Color the Emotion

Pick a few colors and create without stiffness.

Lazy Art Journaler? – Try This Method!

Are you a lazy art journaler? See this method! By Paivi Eerola from Peony and Parakeet.

Do you keep an art journal or a sketchbook? Are you struggling to find your motivation for filling it regularly? Try this method, geared for a lazy art journaler and for those who have big creative blocks!

“How to” for a Lazy Art Journaler

1) Create one small area at a time like you were slowly building a map.

2) Write down your thoughts. They can be roads from one area to another.

3) Accept that you are stiff and conventional when you begin. The beginning is the home base, and it should make you feel safe and grounded.

4) When you leave the home base and move to the next small area, just focus on creating different than what you have so far. 

5) Don’t overthink. One area can be only one spot of color that you feel drawn to. Then add a small dot or line of another color to embark your imagination.

6) You can travel far in one sitting, or stay near the home base. One journey to your imagination can last weeks if that’s what it takes to fill the page.

7) If you want the page to be coherent, repeat some of the elements once in a while.

8) Artists are explorers. Never underestimate the meaning of this practice. Be open to what you can discover. When you are far away from your home base, take risks! In the end, it’s just paper and pigment, and any filled journal beats an empty one!

Are you a lazy art journaler? See this method! By Paivi Eerola from Peony and Parakeet.

Get More Inspiration for Creating! – Join Bloom and Fly!

Bloom and Fly is a new community for everyone who wants to stay inspired and move forward in art.

We’ll start the new year with the theme “Mixed Media Sketchbooks for Setting Your Goals”. You will discover fun ways to get a grab on what you want to create in 2018!

In February, we’ll dive into the world of Rococo and Marie Antoinette and you’ll get ideas for any style of art. In March, you will get jumpstarts for adding abstract elements to your art. Whether you like realistic or fully abstract art, starting with abstract elements can boost your creative process.

>> Read more and sign up!

Time to Change – From Teaching to Mentoring

Bloom and Fly, a mixed media painting with inks and acrylics, by Paivi Eerola from Peony and Parakeet

After finishing a series of canvas paintings, I have felt that it’s time to change. It has been smoldering in me for the whole year, but as we know, the change rarely happens in one go. There’s one big thing that I want to change in my teaching. I want to give more personalized suggestions and encouragement, and enable more sharing and connecting. I want to be a mentor rather than a teacher in the traditional meaning. When you start creating art, you need a teacher to follow. But when after a while, you will want to create something from your personal perspective. Then you will benefit more from observations about your art. When you have someone to help you see the possibilities in your expression, you will find it easier to grow your creativity. During this year, I have developed my online workshops in that direction, and the results tell me that I should continue on that path.

Questioning Your Talent vs. Willingness to Learn

Paivi Eerola and her paintings. She has spent a year creating a series of paintings and mentoring artists.

While pondering which paintings to frame, I was also thinking artist colleagues that have helped me to analyze my work in a new light. That’s one reason why I also want to enable connections between people who love to create art and even more importantly, want to change their art.

Here’s what I wrote on my Facebook page today:

“Am I talented enough?” – Pondering about it doesn’t take you forward. Replace it with the question: “Am I willing to learn?” Because art like any field has a set of principles and skills that you just need to know and practice.

Then there’s imagination and originality. Is that the talent that we talk about? I don’t think so. They are also skills that can be learned. They are about self-exploration, tolerating quiet time, being open to what inspires and irritates you.

When you see something that raises negative emotions, start questioning: “Why do I see this as a threat?” By answering, you will understand more about yourself, about people in general, and get the curiosity that makes you step out of the conventional. Your empathy and imagination will grow, and you become more willing to learn.

My art journal page from 2010, and my painting from 2017.

Paivi Eerola's art journal page from 2010, and her painting from 2017. Growing as an artist and becoming a mentor.

The Change Is in The Nuances

This week, I reorganized my art supplies and found an old art journal. Funny enough, there was this page: “Time to Change.” And when I compare it to the piece that I just painted, it looks quite similar if you omit the clumsiness.

Paivi Eerola's art journal page from 2013 and a glimpse of her newest painting.

Then I realized that the painting that I had created a year ago also looks quite similar. I sat by it holding the new piece, and it felt like the two come together.

Paivi Eerola and her paintings.

In art, the change is in the nuances. Many of your characteristics won’t change during the time. But how you express, invent and gain more self-knowledge will. Sometimes people say that they wish they would have started creating art sooner. I totally relate to that. I had a long break in creating when I was a young adult. But then, art is not just executing; it’s also about living. People who have more life’s experience than me, always make me humble. They have more to express, deeper insights to deliver. When I can help, inspire, and encourage with that, it makes my life meaningful as well.

Art Journaling and Mentoring

Paivi Eerola's art and her new sketchbook by The Pink Pig.

One thing that I don’t want to change is that I will keep on talking about art journaling. I believe in playing with ideas and not just creating big pieces. To me, a full sketchbook or art journal can be more of a treasure than a single canvas painting. Now when I have been painting bigger canvases, I also missed having a big sketchbook. So I purchased one that is twice the size than Dylusions Creative Journal that I usually use. It’s manufactured by a company called The Pink Pig from the UK.

