Oil Pastels and Spicing Up Your Art
This week, I show you how to use oil pastels with other art supplies. I also talk about spicing up your art, especially by choosing subjects that are so personal that they make you tremble a bit!
Early Memories of Oil Pastels
Making art can be compared to cooking. Sometimes the food tastes good because the ingredients and the way are processed go well together. That was how my mother cooked. Her food was delicious because it was fresh and made with care. Even if our family wasn’t wealthy, the time that she put on cooking, made the meals worth remembering. I still don’t know how she was able to include the thick layer of blueberries into her pie. When there was a local art competition for children with the theme “home,” it’s no wonder that this is what I drew.
I remember struggling with the oil pastels, definitely not artist’s quality, but the drawing won the first prize. It was a little unpleasant that the organizer has written the prize in the drawing, but now it just adds a nostalgic flair to it.
My mother wanted her children to step away from cooking and caring for the home. She wanted me to get a good education and declined to teach me how to cook. I grew to question what women and men are supposed to do and felt rebellious in that respect. As a result, I went to study engineering and worked in a field that had mostly men.
QUESTION: What memories do oil pastels or other early art supplies bring to your mind?
Sennelier Oil Pastels – First Experiment
I bought a small set of Sennelier oil pastels for mixed media art. I didn’t want to spend money on a bigger set until seeing if I like them or not. My first experiment was to draw a portrait on a small sketchbook.
My mother used two spices mostly: salt and pepper. When creating art, salt and pepper are the lightness and the darkness of colors. You need both, but not too much. As beginners, we often think that we don’t need any salt and pepper. That the fresh ingredients – bright colors – will do the trick. But you need some paler and darker colors, not too much, but enough to harmonize a busy painting.
For the first experiment, I thought that making a basic portrait with salt and pepper would be enough. But creating just a pretty face often lacks expression, so I added a hand because oil pastels and fingers go together. No matter how hard I tried to use a palette knife for blending, I ended up enjoying the waxy feel of oil pastels on the fingertips.
The first experiment made me remember why I had tossed away my old oil pastel set over 10 years ago. Oil pastels are messy! Later in the evening, I made a big mistake of not wiping the table carefully and then placing my cross-stitch projects on the very same tabletop. I had to wash oil pastel marks from the fabrics, and that was very upsetting!
Woman’s World – Oil Pastels with Graphite Pencils
I wasn’t ready to give up oil pastels but headed for the new experiment the next day. This time my idea was to use a sponge for blending and combine oil pastels with graphite pencils. They have called me more and more these days. Maybe it’s because my friend Eeva Nikunen uses graphite a lot and I have one of her drawings on the wall. I am not so much into using graphite alone, but I love using it with watercolors, so why not try it with oil pastels as well!
Making of this sketchbook page both excited and scared me. It went deeper than the first page and expressed thoughts that I don’t usually reveal to the public. I support women becoming equal with men, and often think even more strongly: it’s now the time of the history when we women can take power. I believe that it will liberate men too. Many young women say that they are equal already, but my experiences haven’t been quite like that. And when thinking back to the past, even when narrowing the focus only to the field of art, women have been neglected for centuries. So it can be woman’s world now if you ask me.
When creating this piece, I realized how much I had been used salt and pepper only: making images that are aesthetically pleasing, but that could be spiced up with the message.
QUESTION: What thoughts do you have that you haven’t expressed in your art?
When you think about “what to put in the background” next time, maybe perfect the face a little less and spend more time with a message no matter “what others think.”
Girl Power – Oil Pastels with Acrylic Paints
When I processed the theme – the power of women – further, I wanted to send encouragement to today’s young girls. Most girls that I have met are very smart but also polite and gentle. I wanted to express my appreciation for them.
This time, I wanted to try acrylic paints with oil pastels, and I also had a perfect reference image in mind. It was a miniature portrait of Europa Anguissola painted by her sister Lucia Anguissola. There were six sisters who all became painters in the Renessaince age, but only one of them, Sofonisba, continued her career. I saw the portrait of Europa a couple of years ago, and it’s sweet and amazingly detailed for a small painting.
This project was created in my Dylusions Creative Journal. Acrylics were my choice for the face, and I started very traditionally, making an underpainting with umber and white.
Again, I didn’t want this piece to be just about the face, so I added a hand too. Here you can see how far I worked with acrylic paint only.
Now to the oil pastels. After experimenting blending with a palette knife and a sponge, I gave up and used my fingers only. But I had a new weapon: baby wipes! They are very handy for removing paint both from the fingers and from the table top. After getting used to having a baby wipe in hand, the messiness of the media doesn’t bother anymore!
I love blending out the color when working with oil pastels. It feels enjoyable and natural. I am excited to try these techniques with oil paints as well.
Here’s one technique that I discovered: First, lay several colors carelessly on paper. It’s like throwing the ingredients into the pot!
Second, mix the colors with a finger – beautiful – not the finger but the art!
I also wanted to add some pencil strokes too. Loud and bold oil pastels look very appealing when they meet the quiet power of graphite drawing.
