Dramatic Peonies with Colored Pencils and Black Pens
This week, I have a free video for you. Create these dramatic peonies with me!
Use colored pencils to add the softness and color, and black pens to bring in the drama!
I used regular colored pencils and two black pens – thick and thin. My thick pen is the Copic Gasenfude brush pen, and the thin one is a Copic fineliner, size 0.5. You can use any brands. This is an exciting project with many things to learn.
Dramatic Peonies – Watch the Video!
By following the video, you can create your dramatic peonies. Start with the soil, and then grow a garden on it. Watch the video below!
It took me about an hour to create the dramatic peonies, so this is not a big project. The effect is based on sharp contrasts rather than details.
Dramatic Peonies and Your Living Line
In the video, I talk about discovering your living line. The longer I have been an artist, the more significant that has started to feel. When I look at my past work and compare it with the current paintings, I can see a glimpse of my style here and there. It all started with a simple line, so I wish I could inspire you to wake up your line and let it show the way. I am currently building a new course where learning from your line is the key content. Stay tuned!
Inspiration for Colored Pencil Journal
You can create dramatic peonies either on a separate sheet of paper or in an art journal. I created mine in an A5-size colored pencil journal, and the drawing fills the whole spread.
Useful links for you who want to start or make more pages for the colored pencil journal:
- Starting a Colored Pencil Journal
- All posts tagged with “Archer & Olive notebook”
- The course Fun Botanicum – Make a chapter for your colored pencil journal!
Ikigai – Making Intuitive Painting Feel Natural
This week, I show you my newest oil painting, ‘Ikigai,’ and talk about how intuitive painting can become logical, and how a logical painting can feel natural.
There are many extraordinary elements in this painting, but it still feels quite realistic and natural.
Find the Guiding Element
When you create intuitively, the first layers get all kinds of random details. After that, it is about:
- What to save
- What to tone down
- What to highlight
- What to hide
- What to add
In Ikigai, I looked for an element where the canvas had already come to life as a painting. When I found it, I protected that pulsating spot so that its spirit spread and a small world grew around it.
Can you already guess what element guided me through the whole painting? The picture above is the first layer, and the picture below shows the painting in progress.
Intuition is like a whisper that can expand into a stronger sense of presence. That requires time and skills, but also logic.
From Writing a Course to Painting a Picture
Lately, I have been writing a script for a new course (some info). The more courses I make, the more I realize how important the script is. Having a script doesn’t mean I cannot choose my words freely when speaking to the camera. It also does not stop me from throwing myself fully into the drawing exercises while the camera is rolling.
Course videos include many different elements: theory, examples, explanations of the process, and reflections on artistic thinking. All of this needs a good rhythm. I need to know what I am saying and how freely I am speaking in different parts of the videos. My goal is to build a logical educational structure behind the course, without forgetting the human side of making art. I want my courses to be inspiring, entertaining, and encouraging, but also educational, so that you will move forward in your art-making.
Painting is very much like making videos. Even if you didn’t sketch beforehand, you still need structures and ways to connect single elements into a whole. You need both technical and expressive skills. It’s also beneficial to be able to see what is essential and to understand the role of logic.
The Logic Makes the Magic
When a painting is logical, it feels natural. Logic in painting does not mean that the picture has to be realistic. Instead, it means that there is interaction between the elements. For example, a weak line can humbly take a curve to go around a strong dot. Or a bright line can send small rays of light over nearby shapes, changing their color. The interaction ties everything together.
Even a static image can feel alive. At its best, you can look at a painting like an event. It’s fascinating how interaction makes the unreal elements feel real. Being able to express ourselves freely on paper and canvas is one of the best things in life.
Details of Ikigai
Here’s the guiding element in my painting. I have made some additions to the original strokes, but the spirit is the same.
I have noticed that in my paintings, the guiding element is rarely a focal point. Here’s the focal point – the tulip and her two red friends.
Ikigai – a reason to live, a reason to wake up in the morning. According to this Japanese philosophy, we should orient ourselves toward the point where our passion, mission, calling, and profession meet. I feel like ikigai is condensed into the exact moment where night and morning meet.
In the morning, deep reflection is interrupted by the call to action – get things going! And we get up despite all our responsibilities, but also because of them.
I love this kind of contradiction and complexity of life, and I try to bring it out as naturally as possible in my paintings.
The Four Principles of Ikigai and Making Art
Passion – What you love – Intuitively found
Calling – Why you exist, what’s your inner purpose – Naturally rising
Mission – What you do in practice – Needs logic
Profession – Where you are good at – Skill-oriented
The sweetspot is where all are met and aligned.
What do you think?
What Tsubaki Stationery Store Taught Me About Making Art
I listened to a wonderful book. It was like a refreshing rain pouring straight into my heart.
