Reena's art blog

Visit my new blog at www.reena.se

2011-04-10T21:49:00.003+02:00

Just a reminder for you who hasn't visit yet. Please remember to use the english flag (or some other) to have the posts translated into your language

My new blog: www.reena.se

My new blog

2011-04-09T02:18:00.000+02:00

I finally got my new blog up an running. You can find it here: www.reena.se

Some good news for my non-swedish speaking readers: My new blog have a translate tool, which works very well. I been a bit crappy to update this blog as you might already know... It has just been too much work to translate every blog post. Hopefully you will discover that I do update my blog more than two times each year now when I have my new blog...So hurry off to my new blog, I have a little competition going on for my visitors in celebration of my new blog :)

Damn blog

2011-04-06T22:45:00.000+02:00

I am tired and annoyed right now on my blog. I don't mean this one, I got a new one today. I signed up for a domain name and a web host. I spent the entire evening trying to get my new blog up. I am not a newbie when it comes to computers so this should have gone easy. I had a easy to follow manual and I followed it carefully....like twenty times without getting it to work. I sent the support team a couple of mails but really didn't get a useful answer back. The last time I tried to install the blog environment it suddenly worked. I have no idea why because I did exakly the same as the other 19+ times.

Anyway, it's up now. It's nothing to show you but as soon as I have finished it you will get the new address.

A lot of snow

2011-02-11T09:20:00.000+01:00

Last time has been a bit hard with a lot of things going around at the day care center. Yesterday at my work someone got the stomach flu which seem to go around here in Sweden now. She had to lock herself in the bathroom and stayed there for several of hours before she could manage to get out and home. And a little later another collegue went home because she felt sick. So now I only hope that i didn't catch the bug.

Today morning it had been a lot of snow. We and all neighbors, except one neighbor that own a jeep, are staying at home. Taking the car would mean getting stuck in the snow...

Christmas stocking

2010-11-28T10:24:00.000+01:00

I bought a Christmas stocking for my son. I had to search long before finally finding something that didn't look as cheap crap. Here in Sweden we don't have that tradition, to hang up Christmas stocking, although it seem to get more common.

The ultimate guide to colored pencil - Mini review

2010-11-04T09:05:00.003+01:00

I got Gary Greene's new book: The ultimate guide to colored pencil, last week. The release of this book has been postpone at least two(?) times, so I been wanting this book for a long time until I finally got my hands on it.

The titel of the book says it Ultimate. I don't know if I would go as far as calling it ultimate, but it does contain a lot of information. Probably more than any other book on the subject I've read (and I have read a LOT). In the book's introduction the writer mention that the demonstrations included are more targeted towards the advanced colored artist. And perhaps that this is true because it seems to me as he has left out a lot of steps in the demonstrations. This is not a good thing in my opinion. There are a lot of demonstrations in the book, but I personally had prefer fewer but with more steps. I love to see how a painting develops...which I'm not really able to do in this book. The photos of the steps are also too small (it's a small book that has two-three photos on each page) which makes it even harder to see how he have done the things in different steps.

You might notice that I write painting instead of drawing in my small review, the writer mention in the book that when you use colored pencil than you are painting not drawing. And I guess that's true, even though I admit that I mostly say drawing but perhaps I should start say painting instead.

Anyway, to sum it up. It is still a good book and perhaps it was only me who had too high hopes after seeing his water-soluble book which I just loved the paintings in. This book doesn't have as near as many good paintings in it in my opinion.

It's a book that is worth buying if you only want to have one or a few books about colored pencils. If you are like me, and already have more books in this subject than you really need, then this book might not be for you. I already know most things written in this book, and when I buy a book about colored pencils today then I do it mostly because I want to see how the artist have used the medium. I want to be able to watch the demonstrations and learn something from it and I'm not sure that I will be able to do so with this book because most of the drawings felt too "boring", so for me it wasn't a good buy.