Paivi Eerola and her art journals.

Bloom and Fly – Stay Tuned!

While browsing the art journals, I was planning for the upcoming spring season. Next year, I will run a new community called Bloom and Fly, and it’s for all who want to learn together with me. It will have a separate fee, but it will also include mentoring days, monthly live sessions and led discussions. You can share and work on any project there. So if you want support for creating from any of my self-study classes or any other art project that you desire to finish, join Bloom and Fly! The registration for the spring will open on Black Friday, Nov 24th. I will have a special discount for early birds so make sure that you won’t miss it!

Moleskine watercolor journal. By Paivi Eerola from Peony and Parakeet.

Hopefully, you are as excited as I am! If you haven’t subscribed to my weekly emails yet, now is the time!

Painting a Series – How I Managed It!

"Living Treasure", an acrylic painting by Paivi Eerola from Peony and Parakeet. Read about her thoughts of painting a series.

I have just finished a series of five flower paintings on canvas. Yesterday, when I was walking back and forth from my studio to the rest of the house, preparing for the photography and the varnishing, I felt both relieved and terrified. I was relieved because nine months of hard work was at the end. I felt terrified because I had run out of excuses for delaying the start of a new series.

Technique Came First, Themes Second

But let’s get back to early spring when I was painting the first of the five paintings. My goal was to master old masters’ painting technique in acrylics so that I could teach it. I had no idea of how many pieces it would require. Before teaching, I needed to understand “why” not just “how.” I also had to develop a logic that makes learning possible, variations that show the possibilities of the technique, and the systematic way of working to make everything as understandable and to the point as possible.

"Strawberry Madonna", an acrylic painting by Paivi Eerola from Peony and Parakeet.

When I was painting Strawberry Madonna, it soon became clear to me that I was nowhere near to be teaching the technique. I needed to fix my strokes constantly. Even if the fixing doesn’t show in the finished painting, it became clear that I needed more practice. I couldn’t fuss around that way while teaching.

So I bought new canvases and kept on painting. I made experiments, art journal pages, and had several paintings in progress at the same time. I focused on painting what I wanted to include in the class as well: flowers and playing with historical styles. Crafts like crochet, decorative painting, jewelry, fabric, etc were also sources of inspiration. Most of the pieces took tens of hours from me to finish. The quickest is “Four Seasons” that I recorded for the class. With the final touches added after the recording, it took less than ten hours to paint. “Queen of Fantasy” took much longer. You can see me starting it in the free video, but I adjusted the painting many times after that.

"Queen of Fantasy", an acrylic painting by Paivi Eerola from Peony and Parakeet.

Painting a Series – The Most Important Insight

The funny thing about all this is that I wasn’t intentionally painting a series. Working towards the goal of mastering and understanding the old masters’ technique, gave direction to my work. If I had thought about the series more intentionally, I would have probably freaked out! Now when I look back, the most important thing to me was that I expressed the power of flowers in all my paintings but thought about it differently in all the five paintings.

  • For “Living Treasure” I got ideas from gardening.
  • “Strawberry Madonna” connects flowers with fruits and their taste.
  • “Queen of Fantasy” is about flowers representing romance.
  • “Blooming Centuries” tells how flowers have always inspired painters, designers, and crafters.
  • “Four Seasons” shows sisu, a Finnish word for resilience when you work against all the odds and still find the spirit to bloom and prosper.

"Four Seasons", an acrylic painting by Paivi Eerola from Peony and Parakeet.

So I had a set of generic themes that were repeated in all the paintings, but different interpretations of them. That made them work as a series but so that they don’t look identical at all. Being very intentional about the series and prohibiting new ideas emerge while working can lead to a very boring result and in my case, it would probably make me quit because the lack of excitement and adventure that keeps me going.

I think this insight could also be useful for those who seek for their style. Rather than painting the same thing and get bored by it, find bigger themes and use your creativity to approach them from different angles.

New Era – New Series

During the past couple of months, I have felt fear when thinking where I want to go with my art. I have contemplated that can I share my plans or just keep them hidden because it’s likely that I will fail. For quite some time, I have felt the need to paint abstract art that plays with textures and geometry. I think many of the paintings of this series already have some of that.

I have a funny name for the style of the new series. It is “kinetic-romantic abstract realism.” “Kinetic” means that I want to include movement that is related to machines. “Romantic” means that I want to express through beauty and relationships. “Abstract Realism” refers to the idea of mimicking realistic surface materials for abstract shapes. Very odd, I know, and it terrifies me.

"Blooming Centuries", an acrylic painting by Paivi Eerola from Peony and Parakeet.

Creativity is a Living Treasure – Watch the Video!

Before the new beginning, it’s time to celebrate the finished series. I have made a short video of the five pieces and the thoughts that came to my mind when painting them. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy the video!

My Painting on Your Wall?

These paintings are also for sale!- Buy them directly from me here!

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