Create a Chapter Cover for the New Year!
This week, we are creating a chapter cover for our art journals that marks the new year.
When I think about the new year, there are lots of uncertainties that first come to my mind. What will happen in the world, what will happen in my life, and what will happen in my art? I can only present educated guesses about the threats and possibilities. This kind of wondering makes me feel passive, and it’s not very uplifting, so I rather pick up my pencils and start drawing.
Draw a Chapter Cover for a Journal!
As I told you in the recent video blog post, I got the idea of making a chapter cover in the colored pencil journal, marking where the new year begins. So all I had to do was to add the numbers on the next spread and then color a bit on them and around them. This project was a lot of fun, and I highly recommend it!
Play with Numbers!
Just as the world is not only based on facts, the numbers are not just numbers either. Their shapes don’t entirely define them. The number “2” can be a kneeling woman with stockings and a skirt, or a flower that bends down – or both! The number “0” can be a mirror that not only reflects the surroundings but open ups a new scenery. Isn’t that what we want to see in the new year – not only experience the chronologically bypassing days but also make them take our minds to a new place? Stairs that are ahead can lead to nowhere or everywhere, and the fingers that hold a treasure can, at the same time, be the leaves of a plant.
The way we can combine everyday life and fantasy creates joy and hope, and uncertainties feel not only exciting but necessary.
Numbers as Fashion Models
Every time I build a course, I learn something new myself too. But this time, with Doll World, I feel that there’s a lot that comes in the shape of a person.
When I am more familiar with drawing human figures, I seem to be better able to see those everywhere, for example, in numbers too. And it often seems to come to my mind that I can dress up a shape and, that way, make it more imaginative and fun.
Year of Art
The year 2022 has been a year of art for me. I acknowledge that eight recent years have been like that in one way or another when I have been a full-time artist. But this year, it felt like Art came out of the cellar and opened her heart. And when asking what to do next, she usually said: “Leave me alone,” but this year, the answer was softer, sending a question back to me: “Tell me what you want to see!” Art, who was an animal that used to escape and hide, became a pet, even a caressing spirit. She wanted to stick around and show how something little can grow to become enough – how I can be enough.
It all felt like a gift even if I had suffered for years by trying to tame Art’s spirit, trying to understand her, trying to stick around even if she would only live in a dark cellar. And now, when I play with the pencils, it doesn’t feel like I do that without her, but with her,
even if I am not painting.
When we spend time together with Art and together as artists too, every year is different. We don’t stay the same, but our foundation becomes more similar. And the older we get, the more we inspire each other, and our art is like a group of fairies that gently fly around us. At least, that’s what I hope for the upcoming year.
Time will tell how this journal continues!
Doll World – Join Us!
Come to draw adorable dolls and their dresses with me!
Doll World begins on Jan 1st. >> Sign up Now!
Expressing Winter Memories
This week, I have a new winter-themed painting, and we talk about the many approaches for expressing winter and memories of any season.
Here’s my newest painting called Winter Night’s Poem. This time, the Finnish name is much more beautiful: Talviyön runoelma. I wanted to give the painting a poetic name – like Shakespeare’s play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Kesäyön unelma” but something more wintery. So I come up with the Finnish name, which sounds so romantic (if you know Finnish that is!), and then translated it to English as accurately as possible.
I painted this piece for the local artist association’s winter-themed art exhibition. Winter sceneries aren’t really my thing, but I wanted to take the challenge. I started by exploring Japanese woodblock prints and made a small colored pencil study that is more like a fall scenery, but that has similar abstract elements than in the final painting.
I talked more about this colored pencil piece in October’s video blog post.
Winter Memories
I found it challenging to get emotionally connected with the theme. As Finn, I do know winters. They are cold and dark, and there’s not much that I enjoy about them. As a child, I lived further north, and winters were even colder and darker. Here’s a picture of me in 1974 when I was 5 years old.
However, I have one special winter memory. Earlier this year, in one of the weekly emails, I wrote about Avicii‘s music and how it brings the memory to my mind:
When I hear A Sky Full of Stars, I am a little girl on a cold Tuesday evening in Eastern Finland. After participating in an icon painting group, I walked down the snowy hill looking up. The starry sky was blue-black, I realized. Not black like for those who glance carelessly or blue like for those whose skies were always blue. Working with colors had made the world look more beautiful.
