Develop Your Art Style Without Forcing
felt that the importance of this topic could not be expressed well enough in the written text. This is also a very important issue for me in my own development as an artist. It is like a big onion with a lot to peel.
Not Everything But Essential Stuff
When I was making the video, I kept thinking that it doesn’t express everything. That I should also talk about deeper levels of imagination and expression. And it also bothered me a bit to say in the video that the subject is not important and ask you to just focus on growing your visual vocabulary. But I don’t mean that what you express wouldn’t be important. I mean that when the content is taken to a generic level, for example, whether you should be painting landscapes or portraits, it’s superficial.
So I dare to publish a video that doesn’t express everything about making art, because it’s probably more useful when it offers a more limited view. The video dives into visual vocabulary, because in my opinion it is the solution to more issues than anything else related to making art. Here too, I emphasize the “in my opinion,” because there are of course many different ways to approach art making.
Develop Your Art Style Without Forcing – Watch the Video!
I personally believe that in art, being a creator makes a person visionary. Although art is also a work of the mind, the mind expands by creating, just as language skills grow through speaking. I am a pretty fast speaker by nature and it has been quite a task for me to get my English to a level where I can speak at a reasonably natural speed and fluently. When I notice grammatical errors while editing videos, I remind myself of the same importance of doing. Even though we are not perfect, let’s keep creating and always moving forward!
Summer Sale!
Ready to grow your visual vocabulary? Remember the annual summer sale! All classes are 20% off.
The sale ends on July 20, 2025, at midnight PDT. >> Buy Now!
Filling an Art Journal
One of my projects this summer is to fill one of my art journals – Dylusions Creative Journal Square. I hope that these pics from my current in-progress journal, inspire you to start filling your art journal!
Reaching Saturation Point in Filling Art Journal
I think art journals have a saturation point. When most of the pages are full, you have to give the book a little more attention than usual. This journal was started in 2020, and I have filled it here and there over the years.
One spread can have things done in many different years. So the book is full of temporal layers, and I think they make the best art journal.
and finally added a zebra made in the style of Animal Inkdom.
Magical Inkdom also has fun projects for these kind of small drawings.
Practicing in an Art Journal
My courses appear a lot in my art journal, because I often practice on the pages or later glue pictures I made for the courses into it. I hope my course participants do the same!
and then added some more painted petals in acrylic.
Journaled “Sweet” with watercolors.
Part of being an artist is to be happy with your own development, and also to be interested in what you have done before.
This and That Will Magically Come Together
When my art journal is full, I will make a video of it, where I go through it and talk about each spread. I also know that when the journal is finished, the flow of the spreads feels much more coherent than when I was filling them.
In the style of Freely Grown.
One thing that applies to all art journals, sketchbooks, and notebooks is that they are most beautiful when full. When you purchase one, it looks too beautiful to fill, but once you hold a full one, it feels much more valuable. I am looking forward to that!
Summer Sale!
Ready to start filling your art journal? Remember the annual summer sale! All classes are 20% off.
The sale ends on July 20, 2025, at midnight PDT. >> Buy Now!
Summer Sale Begins!
It’s time for the annual summer sale! All classes are 20% off.
The sale ends on July 20, at midnight PDT. >> Buy Now!
Painting a Mystery
This week is about painting a mystery and entering another world through art-making. My paintings are in an art journal and made with a loose touch.
It All Started from a Withering Bouquet
“The Midsummer bouquet has withered. I have to throw it in the trash,” I said. “But the setting is just like those old masters’ paintings,” my husband replied unexpectedly. And so I remembered this once again.
Once Upon a Time
Once upon a time, there was
and there still is a world that you can get to from anywhere.
At first, it’s dark, but you can hear a woman reading a letter to someone.
You hear a clock ticking backwards, generating more time.
Then you know that it’s time to take a brush in your hand.
Squeeze the handle firmly and hear the trees moaning as their trunks slowly sink to the ground.
First, it feels silly to paint because there’s nothing to see.
But the darkness gradually disappears, and you realize that you are not alone.
Those strange creatures are all familiar to each other and, in a strange way, to you too.
In this world, everything has been mixed up.
You are the wind that shook the flower, and in blowing the petals back, you lost your soul to it.
You are the chair for which the imagination built a room to rest.
In this world, everything is unfinished. But if you are willing to hear and feel instead of only seeing what’s expected, everything is ready enough.
Painting a Mystery – Background Story
The idea of this blog post came from that short conversation with my husband. Then I had to take a photo of the bouquet and make it in the style of old masters.
After that, I remembered taking a photo of a painting called “Woman Reading and a Man Seated at a Table” at the exhibition of the H’Art Museum in Amsterdam. The painting is by Frans van Mieris from 1676.
While browsing my image archive, I was drawn by another photo, taken in the same trip to Amsterdam. It was a decorative mantel clock from 1782 in the Rijksmuseum.
The clock took my thoughts to a more recent visit in Porvoo, Finland, where my husband and I went to see Johan Ludvig Runeberg‘s home. The lovely interior was from the 1860s, and there was a big painting that I really liked. I took a photo, but haven’t succeeded in finding out who painted it.
After gathering the photos, I picked up my art journal (Dylusions Creative Journal Square) and started painting. I didn’t copy the photos, but let them soak in freely. I was just inspired by the atmosphere they evoked in me.
Hopefully this blog post inspires you to paint freely without strict plans and definitions. Painting a mystery is both fun and addicting – I am already eager to create more!