An old one

Too much work,no time for fun.Dont't have anything new.So,there is an old one from 2003.Ink and watercolor pencils.It represents a small village-museum in Bulgaria named Etura.Picturesque and inspiring.Old houses,old time craft shops,old fashion pubs,museums and all that amongst the beautiful nature of the Balkan mountain range.

Inspired

I decided to give a try to the Uppercase magazine and I loved it.I chose to order an older issue or #3 one.I savoured each article with a lot of pleasure.There is so much inspiration in every single one!
But the one that got my creative juices running the fastest was the article about Guylaine Couture,
a graphic designer from Montreal,
and her collages.I liked the freedom and creativity she approached this form of art.And I wanted to try it.
I was fascinated by the liberating part of it!
There is not right or wrong in it!!!You do it the way you want it!
So I decided to try to make my own "cahiers"/notebooks/ of collages.I think it is a great way to unlock or it is more correctly to call it unblock
your creativity.
At the moment I am in a period of doubts and questions so this form of art, I hope, will keep my creative juices flowing.

The last two pictures are layouts from my new collage notebook.Believe me it is a great fun.The best thing is that every page is a work in progress.

An old time lady

If I were a kids' book illustrator I would draw like this.Maybe.

From my sketchbook.

Flamenco dancer

Today I did some sketches with charcoal.I was inspired by the flamenco dancers in one of the recent posts of http://therewereswallows.com/ .
With the kind permission of the owner of the blog I used her video as a reference. This is the first sketch.The second one I will post later because I had troubles taking a decent picture of it.

Spring is coming

We had a wonderful ,warm and sunny day.Took my little girl for a bike ride this morning.Two miles .Then she played outside almost the whole day.Kids are so happy to play in light comfy clothes.All the boots and snow pants are gone.
In the afternoon I went for another bike ride,my usual five-mile one.That was my first one this year.A real boost of energy.
I did this sketch several months ago but I chose to post it today because it relates with the mood and the feelings of my present day.

A tin toy

This sketch is of a tin toy puppy.It is a part of my husband's collection of tin toys.He is sure a collector.He has all kinds of collections.Unfortunately some of his collections got destroyed in the flood in 2007.For example his collection of vinyl records.

I drew the puppy with ink pen and painted it with watercolor pencils.

Some images from my sketchbook

It is another gloomy day,I don't know what takes the sun so long to show up.And it is raining on top of that.
But anyway I managed to do my morning walk. And I read my favourite blogs and talked to my friend on Skype.
In this post I would like to share some drawings from my sketchbook.I use magazines for inspiration when I want to improve my skills of drawing people.
this first one is from an issue of O magazine.

An image inspired by a fashion magazine.

Gloomy Day

As it is a gloomy day today,I looked in my archive for some inspirational pictures from the last summer .I found these from a cute little flower place by a little city ,which name I forgot.
For lunch I made for myself bruschetta with hot dogs,tomatoes and feta cheese.Had my favourite green tea ,too.


This fellow was very curious and friendly.

A Cat Reading A Math Test

It is hard to believe it is March already.It seams like Christmas was yesterday.
Anyway spring is in the air.I can smell it.
I can feel it.It is warm and the snow is melting.
Busy,little rivers of snow water run along the curbs finding magically their way to the large rivers.
So,Happy March to everybody.
And to my Bulgarian blogofriends Happy
Grandma Marta and Happy March 3.
Grandma Marta is an ancient tradition of wearing red and white decorations made out of wool.Giving one to somebody is like wishing him or her a lot of health and prosperity.And the Third of March is the National Holiday.
And in the end of my post,just for fun ,you can enjoy out cat Ashley "reading" my daughter's math tests.
I bet she was not happy with the mistakes.

This Weekend

I had a nice weekend.Went shopping with my family,bought a new vacuum cleaner,ate at a Chinese restaurant,watched the Winter Olympics in Vancouver,watched You've Got Mail for maybe seventh or seventeenth time,worked on some knitting and crocheting projects.
Have I mentioned before I love to watch winter sports and my favourite is figure skating?I am not happy with the way they covered the games this year-not enough figure skating for sure.
Some of the things I am working on will soon be listed in my Etsy shop.

A Vintage Find-February

This is something I found last week and it is on the theme.February.Love the colors and the fine lines of the cup.

On The Seventh Day Of Blogging-Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day to all of you, guys!

I hope you have a lot of fun,flowers and love.

On The Sixth Day Of Blogging-Ashley

It is tough love between her and me.
She is very sensitive and timid.She won't let you pet her,won't sit in your lap.She has something that I call ''cat's bulimia'' which we are trying to keep under control.
Otherwise she likes to be around you but at a safe distance. She likes finely shredded cheese.Maybe she was a mouse in her previous life.
I am happy to watch her play because it does not happen very often.The good thing is that she has been doing it more often recently.I guess she feels more at home now.We adopted her from the animal shelter with the other cat two years ago.
Her name's Ashley and she is 9.

On The Fifth Day Of Blogging-Beautiful Black Eyes

This is a sketch from yesterday.Did not not do very much yesterday,neither today. Just a couple of sketches,the other one is not completely finished.

On The Forth Day Of Blogging

On the forth day of blogging I am going to tell you about my experiments with pastels and brown wrapping paper.It was on my to-do-list for quite a long time.I got inspired by a girl on Etsy.She is a great artist and you can visit her shop/tushtush.etsy.com/ to see for yourself.
I painted these three things on the wrapping paper and just loved it.i love the texture of the paper and the natural color of the paper coming through the paints.i was so happy with the results that I already

framed the rose and hung it in my dining room.

If you are curious what this guy is carrying -he is a cotton candy seller at the Circus.I forgot to mention that the painting were 5x7 inches.

On The Third Day Of Blogging

On the third day of her vacation at home momma still enjoys her Me time.
Yesterday because of the snow storm the school was canceled and the kid was home bouncing around and having the greatest time of her life.Computer games,TV,playing with her little friend A.,snow forts and so on.
And today was my turn to have fun. After I took her to school I went cross country skiing.It was my first time for this winter.I had the three ideal conditions to do it: perfect sunshiny weather,fresh snow and the most important thing desire.
I have been feeling a little sluggish and depressed recently and blamed the lack of sunshine on that.I think this has been the first sunny day at least for a couple of weeks.
And now this beautiful sunny day gave me a boost of energy.

Seven Days of Blogging

I have seven days of vacation which I am spending at home.So,I decided to try to blog every single day of my vacation.It has never happened to me before.I think it is not hard to find interesting tings to blog about.
My vacation started yesterday and I already had a post yesterday.
In the first picture you can see the two project I am working on and Ashley our nine year old cat.

These are going to be a pair of crocheted slippers.

And this is my granny squares throw pillow in progress.

And this is the other one, too late for the shoots.But who can resist so much cutiness.

Anniversary

Yesterday it was my second anniversary of starting this blog of mine-Vanyas Art Journal.I started it as a free style blog where I could share my experiments with different media like watercolors and watercolor pencils,

ink,collage,pastel,journaling,card making and so on.

In the process of journaling about my art adventures I started feeling like getting more personal and included some things from my every day life.My attitude towards photography changed. I try to be more creative and artistic with my pictures.

My interests widened too.My last passion as you can see is fiber art or crocheting and knitting.

But the most important thing about my blogs is that I have fun.I am grateful for the people who visit my blogs and read them and for the people who take time to leave a comment.

Thank you guys.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy blogging.

Doodling

Just a doodle from the last weekend.

The furry woman...

There was a fun night at school on Monday.Reading Wizards. Books,funny games and stuff.

WIP-to raise a child who loves to read.