I love the painting of hands. This is such a good job, I wished the book had more paintings of this high quality.

Keep on trying.

2010-11-01T18:50:00.000+01:00

It's not easy to get those socks on. But if one doesn't give up, then eventually you will get it :)

Old memories..

2010-11-01T18:48:00.000+01:00

..came back when I saw what my son did. It was a lot of years ago but I do remember how I used to put those caps on my fingers as well. I also used to do some painting on my hands and face, I hope my son won't like that part as well..

Teddy bear day

2010-10-26T18:54:00.001+02:00

Tomorrow is teddy bear's day. My son only plays with cars so I had to dig deep in his closet to find his stock with soft toys. To my suprise he wanted to play with two of them... So they will follow him to the daycare center tomorrow and celibratenthe day of teddy bears.

Got a new neckless

2010-10-25T17:01:00.000+02:00

I'm so happy. I manage to get a hold of a neckless designed by Efva Attlings called Twin Dots. I have been wanting to get that neckless for years but I thought it too expensive in the stores. I manage to find it for a third of the price on Ebay so I'm very happy about it.

Ipad has arrived

2010-10-19T17:16:00.022+02:00

I been wanting an iPad for a long time, at first I wasn't able to justify the cost for myself but that was before my son started "stealing" my iphone. He loves my iphone and it is a handy thing to have when we travel and he is getting bored. I have some great apps that can keep him entertained for a while. Unfortunetly that means that I end up getting bored instead.... So I decided to get a Ipad. After all, we often watch some short movies before bed times, it makes it easier for him to relax and go to bed and it would be nice to have a bigger screen than my iphone.

I bought the cheapest version since we mostly are at home. A small part of me wishes I had gone for the 3G version, but I don't like to surf on 3G because I think it goes to slow with the provider I have.

Hungry bathduck

2010-10-10T08:52:00.001+02:00

Even a photo of a plastic duck in the nrespaper can get hungry, my little son is gracious enough to share his breakfast.

Still same cat

2010-08-30T09:10:00.001+02:00

I haven't been drawing much lately, but yesterday I manage to get some time to continue drawing a little on my cat...

My art studio

2010-08-04T21:22:00.000+02:00

I'm going to show you how my art studio looks, but perhaps art studio is the wrong name. After all, I'm sitting at home in the space that no one else wanted.

Yesterday I got a big desk that my dad had. It was one of serveral desk that they throwed away at his job for a couple of years ago. I happend to mention to my parents for a few days ago that I was going to buy a larger desk from Ikea and then it turned out that my parents had this one at home and no one used it. My dad fixed it up and yesterday I got it. It's wonderful to have so much space to work on.

I have taken several of photos but I haven't had time to process them yet. My little boy became sick during the night and today he have of course been extra needy.I will try to upload some photos later on for you to have a look at my wonderful work area here at home.

Look what my dad gave me :)

2010-08-02T18:44:00.001+02:00

I have a lot of colored pencils. I have several of full sets and the hardest problem is how to store them to have easy access to just the pencil I want. The solution which work best for me is to store most of them in big glas jars divided by colors and brands.

An exception have been my Faber Castell Polychromos. These are the one I use mostly and therefore I have kept them in the metaltin they were sold in.

Unfortunately this means that I have to lift three plastic trays when I want a particular color, which can be quite annoying sometimes.

There are special wooden boxes where you can store your Faber Castell colored pencil in. Sadly these can't be bought seperatly, which means that if you already have a full set then you have to pay a lot of money just for a wood box...

What should a person do? Well, I happend to have a very handy dad and I asked him if he could help make a wood box for me. And below you can see the result.

This is what it looks like closed:

When you open the box you have very easy overview and access to all pencils. It so great....I really love my box :)

Cat in pastel

2010-07-29T15:55:00.001+02:00

Played around with some pastel and velour paper. Not so pleased with the result, but it was a pretty fast drawing after all...

