Dancing with Imagination – Mermaid Illustration
The reason why I have been practising by drawing millions of circles, again and again, is this: I want to express myself through illustration. I want to put my imagination into work and make my toughts and dreams visible.
And I have more dreams. You might remember that I painted icons when I was a child. It led me to dream about painting new kind of icons: images that are not connected to any particular religion but which have the similar uplifting effect.
Now I have understood that I want to dance with the imagination, go beyond, not only religion, but also reality. I want to illustrate imaginitive stories, fairy tales, and use them to uplift myself and hopefully others too.
I have found this through art journaling. I have made many ugly pages before I have realized: I can take any direction I want with my art, with my thinking.
I want to cherish the power of imagination and welcome you to do so too!
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Finding Your Identity
I am often unable to put my thoughts into words before I see them as a visual image. When creating this art journal page spread I had a strong feeling, a specific set of colors and a visual sketch in my mind. When I transfered the image to paper it became easier to catch the words that I was chasing: The Glass Gate.
Finding what you are and what makes you happy is like traveling in the fog. You see things that you are drawn to. Often they do not seem to make sense. Once you spend enough time for searching it becomes more and more clear that all those things do have a connection. There’s something what you’ve made for. You only have to find this glass gate, standing in the fog. You pass by it, you are so close, you just don’t know it. Once you see it, it’s all so obvious. The gate is huge and the pilars are shining. You can walk through and it’s not a big task at all.
I strongly believe in this. By listening yourself and analyzing things around you, you will find your own style, your own mission and your true identity. It might be a journey that takes the whole life but once you are on a right track it feels so good.
For me one mystery has been the watercolor paper. I have always loved it but never really cared for painting watercolor landscapes or still lives. Now, when I began to used it as the foundation of my art journaling, I feel more free than ever when creating images. A very small little detail, not even very philosophical, but it has made a big difference for me.
Realistic Composition from Photos
I am fascinated by photographs. I take a lot of photos and examine composition in them. I find it interesting that some objects show only partly in the photos. This little detail gives realistic look for illustrations too.
Half Cut Elements, Fuzzy Background
As you can guess I have more peonies than roses in my garden but in greeting cards, I have to admit, roses look great. In this card, I applied my photographic studies. It includes not only half cut elements but also the fuzzy background to add dimension and depth. To create an imaginary world that looks like it really exists – that’s my dream!
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Combining Acrylics with Watercolors in Art Journaling
This summer has been sunny and warm in Finland. It has been great to spend time outdoors, gardening! Our garden is still work in progress. I think about it constantly. And it shows here in this art journal page, as well as the hot summer days!
I love the combination of acrylics and watercolors. They make a great background. Start with the acrylics, leave some unpainted areas and the add watercolor to them.
I continued by adding some handdrawn papers and wrote: “For someone this would be only a house and a garden but for us it’s the whole world.”
Coming up in Espoo, Finland: art journaling courses by Peony and Parakeet (in Finnish). The first evening (19th September) is about creating pages about landscapes and places!