Color the Emotion

Pick a few colors and create without stiffness.

Everyday Life as an Artist

This post is about my current everyday life.

I was going to tell you that my life has been very ordinary lately: I wake up in the morning, take the dogs for a walk and start painting. In the evening, I practice my ideas with the ProCreate app or knit and let my subconscious work on art-making.

Paivi Eerola and many paintings in progress. Read about her everyday life as a visual artist in Finland.
Paintings in progress. I always bring them from the little studio to our larger library room to dry.

But if my dead parents heard about this life, they would claim that it’s not ordinary at all!

Visiting Exhibitions

Last week, I went to the big exhibition presenting the work of Albert Edelfelt at the Ateneum art museum in Helsinki. When I sat down to listen to seminar presentations about his work, my parents came to mind. They would have liked to see the exhibition. And they would be amazed to learn that I went to see it because of my work. I wanted to examine Edelfelt’s brush strokes in real life because I’m currently painting works for the show called “Taiteilijat Edelfeltin tunnelmissa – Artists in the Mood of Edelfelt.”

At the Piano, oil on canvas, Albert Edelfelt, 1884.
At the Piano, oil on canvas, Albert Edelfelt, 1884.

It’s important to me to see what other artists have created. It makes me feel connected, discover new techniques, and it inspires me to do things a bit differently than what I see. I often ask: what’s lacking if this would be my work? In the painting above, I would have added abstract elements on the top, depicting music.

Pressures of Everyday Life

All work becomes mundane when you do it systematically and goal-oriented. There will be pressures that you didn’t even think about in your dreams. You have to remember to order the supplies in time, plan the sizes of the paintings, the subjects, and the schedule for each one, pick up dog hair from unfinished works at the time of shedding, clean the paint tubes, wash the brushes carefully, wonder if anyone likes the painting and worry if it’s finished or not. Making a series of paintings is always a financial investment.

Oil paint tubes. Artist's everyday life.

But when I am washing the floor from oil paint stains or doing something else mundane related to painting, I want to remember how wonderful it is to work on this project.

Painting in progress. By Paivi Eerola, Finland. Read about her everyday life as an artist.

After all, I love art history, and the very thought that my paintings go to the place where Albert Edelfelt spent his summers is inspiring.

Everyday Ponderings

Lately, I’ve been thinking about why I always deal with longing in my paintings. I easily lean into nostalgia. Albert Edelfelt depicted people and landscapes realistically, but he also sometimes dealt with history and went back in time.

Queen Blanche, oil on canvas, Albert Edelfelt, 1877.
Queen Blanche, oil on canvas, Albert Edelfelt, 1877. Blanche of Namur, the queen of Norway and Sweden, lived in the 14th century.

However, the difference between me and Albert is that he was interested in how things could have really happened and did detailed background research. I’m more inspired by how things could have gone differently.

Painting in progress. By Paivi Eerola, Finland.

I don’t know how my parents thought my life would turn out. Many times it has gone differently than I would have guessed myself! Sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. Life as an artist is very unpredictable. Just when you think you have to stop, a new project comes up.

Everyday Task – Planning for the Future

Painting in progress. By Paivi Eerola. Read about her everyday life as an artist.

One of the hardest things in being an artist is to always move forward and think bigger. When this year’s plans are set, the next year begins to worry.

Garden in the morning in Finland.

Artists are always in progress and very similar to gardeners. When a person says: “My garden is now finished,” you know that it’s the beginner speaking. Gardens are never finished!

Painting in progress. Garden-inspired painting. Comparing gardens and creating art.

It’s the same thing with art – you will find yourself, but then you will change and have a new you to find. I try to get the most out of this everyday life because it too is about to change for sure.

Paint Beautiful Decorative Flowers!

This week, we create stylized beauty. You will see how I painted these beautiful decorative flowers.

Beautiful decorative flowers by Paivi Eerola, Finland.

Time for Some Happy Art!

At least here in Finland, May-June is a time for parties. There are school graduations and then Midsummer at the end of June, which is celebrated not only by people but by Finnish nature too. Days are long and the deep sleeps during the dark winter are now coming into use. If different art forms had seasons, this uplifting time would be dedicated to decorative painting. Beautiful decorative flowers and other curvy motifs go well with the celebrations.

A detail of a hand-painted old chest.
A detail of a hand-painted old chest. A black and white photo from 1936. Photographer: Pietinen. From the archives of The Finnish Heritage Agency.

