Just one more

Look what my lovely guy made for me. Perfect for all my mediums, brushes and paints!

Backgrounds

I find it really handy to try out bits and pieces in one of my sketchbooks before applying it to the bigger canvas.
Here are some backgrounds I'm thinking about using for my next painting.

Painting in progress

It is often easier I find, and been often told, to maintain a painting habit if you find a theme. A subject that might provide you with several painting ideas. It makes it easier to continue on to the next when one painting is done. And once you are working on a painting, more ideas usually crop up.
It is when staring at a blank canvas, wondering where to go next that I feel swamped. Overwhelmed no doubt of all the potential paintings this canvas could hold, and the pressure of finding the particular one that would be best at this moment.
So I have settled on a idea of doing  a series of portraits. Fantasy figures, really, but inspired by real faces, so that I don't resort to a mechanical plonking down of features. I have done that before.
I am already having fun with the first one. I think she might be a mermaid, which means she should have lots of jewellery in my opinion. Let's see where it goes :o)