Fantasy in a cave-acrylic painting

Fantasy in a cave is a 32cm x 20cm (12.6 x 7.9 in) small acrylic painting on board.
A few hours ago I began to paint a still life but my fantasy has made a (slight) deviation from the subject and this is what I ended up with.
It is just a fantasy, I see it as cave scene.
Click on the Creative Every Day badge in my sidebar to see other beautiful works at Leah's website.

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Happy New Year -Candle light

In early times there was a belief which suggested that smoke from the candles would rise and reach the heavens above and God will answer secret prayers said over flames of the candle.
May this candle spread light, cheer and warmth in your homes and families!

I wish you much, much happiness, joy and blessings and a Happy New Year!

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
--Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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Merry Christmas!

I wish your all a joyful Christmas eve!

"Christmas - that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia.

Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance - a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved." ~Augusta E. Rundel

"I heard the bells on Christmas Day.
Their old familiar carols play.
And wild and sweet the words repeat.
Of peace on earth goodwill to men."
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Icons-painting Sacred art

For almost 2000 years the Christian icons have always been the objects of prayer and contemplation for believers.
Interest is growing for this Sacred art form, not only for its aesthetic and artistic qualities, but for its profound spirituality.

The pictorial representations of Biblical scenes from the life of Jesus Christ, historical events in the life of the Church, and portraits of the saints, icons are not merely pictures used to decorate walls, but also "windows to Heaven" embracing a mystical beauty of faith, love and well-being.

Though, not so long ago the art of icon painting (icon writing is the correct term) served the needs of churches and religious people, in the present days icons are also valued as decorative elements.

In this post I want to present Mircea Vladimir Bodea, a very talented

contemporary Romanian iconographer's Orthodox Sacred art.

You can see a sample of his works in these pictures and some details too.

He developed his own style, a special technique of icon painting by creating a texture based on eggshells.
He applies with great skill pieces of eggshell onto durable wood as a base for painting.
All his works are hand painted and varnished.

A particular spiritual importance is given to the gilding achieved by gold leaves in either oil and water based gilding applications.
The background of the icon for an iconographer is "Light", sign of the Divine Grace that illuminates the world.

The gilded lines on the dresses and on the objects suggest the beneficent energies they reflect.

Mircea Vladimir Bodea's has painted over 300 icons admired all around the world.
You can see some more of his icons by visiting his website.

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Human face drawing-face proportions

Teaching is the best way to learn, they say and this is the truth. So let's learn to draw together.
Some proportions of the head are generally common to all faces and need to be right in a portrait.
The human face has an egg form, so we draw an egg.
Before you do that, draw a grid of squares; 3 squares for the height of the egg and 2 squares for the width.

With these 6 squares we have divided the human face to it's most characteristic parts and we even have a vertical symmetry line through the center of our face drawing.

1. The hair line is 2/3 up from the brow line;
2. The brows and the top of the ears are on the same line (in many cases).
3. The nose base and the ear lobs are also at the same level.

I hate computer drawing, so one ear will do the job. We always hate things we don't master, that's human nature.

That's it, see my dummy!
(don't laugh, I know it's ugly!)

We need some more lines for the details.

Using the same overall dimensions as before for the height and width of the face (we measure them), we divide the height in 4 equal parts this time .

4. Eye level line (1) - generally is halfway from the top of the head and the chin.
The human head is 5 eyes width in front view.
If we divide the eye level line (1) in five equal parts we can see that:
- the distance between the eyes is the width of one eye (2);
- the nose width is the distance between the inside corner of the eyes or the distance between the eyes (2);
- the neck line starts from the outside corner of the eyes (3);
6.The mouth middle line is at 1/3 of the distance between the nose base and the chin (4);
- the vertical lines starting at the center of the pupils, line up with the corner of the mouth (5);

These are the main thoughts I wanted to share with whoever is interested.
Please, keep in mind that all this is just theory, just the basics, like a template.
Every human face is unique.
Still, when observing your model, while knowing the basics, you just have to discover the differences between the actual features and the "template".

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