So this one is for young girls: “I wish you all the luck and all the power. Europa Anguissola abandoned painting when she got married, but you don’t have to. You can be anything, and we support you!”
Who do you want to send greetings through your art?
Free Like a Bird – Oil Pastels with Turpentine
The true test for the oil pastels: how do they work with abstract art and intuitive process. This time I used colored pencils and graphite as well.
In the middle of making this abstract piece, a new problem came up. I wanted to spread a thin layer of paint, and tone down some areas. I got the idea of thinning the pastel with the medium that I use for oil painting. The painting liquid has poppy oil, Dammar varnish, and turpentine. After googling, it seemed that turpentine could thin oil pastels. So I rubbed some color on a palette, added few drops of the painting liquid and started painting.
The liquid worked very well. Of course, the odor of turpentine can be unbearable for many. Working in small amounts, and keeping the lid closed reduces it a bit, though.
Here’s my finished piece: “Free Like a Bird.” It’s what I hope for everyone, regardless of the gender.
If you compare the images of this blog post, the abstract piece leaves more room for interpretations. Recently, I have felt more and more drawn into creating abstracts, and letting go of delivering a pre-chewed message. Cooking without a recipe can be much harder than you would first think. Making a vast selection of foods, learning to use pepper and salt, helps. But first and foremost, art is not just a matter of learning how to cook a meal. It’s also the matter of choosing what you want to serve to the world. And no matter how clumsy the execution, the subject can be the most significant spice.
The Exploring Artist Begins on Sept 10 – Sign Up Now!
The Exploring Artist is a 12-week group coaching program for artists, between Sept 10 – Nov 30, 2018. This coaching is for you who wants to get clear about your artistic passion and become more open about your art, for example, share your art in social media, blog about art, sell your originals and prints, teach classes, etc.
In The Exploring Artist, you will get coaching as a part of a small and tight-knit group. I will personally help you to put your passion into words and visual insights. We will work together to discover what you want to change in your art, where you want to move forward and how to do it. >> Sign up now!
Take Your Art to a Passionate Level
What Does “Passionate” Mean to You?
This week, I had a free live webinar of how to conquer the excuses and become more passionate about art. I asked what does “passionate” mean to you and then divided it into four categories. After that, I re-phrased five excuses so that you see them from a new perspective. It may sound theoretical, but you also get ideas of how to apply these things in practice as well. I hope you will enjoy watching the recording below!
Take Your Art to a Passionate Level – The Recording of the Webinar
The Exploring Artist Begins on Sept 10 – Sign Up Now!
The Exploring Artist is a 12-week group coaching program for artists, between Sept 10 – Nov 30, 2018. This coaching is for you who wants to get clear about your artistic passion and become more open about your art, for example, share your art in social media, blog about art, sell your originals and prints, teach classes, etc.
In The Exploring Artist, you will get coaching as a part of a small and tight-knit group. I will personally help you to put your passion into words and visual insights. We will work together to discover what you want to change in your art, where you want to move forward and how to do it.
The maximum number of the participants is 12,
and the early-bird sale ends on August 19 (midnight PST), so sign up now!
Daydreams about Art and Making Them Happen
This week I want to blog about the impact that art can have on our dreams. It connects all of us who love art. No matter if you are a hobbyist or a professional or something in between, you can use art as a tool for connecting with yourself. When images evoke words or vice versa, it’s especially powerful. Often when I create, I feel the need to write my thoughts during the process, or after the session. Many of the images don’t have journaling on them, but I write my thoughts in notebooks. In art journals, I often have one page for journaling and another one for words.
Express Your Daydreams with Images and Words!
I have always loved knitting and how the steady flow of stitches makes me calm down. When I started creating art again over ten years ago, my mentality for it was pretty similar. I wanted to create with my hands, and my short art sessions were my playtime.
But soon I realized that art has other dimensions than following a pattern has. Instead of calming down, art increased my restlessness. This restlessness was energy that opened up new perspectives. In 2012, I wrote (a loose translation from Finnish):
“Needles are my brushes.
A pen is my hook.
Moments are stitches.
Have you seen any ornaments?
– Yes, up in the sky!
The world is my canvas.
Colors are my heart.
Simple doodles made me re-think my approach to crafts, revealing new possibilities:
– Could I bring more art into my knitting?
– Is there something in my knitting that I could bring into my art?
– And then, is there something in all that that I could share with the world?
What could You bring to your art to get new inspiration and possibilities?
Art is Never Just About Art
I started running local workshops on making art journal pages. I knitted and sold unique drawstring pouches that were like canvases to me (later, I wrote a pattern book of these folk bags). I also attended some craft shows selling fabrics and cards that I had my doodles.
Here’s what I learned: Art is never just about art. Art embraces fields that have nothing to do with art. Art is inclusive rather than exclusive. It ties together rather than separates. When you are painting a portrait but suddenly come up with new ideas, incorporate the ideas into your portrait. When you feel totally out of focus, the answer is not to add more control, but to add more connections between all the things and every person that inspire you.
