Expressing Inner Storms by Painting
This post is dedicated to all who have lost their creative inspiration during these challenging times when outer storms cause inner storms too.
I have always loved art that uplifts and is more on the bright side of fantasy than in the darkness. I have defined myself as an artist who does not express agony or suffering or bring out what’s wrong in society. My art has based on the possibilities of imagination. It’s about the richness of the inner world. “Spiritual freedom” has been my word.
But the longer I have painted, the more courageous I have become. How flowery do my paintings have to be? To free up my art and to free up my thinking as well, I have begun to accept all kinds of shapes, colors, and emotions. The same flowers that bloom in my watercolor pieces become little monsters when I paint more freely in oil. It’s like there’s a new world under the inner world I only used to know.
Painting Inner Storms
At the end of January, I started a new big painting. It had dark colors, but I intended to brighten it. “When the time is right, I will make it more cheerful,” I promised to myself. Weeks went by, and it always felt like I had something more important to do. I didn’t have the energy, or I had too much energy. The more I postponed the finishing, the moody I became. “This pandemic gets to my nerves,” I said to my husband.
But when my spirit got more and more low, I had to do something. One night I picked paints and brushes, abandoned all the happy stuff I was creating and continued the painting. The brushes felt heavy at first. The paint tubes were like stones. But then I remembered the magic words: “Päivi, you can paint!” This confidence, even if it always feels false first, energizes my strokes and thoughts. The painting begins to speak to me, and my responses become more and more natural.
This Too Shall Pass
“What are you painting, Päivi,” I heard my inner critic saying after a while. “The piece is still very dark.” My immediate answer was: “Yes, it’s dark, but this too shall pass.” At that moment, I knew the name of the painting and why it should not be forced to look more cheerful. Inner storms can be as beautiful as the happy moments and little monsters as clever as any flower.
When I woke up the following morning, my mind was calm and still. And when I look at the painting, it gives me hope no matter how stormy and gloomy it seems.
Here are some detail pics.
Here’s the whole painting again.
Sometimes the lack of inspiration is a sign of not letting out what needs do so.
Have a creative Easter!
P.S. My abstract painting class Floral Freedom is now available as a self-study. Watch the video below!
My free painting style is based on Paul Klee’s and Wassily Kandinsky’s timeless teachings presented in this class. >> Buy here!
Create for the Inner Child – Painting and Drawing on Scraps of Paper
This week I have a new free video for you! It’s about using small paper scraps for playing and dreaming, but it also goes deeper. I hope you’ll enjoy it!
Whether you want to play, be “on the bridge” or paint freely, welcome to my online classes!
Building and Breaking – Revealing Artistic Potential
This week, I talk about the hidden potential behind artworks and how we can reveal that by not only building but also breaking.
Modern Maximalist
I have just designed a collection of surface patterns called Modern Maximalist. It’s drawn digitally in Adobe Illustrator and more modern than my work usually is. However, I love modern, especially the 1960s and 1970s styles. I was born at the end of the 1960s, live in a house built in the same era, and my love for retro has been too hidden in my art. But still, I didn’t want to design the collection based only on the images of others, but to build a bridge from my art to design. So, most of the motifs were based on this watercolor painting that I made a couple of weeks ago!
More Artistic Potential by Building and Breaking
Often when we create art, we build. We communicate the big picture and compose bits and pieces so that they work together. We get happy accidents (and sometimes some not-so-happy ones) and aim to make an image where the overall atmosphere takes over the details.
But to reveal more, we also need to break. Then the romantic flower that was painted to represent a dreamer, becomes a more stylish and symbolic figure.
Yellow flowers and all the yellow washes can be more geometric when they are away from the big picture.
The juicyness of the fruits and other decorative details can be reorganized.
Picking Ideas from Other Images
We can also add more fuel, and break and pick from other images. This design called “List Maxima” uses motifs from the painting, but also the idea of a list that came from playing with the name of the collection, and fashion pictures that showed puffy and full dresses of the maximalist style.