The book is new and by the Japanese author Ito Ogawa. Its Finnish title is Paperikauppa Tsubaki, and it is also being released in English as Tsubaki Stationery Store (Amazon – affiliate link, Goodreads)
Tsubaki Stationery Store
The book tells the story of Hatoko, who has inherited a small paper shop from her late grandmother. It isn’t a sticker shop, but a very minimalistic one. Additionally, Hatoko offers handwriting services. For Hatoko, “beautiful” isn’t a static concept. Case by case, she carefully considers not only the message itself, but also the shape of the letters, the paper she chooses, the writing instrument, the envelope, and even the postage stamps.
You absolutely must read this book.
Refreshing Rain
I loved the book so much that I wanted to make a drawing about its impact. It started by spraying some ink.
I got the idea of spraying ink when browsing the pages of my sketchbook. See this blog post from 2019: 10 Black and White Art Techniques with Personal Stories
I then made the drawing with pencils and ink pens (Copic brand).
I started with graphite pencils.
And then introduced black ink pens.
When I wanted to have something darker or more clearly outlined, I used the ink pens. The pencils were for softer greys and shadowing.
A piece of paper under the hand protects the drawing.
I wanted the drawing to grow freely and express the impact that the book had on me. The last step was to add a little color to the central flower.
Here’s the finished piece again. I had so much fun drawing the waves. When I draw, I try to follow the principle: “Draw what you love.”
This is about my inner world getting the refreshing rain from Ito Ogawa’s wonderful book.
Simple and Small Can Lead to Better
Tsubaki Stationery Store made me think about how simple things can become when we stop ignoring the basic truth.
You see, this spring I have been thinking a lot about how I could make better paintings. It has felt like a complicated question. Just breaking down what “better” means takes time. The choices feel big, as if I were standing at a highway junction in the middle of this constantly changing, chaotic world.
But Ito Ogawa’s book brought me back to a small street. A series of small decisions that naturally follow each other can overcome grand choices. At its best, that is exactly what drawing is about, too. One thing leads to another, and only small adjustments are needed to take the drawing to the next level.
Tiny Things in Practice
Instead of this week’s small drawing project, I was actually planning to show you a much bigger one – a painting called Ikigai. I have been working on it for a couple of months now. But after listening to the first few chapters of the book, I realized that the painting isn’t finished yet. The book helped me to see small fixes that would make the painting “better.”
Now, Ikigai needs to dry before I photograph it. You will see it in a week or two.
But in the meantime, let’s keep drawing!
Artistic Line Drawing – What Do You Think About This Course Idea?
To me, all visual art begins with drawing. When you want to get to know yourself, draw! When you want to develop as an artist—say, as a painter—draw! To draw is to think. Make your lines come alive, and gradually, a whole new world will emerge, even on a small piece of paper. That’s what artistic line drawing is about.
Black drawing pen and colored pencils.
Past and Present Drawing Courses
In most of my courses, drawing plays some role. Free and artistic line drawing is especially close to my heart. In the past, I have taught two courses on the subject: Inspirational Drawing and Inspirational Drawing 2.0. These are already retired. Of my current courses, Mystical Minis comes closest to these.
Passion For Teaching Artistic Line Drawing
For some time, I have wanted to offer more help with line drawing. Not just how to draw, but also how to alter the process to take it in a more artistic direction. By “artistic,” I mean moving beyond the conventional and creating something that is both personal and at least partly abstract. I want to speak especially to those of you who want to create freely and push your boundaries—both in how you think and how you create.
Watercolors and colored pencils.
At first, I thought the material I had gathered over the past few months would be just for these blog posts. But as I have started to unpack the topics, I find myself wanting to share more than what fits into a single post—to show things in both theory and practice. So, I’ve started developing a new course, under the working title Artistic Drawing.
Artistic Line Drawing – Course Themes
Here are the themes I have selected for the upcoming course:
- Ways to Start a Drawing: I want to help you explore how you begin. You can approach your drawing like an architect, building a clear structure first—or like a gardener, letting everything grow from a single seed.
- Letting Go: If drawing does not make sense and feels directionless, letting go can be difficult. I want to give tips on how to feel free and draw anything without too much inner resistance.
- Interaction: I want to help you notice the possibilities of interaction in the creative process. This is about both how you speak to yourself and how you work with drawing. For example, a line you draw can invite another line to join the conversation.
- The Scale of Shapes: An impressionist draws in a pixel-like manner, placing tiny dots one after another. An expressionist creates larger, vector-like shapes. I want to help you use both approaches and find the combination you enjoy most.
- Presence: At its best, your drawing radiates presence. I want to help you become like a singer who doesn’t just go through the notes, but pours their whole soul out to the audience.
- Clarity: You can begin a drawing with plenty of elements, but towards the end, it is worth striving for clarity. I want to help you discover a minimalism that is not based on scarcity, but on the ability to pick the essential.
- Sense of Style: I want to help you find the things you want to add to your drawings, and the ones you want to get rid of. It is not just about developing a style, but also about developing your sense of style.
Which of these themes interests you the most? What else do you hope to be included in the course?