Decorative art is happy art for most people. Its tradition extends all over the world and it only requires a little sensitivity to beauty from the viewer.

Uplifting Art-Making

Three years ago, when the Corona lockdowns started, I buried myself in decorative painting. I made decorative collages from hand-painted papers and practiced decorative painting techniques.

Art journal cover. A collage of handpainted papers.
A decorative journal cover from handpainted collage pieces. See more: Painted Paper Collage -6 Tips for Intricate and Fun Art

These curvy forms and lines are still present in my paintings, where decorativeness is mixed with a more dynamic and abstract expression.

Menuetti - Minuet, a floral abstract oil painting by Päivi Eerola, Finland.
Menuetti – Minuet, oil on canvas, 2022.

Painting in a decorative style is fun. A few thoughtful brushstrokes create beauty, and even a beginner’s work looks great when viewed from a far enough distance. Over time, the brush mark improves and has an effect on all drawing and painting, even handwriting. And it’s the perfect style for cards and gifts!

Starting a Decorative Painting

As I watched the blossoms in apple trees, I felt like painting something small and nice to celebrate the beginning of the blooming season.

Starting a decorative painting.

I took out my black Dylusions Creative Journal and acrylic paints and painted the background very dark blue. Then I made leaves on top of each other, and so that they get lighter layer by layer.

Painting leaves in decorative style.
Dark leaves on the background, lighter ones on the top.

At the same time, I watched the videos of my course Decodashery.

Decodashery – Painting Techniques for Vintage Flowers and More

I still like this course a lot. Decodashery is beautiful, inspiring, and detailed in its instructions. It is also full of ideas. When the Corona lockdown was on, I had plenty of time to experiment with decorative painting and make more examples than usual. This course is for watercolors, gouache, and acrylic paints. You can choose what you want – most of the decorative techniques suit all of them.

>> Buy Now!

Beautiful Decorative Flowers in Two Parts

At first, I thought about making two separate paintings for this post but then decided to make one work in two parts. The first part is simple and stylized and the second part is more creative. In this first part, I used quite raw colors: mainly ultramarine blue and white. I also mixed some brown umber with them.

Painting beautiful decorative flowers - the first strokes.

To highlight the decorative theme, I painted some parts with silver acrylic paint.

Painting leaves with silver paint.

Finally, I added some Sienna brown and turquoise (manganese blue hue) to bring warmth to the details.

A decorative flower painting in progress.

Now the first part is finished. The flowers that are only partly visible give the impression of continuous space.

Beautiful Decorative Flowers – The Second Part

In the second part, I wanted to bring more depth and warmth to the work. So I spread a thin layer of yellow-green color over the painting.

Adding a wash over a painting to create depth and warmth.

I used glazing gloss as a thinner here, but you can also try to thin the paint with water.

Wiping of excess paint after adding a color wash.

Immediately after application, I removed the excess paint by rubbing the surface with a cotton cloth. The thin color wash warms the tones of the whole painting.

Beautiful decorative flowers - adjusting details.

After the color wash, the painting is a bit hazy. Next, I added more details and brought some of them back up from the lower layers. This sharpens the best parts.

Painting beautiful decorative flowers in acrylics. Dylusions Creative Journal, square, black pages.

I had lots of tubes on the table but only used a few. Decorative painting encourages making a variety of tones by adjusting the lightness and darkness of color instead of always changing the actual color.

Happy for the Artist, Happy for the Viewer

There were moments of joy that only decorative painting can give me while making the page. This style feeds gentleness and peace. And even if the pleasures of the decorative painting process are only experienced by the painter, the decorative painting leads to results that are extrovertedly joyous, ready to brighten up anyone’s day.

Beautiful decorative flowers by Paivi Eerola, Finland. A detail.

Decodashery online course – Paint vintage beauty – Buy Now!

Gold Caches of Your Artistic Journey

This week, I talk about the balance between following others and doing your own thing.

Kultakätkö - Gold Cache, oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm, by Paivi Eerola, Finland.
Kultakätkö – Gold Cache, oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm.

– Do what everyone else does.

That’s what my mother often told me when I was a child. Her point was to encourage me to learn and be part of a crowd – important skills, but I hated that phrase. As if you shouldn’t deviate from the path, stop, or run faster!

Oil painting in progress.
The beginning.

As an adult, I learned that life is not just about moving on your own. Everyone needs public transport.

