Today is already day 50 of the Art 101 challenge! So I’m halfway now. That is to say, halfway in days, not in artworks! Due to my absence for building my webshop I am now terribly behind schedule.

So I have come up with a cunning plan… 😉 I want to create a series of artworks that I can do quicker than what I have done so far. First of all I will decrease the size (until now I was painting on size 24 x 30 cm / 9.4 x 11.8 inch). If I work on a  smaller scale I can hopefully work a little faster. But second and most important I want to use a more ‘sketchy’, loose style that will force me to work faster. This would not only help me catching up with my dreadful backlog, but might also help me loosening up some more in my art.

So that’s the plan and tonight was my first attempt. And I didn’t really work faster. 😉

I worked with colored pencil on a base layer of acrylic paint and used watercolor paper in postcard size, which is quite small considering the soft, waxy and rather thick points of the colored pencils I use. So to create the right facial expression is a matter of making tiny little alterations, erasing mistakes and trying it all over again until it ‘clicks’ and I like what I see. And that took some time tonight.

Anyway. All of this in the end doesn’t really matter. Yes, I do hope that with some practice I will be able to work a little faster and in a more loose and sketchy style. But what matters most was that I really loved creating this sweet little artwork. It came right from my heart…

I Carry You In My Soul, mixed media drawing (acrylic paint, colored pencil and graphite pencil) on watercolor paper. Size: 11.4 x 15.2 cm (4.5 x 6 inch).