I also remember getting an idea for a poem that I later wrote down. It was something about the starry sky. And there was a melody too. The sight, the words, and the sounds all formed this beautiful winter memory. And isn’t it so that memories are full of sensations of all kinds? Why should we then paint only what we see?
But then I heard myself saying: “Paivi, remember that it’s a winter-themed exhibition. It has to look like winter!”
How Does Winter Look Like?
In 2013, I made this hand-drawn collage for Christmas cards. It has a decorative approach to winter. Snow, hearts, berries, pastel colors – they all form a light-hearted and entertaining take on winter.
An even more obvious choice would be to paint a realistic winter scenery with snow, trees, and such. Here’s a watercolor painting from 2018:
My idea was to paint both fall and winter into the same piece. This is a class project from Watercolor Journey where we paint all kinds of sceneries in watercolor.
Winter in a Poem
But the more I thought about winter, the more connection I felt with the abstract side of it. I didn’t want to just paint an empty-looking scenery in black and white. I wanted the lights and darks to have a rhythm.
My favorite poet Eeva-Liisa Manner has a winter poem that I have read hundreds of times because it was in a little poem book my family had. For a small child, the content felt strange, but the more I read it and the more I grew, I fell in love with its rhythm. The poem doesn’t rhyme, it’s free verse, very modern. But still, when I read it, I feel the rhythm, and when it ends, it feels like you have listened to a song, not read a poem. The words have been thrown into the air, carelessly, and yet, it feels like everything has a purpose. It’s like every word would have fought to get into to poem, and after accepted, they are ready to fly beautifully, each on their turn, and then to get mixed up even more elegantly in the reader’s mind.
Maybe you too, love poetry and have experienced the same. The words glow like jewels and have a long effect even if the time spend on the reading, is just a minute or two. Isn’t that what we aim for in visual art too?
Wonders of a Winter Night
More than thinking about realistic scenery, I approached the painting with a poetic mindset. I imagined the sounds and rhythm of a winter night and visualized those. I trusted that the result will look wintery even if the painting is abstract.
I also thought about how things move, and one of my favorite details is the curvy black wind that blows snow.
Carelessly painted ice-like objects are on the top, and the sound of ice is visualized below them.
Probably the childhood memory of the winter night has stayed with me because it’s a little bit scary to walk alone in the cold and in the dark, under a few street lights only.
The color scheme was one of the challenges. I didn’t want the painting to look off-puttingly cold. Instead of only using blue and white, I brought a wide variety of tones but so that most of them are quite dark or pale.
Fortunately, winter is not here yet, but usually, we have the first snow in November. So the garden scenery will change soon!
I hope this blog post inspired you to express winter or any season that you have fond memories of!
Turning Memories into Paintings
This week, I talk about memories and art-making and how the connection between them can be loose but still important.
With this new painting, I want to talk about …
Books and Memories
My parents never visited another country, and as a child, I never traveled abroad. My first foreign trip was to England when I was 21 years old.
So when I think about my childhood, the first feeling that comes to mind is boredom. “Äiti, mitä mie tekisin – Mother, what could I do next?” I often asked. But my mother’s suggestions were never inspiring, and if my friends weren’t around, I usually chose to walk to the local library so that I could see the world.
My body was local, but my mind was international. Maybe it’s because our family had the book Tuhannen ja yhden yön satuja – One Thousand and One Nights, and I found it fascinatingly exotic at a very early age.
So the local library became my globe. As soon as I opened the door, I glanced at England, to the bookshelf where Jane Austen‘s novels were in a row. Then I went to Africa and Asia by browsing big encyclopedias of animals, searching for big cats. I traveled to Egypt when admiring the treasures of the pyramids. I spent hours in France and Italy, contemplating whether I liked impressionism or expressionism more. Pictures of folk dresses took me to the east, across the border. I traveled west over the sea to meet my friends Uudenkuun Emilia – Emily of the New Moon, Laura Ingalls, or Vihervaaran Anna – Anne of Green Gables. And I also spent quite a lot of time in a fictional American town through Spoonriver Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters.