Helsinki Bus Station Theory for Artists

Have you heard about Helsinki Bus Station Theory? It is particularly familiar to us southern Finns. Most of the buses in Helsinki go a long way on the same road until they take a different direction. “Stay on the bus, don’t hop off too soon,” we advise. This also applies to many things in life.

Oil painting in progress.
In progress.

As artists, we don’t want to be like everyone else, but to hop off and find our own thing. And yet, to get to our own remote area with our treasures, we have to sit on the bus for quite a while. If we leave too early, we won’t find the caches, because they are much further away than we initially thought.

Traveling with Companions

We all have artistic talents that are strengthened by the journey together. This is why I teach classes.

If we get off too early, our talents won’t emerge. Ingenuity turns into chaos in the eyes of the viewer. Intuitiveness makes us do ordinary things because we can’t express its nuances. Sensitivity appears as unnecessary cautiousness. Analyticity produces a rigid impression and our personality is covered in an internal struggle about what the image should look like.

Oil painting in progress. Expressing yourself as an artist.

Through art history, I have understood that traveling with a companion can be enormously inspiring. As artists, we are always part of the past generations. When we look at old paintings, we can have a dialogue not only with ourselves and with our current teachers, but through our imagination, also with the masters themselves.

Gold Caches

Before I started this painting, I was looking at a portrait of Louis Pasteur by Albert Edefelt. Did Edelfelt guess how important a person Pasteur would become? I told Albert that we still benefit from Louis’s inventions. So, his glass bottles and notebooks were like gold caches.

Oil painting in progress.

My gold caches are found in nature. When I walk on the wide path of a nearby park, I often turn my gaze to the shadows. When the sun hits there, a humble plant suddenly finds itself at the center of the scene.

The sun hits a leaf and makes it golden.

When that happens, I don’t only stare at the star of the show, but look around and notice all kinds of other wonderful things.

A detail of Kultakätkö - Gold Cache, oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm, by Paivi Eerola, Finland.

As a child, I already knew that it is not always good to march on and act like everyone else. It just has taken all my life to express that by painting.

Päivi Eerola and her painting Gold Cache.

Did you know about Helsinki Bust Station Theory before? Where your gold caches could be? What do you think about all this?

Abstract Birds

There is a saying that if you don’t know what else to add “Put a bird on it!” But this week I want to talk about birds as the main object of the picture, not just as a decoration. This blog post is also about abstract birds and their connection with realistic bird art.

Kuningaskalastajat - Kingfishers, oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm. By Paivi Eerola, Finland.
Kuningaskalastajat – Kingfishers, oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm.

Here’s my new painting, also bird-themed!

The Love for Real Birds

As a child, I saw a lot of birds and at some point, I started to learn to identify them. Ornithologist sounded like a great word and I have always been fascinated by people who are extremely enthusiastic about something. I learned about birds from a bird book I got from my parents, which was illustrated with drawings. I also drew birds myself, and it’s quite easy to recognize them once you’ve once drawn every detail.

Since those times my knowledge has unfortunately deteriorated, and I never became an ornithologist! But even though I’m no longer good at identification, I know birds as animals well. After all, I have had pet birds for decades. At the moment I have two budgies, Leonardo and Primavera. Over time, my interest in wild birds has started to return and a dream has surfaced, which the newest painting “Kingfishers” also tells about.

Here’s how it started! Wild strokes here and there.

Starting a new abstract painting. After the first layers.
Here’s how the painting started.

I think most of us have some relation to birds – what’s your story? Could you bring more of that to your art?

Dreaming of Birds

Ever since I was a child, I’ve wanted to see the kingfisher. In recent years, I’ve started imagining how one would sit on top of our mailbox on a summer’s day when I come down the hill towards home. And this spring I’ve started imagining kingfishers flying around the ditch along my walking path. I know that these are unlikely to come true, but they are still wonderful thoughts. Kingfishers are very rare here in Finland.

Painting abstract birds. Painting in progress.

So when I started a painting inspired by the ditch, I wanted those kingfishers there. After all, I had already written “kingfisher” in my notebook earlier this year when I started planning the new series of paintings.

Painting abstract birds. Painting in progress.

And when I researched the subject more, I found out that there are about 120 species of kingfishers. So I could paint many different ones in the same picture!

Birds by Von Wright Brothers

This month, I want to blog about art history too. And as a Finn, I have to introduce the brothers Magnus von Wright (1805–1868), Wilhelm von Wright (1810–1887), and Ferdinand von Wright (1822–1906). One of the most famous paintings here in Finland is “Taistelevat metsot”.