WIP: New Cat...a little more

2010-07-28T22:19:00.001+02:00

...but now my hand is tired so I think I will call it a day. It's soon time to go to bed, and I'm tired. See you later.

WIP: New cat

2010-07-28T21:47:00.002+02:00

I'm home again and here my forgotten pencil layed waiting on my desk. I have finally started working on the fur.

WIP: New cat

2010-07-27T16:57:00.002+02:00

Started drawing on a new cat at my parents' house. Sadly I forgot my light brown pencil that I use as a first layer on "brown" animals... So I won't be able to do so much more until I get home..

Lovely fabric and cute son

2010-07-26T15:20:00.001+02:00

Today I went home to my parents on my way there I stopped at a fabric store. I saw this lovely fabric, didn't buy it but maybe later...

When we got to my parents my son got to try on my dad's helmet....Very exciting for a litte boy,who is crazy about vechicles.

Painting of Emmie

2010-07-23T19:11:00.000+02:00

I'm pretty much done with this painting now. I will compare it with the reference photo to see if I need to adjust a few minor details. I'm very pleased with the painting. Unfortunly I can't say the same about the photo of the painting. I think I need to learn how to take good photos of my artwork or hire someone to do the job for me (if I would win the lottery or so :)

WIP: The neighbour's cat

2010-07-22T22:03:00.001+02:00

Yawning! I'm so tired. I think I will have to go to bed soon. I have been home by myself a few days while my husband and our son was away visiting my parents-in-law.

I had so much fun. I even stayed up to 3 in the morning and then slept a few hours and then up again pretty early. I been painting, reading, watching tv and talking to old friend. It's been really nice just to have yourself to take care of...and well, two dogs and two cats, but I'm sure you get my point. :)

In a few days it's time for me to take my little boy and go and visiting my parents house so my husband can have some free time to do the things he enjoy as well.

WIP: The neighbour's cat

2010-07-22T12:16:00.001+02:00

Done a little more work on the cat.

Did the nose and started doing the fur. I actually have made a little more progress than so I need to take another photo. It has been raining today and I prefer using daylight when I take my photos....hope it clears up soon.

Using my old oil paint..

2010-07-21T19:08:00.000+02:00

My husband and my son is out of town, so I decided to do some oikpainting instead of color pencils. It's so much easier to paint if you don't have a (almost) 2-year old running around in your wet paint :)

This painting of Emmie is something I been wanting to do for serveral of years. I had this sketched on a canvas for probably at least five years. The painting is not finished yet, but it starting to look okay now....I was too afraid to even show it earlier.....I even forgot to take photos of it because the painting look horrible at first.....

WIP: The eyes

2010-07-21T00:00:00.001+02:00

I think eyes are the most important things in a drawing. If the eyes don't look realistic then it doesn't matter how good the rest of the drawing is. I almost always start with the eyes, probably because I think it's the most fun part. After all, eyes are often said to be the window to the soul.

I first put down the basic layer. I use a very light yellow, almost white.

I start building the form of the eyes by using a darker yellow for each layers I put down.

Here I have started to add green, I do it the same way as I did with the yellow. I start light at first and then move on to a darker grey. I also filled the pupil of the eye. Notice that it's a little more greener around the pupil.

Here I have added some brown around the eyes.
I used my electric eraser to get some highlight in the eyes. It makes the eyes come to life. After I done that I use a white pencil to burnish it over the eye, carefully avoid touching the pupil as it will smear the color. The colors become a bit dull by the white colors, so I reapply some colors to the eyes, and also add some more shadows to the eyes to make it sparkle more.

Here is how the eyes turned out:

WIP: The neighbour's cat

2010-07-19T01:07:00.009+02:00

I love drawing cats and I especially loves to do their eyes. I think it's because their eyes are so colorful and you can really use vivid colors to create the most colorful eyes. I don't think any other animals have so colorful eyes as cats.