When my fingers danced on the spines of the books, my mind contemplated where to go next. And always, I was able to find a place more pleasant than the small town in Eastern Finland.
Painting Freely, Inspired by Memories
This freedom of mind still inspires me. In fact, this blog is one channel to reach you who lives far away. Despite the distance, you may have read the same books, yet our memories are unique. The common stories and pictures get mixed with personal experiences and views.
No matter how current we want to be, memories always play some role in our art too. When painting freely, it’s not as literal as illustrating a story but more about the atmosphere and associations that a traveling brush can evoke.
Like a child, we can get enthusiastic about very little – about a spot or a simple idea and then expand our thoughts, shapes, and colors.
I believe that the more we paint, the more we remember who we naturally are.
My Artist’s Journey
My artist’s journey has been full of practice. A lot of it has been that I have developed a class of my recent revelations and then moved forward to find more. So, it’s been a very straightforward route that way, and I am oddly relieved that it has brought me where I am now, being able to use a brush as my pen and paint stories that go beyond words.
Right now, it doesn’t feel right to develop a new class about painting, especially when I already have the master class Floral Freedom.
However, with the current series of paintings, I have got new ideas for drawing. A big part of my painting skills and imagination have come from drawing practices, and I love the quickness and playfulness that pens and pencils enable. So stay tuned!
Tiger’s Eye – Memories into Painting
I painted this piece, Tiikerinsilmä – Tiger’s Eye, like it would be a good book, taking me to unexpected places. Just like a child sees the world in a library, as an artist, I try to stretch my memories and imagination so that I don’t get stuck in the mundane.
What kind of memories and hopes came to your mind when reading this post? Did you, too, read One Thousand and One Nights, for example?
Adventurous Art is Like an Action Movie
This week, I show you my newest painting and talk about the adventurous side of art.
I am not a big fan of action movies. I love their beginnings when the sun shines, and everything is fine but leave the sofa when something terrible happens. Then things get out of control, cars get faster than they should be, people lose their relaxed look, and the life that appeared so organized first falls apart. Some fly up towards the darkness while others fall down. Nothing is like it should be. Everything requires movement and action in that disturbed world.
However, when I paint, I always end up in an action movie. So for me, a painting can only start by facing fears. It’s like carefully opening the curtain and trying to adjust the mind to tolerate the rough surroundings first, then find the beauty and spirit in them.
Facing the Fears – Starting a Painting
For years I searched for my artistic voice from things I loved. But ironically, I found my tone in the things that feel appalling. So, like a young man who sits down and picks the next action movie from Netflix, I go to my studio, fill the palette and hear the opening notes.
Unlike the man, I have never wanted to be an action hero, and still, I sail against the storm with only a few brushes as my companion. Before the first high point of the movie, the man thinks he should do something different, clean the dishes, or read a good book. And similarly, I question if this profession of mine is sensible at all. After all, it’s only the paint that I maneuver when the others keep the world going.
But then, like the man, I get immersed in the adventure. He is no longer a young bloke without the skills of an action hero, and similarly, I am no longer a middle-aged woman. There’s this dangerous jungle, and we are on a mission to clear the mess and make justice.
Telling the Story Under the Surface
Like in an action movie, the violent and cold setting hides another layer – vulnerability. The story behind an action hero is always heart-breaking. He has lost or left a loved one or protects someone he values.
At best, the painting is not only full of action but brings up what’s behind the sharp strokes.
Dealing with Distractions
Just when the movie reaches the climax, something mundane happens.
The young man’s phone rings, the washing machine peeps, or the dog wants to go out. “Just when everything began to unfold!” I shout with him.
But sooner or later, we return to the movie, enjoy the freedom, and finally reach the happy ending. When the adventure is over, our minds are a bit empty, but that is what action movies do. They take you to another place and reset your mind.
Creating Adventurous Art is About Producing Too
Being a painter is still a little different. Instead of only passively watching, you are also actively creating. While enjoying the freedom, you also produce it. You design the environment, act on all the roles, and direct the plot. It takes time to learn all that.
However, I feel that the best adventures are revealed by painting.
When flowers can then be the actors, not just silent models, a flower painting is far from boring.
What do you think? What does adventurous art mean to you?