Fighting Capercaillies by Ferdinand von Wright, oil on canvas, 1886.
Taistelevat metsot – Fighting Capercaillies by Ferdinand von Wright, oil on canvas, 1886.

Von Wright brothers drew and painted huge numbers of birds and are remembered as bird artists. I saw this pigeon painting in the Ateneum Art Museum in 2018 when they had a big exhibition of von Wrights’s art.

Pigeons by Ferdinand von Wright, oil on canvas, 1870.
Kyyhkysiä – Pigeons by Ferdinand von Wright, oil on canvas, 1870.

For the Von Wrights, the recognisability of bird species was essential, and they also depicted birds from the perspective of their authentic living conditions and behavior.

Mallard Duckilings by Magnus von Wright, oil on canvas, 1841.
Sinisorsapoikue – Mallard Duckilings by Magnus von Wright, oil on canvas, 1841.

The paintings were very stylish and very aesthetic, but because of their accurate details, they also worked as scientific illustrations.

Flowers and Birds in the Corner of the Garden by Ferdinand von Wright, 1853 - 1854.
Kukkia ja lintuja puutarhan nurkassa – Flowers and Birds in the Corner of the Garden by Ferdinand von Wright, 1853 – 1854.

Unlike the von Wrights, I am not interested in the exact description of bird species, but rather in describing the vitality of life through birds.

Flying Birds and Their Abstract Shapes

I am especially fascinated by the ability to fly and I always try to look as closely as possible when I see a bird flying in the sky. When the bird flies high, its image breaks up and becomes an abstract composition. The flying bird serves us modern art in the middle of the mundane reality. A museum experience without visiting one!

Peippo - Finch, oil on canvas, 2021.
Peippo – Finch, oil on canvas, 2021. Read more about creating this one: Free Like a Bird

I often see finches and magpies here where I live. I think magpies are really beautiful birds and this painting of Ferdinand von Wright is fabulous even if its theme is a bit brutal.

Magpies Around the Dead Female Capercaillie by Ferdinand von Wright,1867.
Harakoita kuolleen koppelon ympärillä – Magpies Around the Dead Female Capercaillie by Ferdinand von Wright,1867.

Many blackbirds live in our garden and I have also painted them in 2021.

Abstract bird. Mustarastas - Blackbird, oil on canvas, 2021, Paivi Eerola.
Mustarastas – Blackbird, oil on canvas, 2021. Read more about creating this one: Pros and Cons of Becoming an Artist

I find it fun to adjust abstract shapes so that they express the essence of the bird. Here’s the Kingfishers painting again, photographed by my husband in the front garden.

Kuningaskalastajat - Kingfishers, oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm. By Paivi Eerola, Finland.

And here are some pictures of details so that you can examine brush strokes and abstract birds more closely.

Detail of Kuningaskalastajat - Kingfishers, oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm. By Paivi Eerola, Finland.
Detail of Kuningaskalastajat - Kingfishers, oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm. By Paivi Eerola, Finland.

If you think about kingfishers, painting them can’t be just about flying near a stream, it has to be about catching fish too. To bring that up, the bird on the left below looks a bit like a fish.

Detail of Kuningaskalastajat - Kingfishers, oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm. By Paivi Eerola, Finland.

Not So Abstract Birds to Get to Know Them

Of course, a flying bird can also be created so that it’s not abstract but has many decorative details. This project is from the course Animal Inkdom and is drawn in several sessions piece by piece so that it’s more manageable and fun.

Animal art. Animal Inkdom. Illustration by Paivi Eerola.

In the center is a bird that flies into the animal world. When re-examining this, I hope that over time I would paint all kinds of animals in my abstract style. It is often necessary to study the animal for a long time before an abstract can be derived from it.

The Connection Between Letting Go and Not Letting Go

Painter of abstract birds. Paivi Eerola and her painting Kingfishers photographed in the garden.

So if you wish that your expression would be freer, one way is to go deep into the subject. Not just to look at what a kingfisher looks like, for example, but to live its life, experience a deep identification with it and look for forms that express that emotional connection.

Often both the forms and the connection are first found through creating art that is less abstract and more accurate. I think that it would have been quite easy for the Von Wright brothers to become abstract bird artists, but the time wasn’t right for them. They left a legacy though, and I am one of their followers.

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