Here is my ongoing project. I don't know the name of this cat, but she belongs to my neighbours. I think they have around seven cats or something. This little cat is the mother of most of those cats. She is a very friendly little cat and she reminds me a lot of a special cat I once was very lucky to share my life with.

It was hard to get close to the shy cat, and everytime I tried to take a photo she looked down. This photo can't be described as good, but I manage to crop it a lot and it became a whole lot better.

Duck on Colorfix

2010-07-08T08:17:00.001+02:00

I have bought some new art material, mostly pastel and new paper for pastel and colorpencils.

I had, of course, try the new paper since I've not too pleased with the usual pastel paper such as Mi teintes and these papers I bought are suppose to be better.

First I did a duck and I used Artspectrum Colorfix.

I like this sand paper structure as it takes a pretty good grip the pastel, I do however not like the fact that it's hard to achieve any details on it because it's corny structure.

WIP: Fanny, part 3

2010-06-24T22:00:00.000+02:00

Today have been a very beautiful and warm day here in Sweden. I took the day off from work today, and spent it at home with my family. We had a nice day together, our little baby boy took a bath outside in his little yellow pool. He is so full of joy, he seem to find pleasure in the most simple things. He sat in his little pool and poured water for an hour. Sometimes the little ones are very easy to entertain.

I manage to get some drawing done. I also had the pleasure of having one of the neighbours dogs over in our garden and I was fast with my camera and asking the dog owner to hold his dog while I took some photos. One of those photos will probably end up as a drawing soon :)

Anyway, here is today's progress with the Fanny drawing:

Fanny has one blue and one brown eye. A lot of people we meet during our walks asks if she is blind, but she isn't....she just have two diffrent colors on her eyes.

WIP: Fanny, part 2

2010-06-24T15:30:00.000+02:00

WIP: Fanny, part 1

2010-06-24T11:44:00.003+02:00

I did some more work on Fanny. First, a better photo of the previous work

And a little more work:

WIP: Fanny

2010-06-22T21:24:00.002+02:00

I have started on my next drawing. I been wanting to draw this beautiful dog for a long time but I haven't came around until now...Better late then never..

Framed and finished.

2010-06-22T19:27:00.002+02:00

Well, almost done...I just saw that I had some finger prints left on the drawing. I will have use my wonderful eletrical eraser to remove them. Typical that I saw it after I had framed the drawing and not before. Oh well....

2010-06-22T16:25:00.000+02:00

Almost done with the cat. Sorry for the bad photo. The drawing is a bit out of focus and the colors a bit dull, so I think I have to clean the lens.

Cat

2010-06-19T19:23:00.000+02:00

Working on a cat. Trying to make the fur a bit more realistic.

Gibson klar/finished

2010-06-06T16:37:00.001+02:00

Gibson

2010-06-05T19:20:00.001+02:00

Working on a drawing...I am almost finished. It's been a long while since I used my colored pencils or any other media but I have missed it everyday...just hard to take the time to draw now when I work fulltime...

My son - WIP

2010-03-24T00:00:00.001+01:00

Working on a portrait of my son. I never seem to be able to do his beauty justice. Here are some photos of the work so far. I'm not finished yet, but soon.

Some candy...

2009-10-03T13:05:00.000+02:00

I made this drawing yesterday and gave it to my husband as a gift. I just wanted to try some pastel pencils (Faber Castell Pitt pastel pencil) I had laying around in the house. Pastel is not my medium. I think there is too much dust involved....and there is more fun things to do than to clean my drawingarea from dust. :) But I do love the results I can get from pastel. I'm struggling against the desire of buying a real set of pastels.....I would defiently go mad off the dust, but it's also very fun to paint in pastel.

I also made this little test that you can see below: The candy on the top is done in Prismacolored colored pencil and the one below in Faber Castell's Pitt pastel pencils. I think the results in colored pencil is almost as good. Unfortuently it looks a bit too shiny in the photo but it's not the case in reality. But of course, it's impossible to get the soft result in CP as you can get with pastel.