Art is never about someone else’s passion, but about digging deeper into your own. No matter how much you admire someone else’s work, it won’t ever be as satisfying than what you can discover by following your passion. That’s why my artist coaching program The Exploring Artist begins with finding your passion and then moves forward to growing your ideas and putting your dreams into action. >> Sign up here!
There are a limited number of seats, and the early-bird sale ends on Aug 19 midnight PST, so sign up soon!
Dreams into Action by Discovering Your Passion
In 2014, I wrote a blog post titled “I Dream to Create…” There I revealed my dreams about creating big pieces for the big audiences. I remember how silly, even a bit awkward, it felt to write all that out and then make images with Photoshop to visualize it all. “Go for it,” said many but I had no idea how.
However, there’s wisdom in our daydreams that we don’t often quite comprehend. Here’s how I see it:
– When your dream is just in your mind, the thoughts give you a momentary pleasure and relief.
– When your dream is visualized, the images give you a testbed: “Is this what I want?”
– When you accompany your vision with words, the words make you ponder: “How could I make this dream true?”
– When you find the passion behind the words and images, it feeds you to put the dreams into action.
The progress may first seem slow and often non-existent, but when you start creating in-line with your passion, the results will come. They are often something else than what you first dreamed but often better than what you could imagine back then.
My Story as a Passionate Artist
The carrying theme in my dreams was to have a big audience. Art had become something that I no longer wanted to create just for myself. Here’s what happened after the blog post:
a) I started working as a full-time artist creating art classes. In 2014, I visualized a room full of colors and patterns. Now I create and run online classes full of similar inspiration.
b) I started selling and licensing my art. I made the big quilt that I dreamed about just a year after, as a commission in 2015.
c) When the technology evolved, I started broadcasting live. I love running live broadcasts, and more feel closer to my dream than ever before because of it. I can spread the love for art to big audiences without leaving my home. I get the similar vibe than if my art would be presented in a big event. I could have never known that in 2014, and I had no other way to connect my art with an audience than to imagine the concert and seeing my art on a big screen.
Nowadays I run live sessions in my classes, and I also have free public webinars now and then. Sometimes the live sessions are for hundreds of people, and sometimes they are more private. My coaching program The Exploring Artist is geared for a small group, and the sessions are both personal and intimate. Then it’s about You as an artist and how You can make dreams come true. >> Sign up here!
Take Your Art to a Passionate Level – Free Webinar on August 16!
My next free live webinar is on Thursday, Aug 16th, 6 PM BST / 10 AM PDT.
You will get ideas about how to become more passionate and impactful as an artist, and this webinar works as a self-exploration too.
>> Reserve your spot here!
Recent News and a Sketchbook Tour Full of Ideas!
My short blogging break is over and to celebrate that I have a full sketchbook to show you!
The Last Page of the Sketchbook
This morning, there was one page in my big A3-sized sketchbook that wasn’t finished. It was a very ugly one! Even if I covered it with a layer of dark colors, it didn’t please my eye at all.
But then I got an idea to highlight just some of the elements and paint a young woman on it. At the same time, I had the opportunity to play with the ideas that I am gathering for the new class.
I am often fighting against time when I am creating. When I make videos for the classes, I have only 1-3 hours for each project. My principle is that class videos are for guidance and inspiration and nobody wants to watch me paint for a day or two. Even if I speed up most parts, I usually include so much background information and art theory that I have to limit the time that I spend with painting or drawing. And often for blog posts, I have the same couple of hours even if it’s a bit easier if I don’t record the process or try to build a pedagogical package. So when painting this one, I would have liked to continue for a longer time, but I kept telling myself that the sketchbook is not where you make a detailed painting! Anyway, it’s detailed enough to get the idea.
Foxes and Inspiration from Natural Science
During the summer, foxes seem to have appeared in my art. This one is just a quick graphite drawing, but it’s something that really speaks to me: making new creatures and celebrating the potential and diversity of nature.
Here’s another one with a fox:
This sketchbook page is inspired by the microscopic world, and even if it’s a loose portrait, it also has a fox ear!
I also have a tiny painting in progress that has a fox, but I will show that later in the fall.
Ready for a Sketchbook Tour? – Here We Go!
I have made a quick flip-through video of the full sketchbook. The sketchbook is from Pink Pig. There’s also a glance of the summer’s big project on the video – our Japanese garden!
Plans for the Fall
Here’s what will happen here at Peony and Parakeet during the fall – come along!
1) July-September: Watercolor Journey, you can still sign up, and if you love watercolors this really is the class to take! (When you sign up you will get immediate access to the material provided so far.)
2) Sept 10 – Nov 30: The Exploring Artist – a soul-searching coaching program for any artist who wants to get clear where to head next! There are only 12 seats available so sign up fast!
3) Oct-Dec: a new class with a working title “Portrait Revolution” as a part of my art community Bloom and Fly.
I hope that you have reserved some time for creating and will join me! And as always, the best way to stay up to date is to subscribe to my weekly emails!