Time to Change – From Teaching to Mentoring
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Loving Vincent and Purchasing Oil Paints
Yesterday, I opened the door of a local art supply store and headed to a specific shelf. On my way to the store, when walking on the narrow streets in the center of Helsinki, I felt it. The feeling that I got a year ago when I opened a tube of Mussini oil paint for the first time. I was attending an art class about old masters painting techniques, and we used the best oil paints I could imagine. Not that I could imagine so much because I had never used oil paints before. But I didn’t expect to experience that strange feeling. It contained both appreciation and excitement. The appreciation of color, and the excitement to learn more from it.
It was not that I would have been new to color. I had been painting with acrylic paints for a long time. When I was a teenager, I got them from my parents who thought that it was a perfect solution to me. No worrying about toxic painting fluids and still being able to paint with ease. The acrylic paints have developed a lot since that time, since the eighties. They have worked perfectly for my needs. I have found a good brand too. I really like Golden acrylics.
But now I was standing in the front of a vast collection of Mussini oil paint tubes. I picked the color chart and went through my choices one more time. For a whole year, I had been going through this in my mind: raw umber, zinc white, titanium white, yellow ochre and so on. It had been a mantra that changed a little bit every month. The paints are expensive, and I had to pick the colors carefully. One tube can cost more than 70 euros.
Plan for the Hand and Mind
After trying out the paints for the first time, I went to live in denial. Yes, I had painted the class pieces with oils because they were provided by the class. But the odorless and water-soluble acrylics felt much more suitable for me. After a while, my attitude changed a bit. I let myself dream about the oil paints. I visited the art supply store, touched the clean and shiny tubes, imagined getting just a bit of paint on a palette and make it last for as long as possible.
But dreaming and reality are surprisingly close. It’s difficult just to dream and not to do anything. So I made a plan that felt more like extortion. I had to get my floral painting class finished. I had to get several acrylic paintings finished. I had to figure out where and how I would store the paints. I had to get more information about the oil paints and the painting liquids.
I still had some finishing touches to do for my paintings in progress, but other than that I had followed the plan. So I started picking the tubes: raw umber, zinc white, titanium white, yellow ochre and so on. After selecting the colors, I went for the liquids: poppy oil, turpentine, and glossy dammar varnish.
When I left the store, my mind summarized the past year. Learning the old masters’ techniques had been essential for growing my technical skills. My art had become less imaginative, and more conventional.
I had a turning point in 2016 when I felt that my imagination and my hand didn’t function so well together anymore. My imagination wanted to proceed to new territories, but my hand couldn’t follow. But now when my hand is wiser, I can also challenge my mind more freely. Purchasing the oil paints were a reward for the persistence that I have had for the last twelve months. However, it wasn’t the only reward. I was also going to see the new movie Loving Vincent.
Loving Vincent – The Movie
The movie theatre was about 10 minutes walk away from the art supply store. When I arrived, there were several queues for the tickets. I joined one. While I was waiting for my turn, a young man suddenly came to me and asked: “Do you want a free ticket? I have two, and my friend wasn’t able to come.” I happily accepted it and thanked the man. “Is this a sign?”, I asked myself. “Is this the final sign that I should do this – go forward, open the tubes, start painting my newest, odd ideas?” I don’t believe in destiny so much, but at that moment, it felt like Vincent van Gogh was talking to me: “Do that, paint those ideas, just like I painted mine.”
I found the movie very emotional. Every time, I saw a familiar painting coming to live, tears came to my eyes. I realized that this movie had to be published now, not earlier. Vincent’s art has become so well-known during the past decades that it unifies us. Art that was odd for masses of the 19th century is understood by every one living the 21st century. It has become so familiar that it’s sometimes difficult to appreciate it. And still, we need to feel the togetherness that Vincent’s paintings can offer. They are like icons that make us stronger together.
Looking back helps us to move forward. As artists, we are all Vincent’s descendants. No matter how we paint, what technique we use, we know about modern art because of Vincent. We know more than the people of the 19th century, and that enables us to explore art to all kinds of directions.
Loving Vincent – Art from the Students
I want to celebrate Vincent by showing beautiful pieces made by my students. They are made from my class Selfie Fantasy that shows an adaptation of Vincent’s technique.
Christie Juhasz:
Terry Whyte:
Denise Dineen:
Gina Meadows:
Patricia Furey:
Stephanie Carney:
Have you seen the movie? What did you think about it?
Imagine Through Art – Buy 5 inspiring mini-courses! (including the Vincent-inspired one)
Inspiration from Art History – Watch the Video!
To celebrate the weekend flash sale, here’s a short video to brighten up your Sunday about inspiration and art history – the two things that can be easily put together!
Imagine Through Art – Buy 5 inspiring mini-courses!