, charcoal on paper

Have a wonderful week! See you soon :)

P.S. Because it's going to be my 4 months anniversary on the 4th of September this week, I want to thank you all for your support and all the thoughts you share here. I hope you find some inspiration in what I do. 

And thank you for everything you do on your blogs as well :) Keep up the good work!