a little place to call my own (art and fashion blog)

 First of all, thank you all for your kind messages on my last post. In this post, I will share a new watercolour portrait sketch with you. I didn't use a reference for this one, I just sketched it from my head. The idea was to practice 3/4 side portrait. I feel like I need all the portrait practice I can get. I remind myself that quick portrait practice still counts.  I'm still not very focused on portrait making, but I do like doing these quick portrait sketches. I know I will need to invest a lot more time and effort if I want my portraits painting to start looking as good as my landscape paintings, but I feel these quick sketches help me stay in shape until I set aside enough time to get better at portrait art. Right now, I still don't have a definite style when it comes to portraits. Anyhow, this one was actually supposed to remain just a quick sketch, but at one point I just decided to finish it. So, I added more detail and basically turned it into a quick portrait. ...

In this post, I will share a watercolour painting of mine with a spiritual theme. I was inspired by a classical work of art, a rather famous sculpture created by Michelangelo Buonarroti five hundred and twenty-one years ago. This is actually my second study of this marble sculpture.  If you remember I already shared with you  a watercolour pencil study of Michelangelo's Pieta here.   That first study painting was made in A3 format while this newer study of Pieta is in A4 format. That's not the only difference between them. These watercolour sketches are somewhat different one from another both in terms of colour and composition. Moreover, these two watercolour studies are not identical to the sculpture reference itself,  as I took some creative liberties with these studies. Obviously , the marble sculpture is  monochrome  and lacking colours.  I used different colours in my studies of it and took other creative liberties.  I might do ano...

 In this post, I shall review Jeniec i dziewczyna (The Prisoner and the Girl),  a micronovel by Kornel Filipowicz, a Polish writer who was considered the master of a short form.  Kornel Filipowicz (1913- 1990) was best known for his short stories, but he also wrote novels, screenplays and poems.  This micronovel, set during WW2, proved to be a touching and interesting read. I must admit that I was expecting to like it, because not too long ago, I reviewed and enjoyed another of Filipowicz's micronovels.  I found both of these micronovels in one of my husband's  vintage editions. It's lovely when your significant other likes books, so I can always roam his library when mine falls short. Anyhow, I really enjoyed this micronovel. I'm looking forward to sharing more about it with you.  U ovoj objavi osvrnut ću se na Jeniec i dziewczyna (Zarobljenik i djevojka), mikroroman Kornela Filipowicza, pisca koji se smatrao majstorom kratke forme. Kornel Filipowicz...

 In this post, I will review An American Diary of a Japanese girl by   Yone Noguchi . It is worth noting that the real author of this book is not a Japanese girl, but an American Japanese writer named   Yone Noguchi . I'm stressing this because I didn't know it when I started reading and it is definitely a relevant piece of information. Moreover, this book is not a diary at all, but rather a work of pure fiction.  This 'autobiography' is also the first work in English by a Japanese writer.  Known in the West as Yone Noguchi, his real name was Yonejeiro Noguchi and he wrote both in English and Japanese. Noguchi had an interesting life to say the least, but we shall talk about it some other time because today the focus shall me on this book. This is a historical book, more than a hundred  years old.  Published in 1902, this book was originally marked as an autobiography written by a young Japanese  girl named Morning glory. This book is availa...