By breaking and picking, we also develop our ability to curate – to see which inspiration suits what we have already done. It’s an essential part of a style-development and and growing artistic vision.
I saw a pleated skirt on Prince Charles’s wife Camilla Parker-Bowles, not a maximalist style at all, but wonderfully modern so I broke and picked the image and got creative from that.
Artists often say to me: “I need to focus!” But by focusing on narrowing, we non-creatively force ourselves to do one thing. By breaking and picking, we can curate all kinds of inspiration and be creative so that it grows our artistic vision.
Revealing the Artistic Potential
No matter where you are in your artistic journey, your art benefits from the idea of building and breaking. Build to go deeper into the experience and break to reveal more ideas and potential! In practice, building often means painting, and breaking is often connected to drawing – even if, of course, you can use any techniques that suit you.
What was first a watercolor painting, could now be a quilt!
Building and breaking can alternate endlessly when we combine new ideas and results with old ones.
Here I am breaking and picking to create something new into my art journal.
Here’s what I built by cutting and glueing new prints and old hand-decorated papers.
And I couldn’t resist checking if this could work as a repeat too!
I hope you found this post about building and breaking inspiring!
Need help for finding your artistic potential and building artistic vision? Sign up for my coaching program called Artistic Vision!
Vision Who You Want to Be as an Artist!
If you are a long-time follower, you know that I have run a coaching program called The Exploring Artist. It’s been on a break, but now I have something new for you. It has just taken some time to get developed.
You see, when we first start creating, it all feels like a really quick thing. One little drawing doesn’t take so much time, and if it doesn’t quite hit home, it’s always exciting to start a new one. Only a matter of practice, right?
Except it’s not.
The more you create, the wider the world of art becomes. It’s like you have first had a small puddle, then followed a stream, managed to find a river, drifted to a lake, and suddenly you are in the middle of a big ocean feeling smaller than ever.
There are so many flows, and to move forward, you should pick one, and preferably one that leads you where you want. At least that’s what business people say, they only take the safe routes and do fine!
Except it’s terribly difficult for artists.
When you are an artist, you are also an adventurer. The unseen is part of art. That’s why we often fail when we try to set a routine or stick with one boring thing.
For six years, I have created an annual vision that guides what I do. Because I come from the business world, I first started with the way businesses create their vision. Then I joined a business coaching program to make sure I was doing it in the right way. Slowly, year by year, I have moved away from how business visions are made.
When you create art, it’s not the same as working in a factory or selling pens. Art is personal, and it also has its own way.
When I call my inner artist to build an annual vision with me, I must be extremely cautious and gentle because she is not happy with the interruption. She would only like to create. “The next piece will be better,” she assures me, “I just need more time for creating.”
But we all know that time is limited and that quantity doesn’t always replace quality. It’s just this life that we have.
“Adult talk,” my inner artist sighs.
When I look at my inner artist, I see a child with all the wisdom built in her. There is no artistic vision if it lacks that spontaneous wisdom.
So, my annual challenge has been to give enough space to that child and that wisdom. Not to try to fit everything into one ship, but to see that there are several routes in the ocean of art, some being steps to the unknown. It’s exciting!
We are then no longer swimming alone in a big ocean, trying to find and follow another swimmer, feeling distracted by every wave and exhausted after staring one point at the horizon for too long.
My artistic vision is focused, and then it’s not. Focusing and narrowing down are not happy words for my inner artist, so I try not to use them. If you look at my classes, illustrations, designs, abstract art, there are several styles and techniques.
And then there’s YOU. An artist who likes to imagine, who gardens and crafts, who sees magic in life’s little things.
You who likes to play and draw in, for example, Animal Inkdom and Magical Inkdom.
You who yearns beauty and watercolors and, for example, Floral Fantasies.
There’s also you who wants to dive deeper and move forward, not only create but also vision. Maybe only you (or this side in you) reads this post from beginning to end?
For you, I have a new program called Artistic Vision!
>> See more!