Portrait Commission - WIP

2009-10-01T00:53:00.001+02:00

For a couple of days ago I got a little diffrent order. I am going to draw two girls, not once but twice. The woman who made the order want two identical drawings because the kids grandparents will get one drawing each.

This makes it a bit more challange for me since I have to make these two drawings so alike as possible. Since I work in layers I have to remember what colored pencils I used in which layer. I have decided on making the drawings parallell with each other, I think that will be easiest that way.

I have made a line drawing first using a 2B mechanical pen. I always trying to make it pretty detailed because it makes my job easier later on. In this case the photo that I'm working from was taken with a celluar phone, this will of course make my job a bit harder because I can't see any details when I zoom in.

This is what the line drawing looks like:

When I'm pleased with the line drawing I erase everthing with a kneded rubber. The reason is to avoid the pencil marks to show thrugh the color. I erase very careful so I can almost see the line drawing if I look careful.

When I have finished drawing I layer Prismacolor Cream, Light peach and Polychromos Light flesh.

How a masterpiece is created...

2009-09-30T00:58:00.002+02:00

I finally manage to find som crayons for small children. I've been looking in diffrent stores, and today I found it in the store I probably should have started with :) I bought two diffrent sets for my boy so he would have some options to choice from.

To create a masterpieace is nothing that you do in a hurry. You have to think careful about to right color to use and the composition of the art, if you want the end result to be as you have planned. Much of the works take place before you actually put the crayons on the paper and starts to draw....

Once you have chosen color and starts to work you don't want do get disturb by your mommy that takes photos....

If you want a good result than you need to use good art material. The easist way to find out it so take a bite and taste....

The masterpiece is now done and you can see that the artist has used bold and colorful lines to illustrate power and movement in his art.

I, myself cannot create such an masterpiece as this and therefor I wait until tomorrow before I publish some photos of the portrait comission I'm working on right now..:-)

My baby boy

2009-09-24T00:38:00.004+02:00

More than one year has passed by since the photo was taken as I used as a reference for this first drawing. My baby boy was one week old and we were finally on our way home from the hospital. A very magical moment. Drawing is made in graphite. I think I used a 2B mechanical pencil and a tortillo to soften it up a little bit.

This last drawing I did for one or two weeks ago using Prismacolor. I have had some huge trouble getting good skin colors with my wonderful Faber Castell Polychromos. I tried using Ann Kullberg's book on portrait but the result was just awful and I couldn't understand why. You see, I have this great color chart-list that says which Polychromos (and a few other brands) color is most identical to Prismacolors colors. It's great when you trying to follow tutorials in books (since every colored artists that write books always uses Prismacolor) but if you live outside the States Prismacolor is a lot harder to find...and let's be honest: Prismacolored colored pencils is wonderful to draw with but the quality of the pencils are just crappy compared to FC Polychromos, CD Pablo and D Colorsoft.

Anyway, I'm getting away from the subject, Ann Kullberg start out with the color cream when she does skincolor. Polychromos Ivory is almost identical to Cream, but it has a little more yellow in it...which made the person get a little too yellow face and not giving me a nice result when it comes to skincolor. It probably would have been much better just use Polychromos light flesh instead.

This last drawing started out as a test. I was just going to try the Lyra Skintones colored pencils that I got in the mail today.. And it was so much fun that it actually became a full drawing instead.
I really like Lyra skintones, although I think it's to few colors. Most of them are dark brown or red brown, one one is cream/ochre, one is light pink and two is diffrent shades of grey lavender and one is black. I had to use my Polychromos and some Prismacolor to get the result I wanted.

Please ignore the light shadows that are on the drawing. I took the photo in the middle of the night without any flash...and it was either the camera or the daylight lamp that was acted funny....

Started on a new drawing...

2009-09-13T16:15:00.000+02:00

This is my Shetland Sheepdog Fanny. My very first dog, she is 8 years now. She is so beautiful and I just hope I can do her beauty justice in my drawing.

Cat on black paper

2009-09-08T21:09:00.000+02:00

I tried to draw a cat on black paper today, using only a white pencil. It went pretty fast, took maybe about an hour. I'm pretty pleased with the picture, unfortuently it's hard to get the camera to take a good photo of it because of the big contrast between black and white.....but at least you get an idea of what the drawin looks like.

Emmie, finished.

2009-09-03T00:15:00.000+02:00

I am finally finished with Emmie. It was so fun to do this drawing and I think it's the best I have done so far.

Emmie, part 3

2009-08-28T14:23:00.000+02:00

Did some more work on Emmie, mostly on her eyes and nose. The colors on this photo is more true to the drawing IRL. On the photo in the previous posts the colors were a bit too intense. I had manage to accidently change a setting on my camera...:)

Emmie, part 2

2009-08-27T11:50:00.000+02:00

Did some more work on Emmie. Worked on shadows and added some more layers.

Emmie

2009-08-26T14:58:00.002+02:00

Right now I am working at a drawing of a beautiful lady in her best age. The lady is named Emmie and she is a smooth collie. She is 6 years old and she enjoy every moment in life, especilly if it includes a sunny day and sleeping in warm grass.

In memory of Slim

2009-08-26T14:51:00.002+02:00

For about six years ago we lived in an apartment in the middle of the city. One late Saturday afternoon we found a little cat who had seeked shelter in the huge garage under the building complex. She was so skinny, just bones. This is what she looked like the day we found her and gave her a bath to get ridd off all the grease. The vet we took her to didn't think she would make it, but she was a little fighter. We namned her Slim.

After Slim had gotten better she turned out to be a wonderful cat. I know everyone thinks their pets are wonderful, but Slim was more than that. It was just something very special with her, perhaps because she had gone thrugh and now she had a home where she was loved and cared for.

We always knew we had her on borrowed time. Her kidneys had gotten injured after being without water and food for so long time. However it wasn't the kidneys that stopped working as expected, it was a tumour that started growing fast and aggressivly. By the time we discovered it, it was to late to do anything.

We got three wonderful years with this cat. She knew how much we loved her. She will always live in our hearts and she will always be missed.

Marigold

2009-08-26T14:46:00.013+02:00

For a couple of months ago I bought a set of 120 Faber Castell's Polychromos. Wonderful pencils, I am so pleased with them. I played around with them a little bit first and here is the first serious try I did with them - a Marigold.

The photo I worked from I took in a little park near where we live. I didn't even know the name of this flower at first. I had to look it up on the internet. Marigold, isn't it a beautiful name? Here in Sweden we call these flowers Tagetes...not as beautiful name mas Marigold in my opinion.

First post

2009-08-26T14:42:00.002+02:00

I decided to create a special blog to show my drawing and paintings. Of course, some of my daily life will also be reflected in this blog, but it is mostly about my art.

I have had art as a hobby for almost as long as I have lived. I even went to art school, but decided not to make a living out of it. It's fun to have as a hobby, but it's simply not something I want to depend on to make a living. It's almost impossible to be a fulltime artist these days...or perhaps it always have been...

Anyway, almost a year after my son was born, I started drawing with colored pencils. Well, I had as most people used them as a child and during art school but I never liked the medium back then. Perhaps because it was poor quilty coloured pencils and I didn't realised how to properly handle the medium back then.

It felt so easy to work with colored pencils, I didn't have to clean any brushes or worry that might paint might dry while I had to take a break to take care of my baby.......and believe me with a crawling baby in the house all you do is take breaks :)

I really feel that this is the medium for me. Suddenly I can get my visions down on the paper and the drawings comes to life right in front of my eyes. It's a wonderful feeling :)