Fantastic Watercolor Sceneries
This week, we explore watercolor sceneries. Landscapes have always been an uncomfortable theme for me, but despite that, I consider myself to be some kind of landscape painter. Even this digital watercolor painting is a landscape.
Here I mixed the memories of the sunny days of the last fall with the eager wait for the upcoming blooming season.
What Do Landscapes Mean to You?
I think that landscapes are relevant to any growing artist. It is important to look at your relationship with basic themes such as:
- human or animal – portrait
- inanimate object – still-life
- nature – landscape
Of these, I have the closest relationship with the landscape, and through that, I also have a special relationship with places.
Even if I take photos of interesting sceneries, I am not at all enthusiastic about copying the landscape as it is. I’m a romantic who sees even the ugliest grass field as an exciting jungle. I often crouch down to explore the world from the perspective of a modest plant, where everything looks big and grand.
The landscape can also be a stage for an event. When I looked out the window of my room as a child, I was saddened by the fact that nothing was happening in the small area of detached houses. However, I paid attention to the house visible on the hill and how its roof seemed to change color in different lighting and in different seasons.
This kind of slow dynamics characteristic of the landscape is fascinating because when we paint we are not prisoners of time. We can fill the view with all kinds of activity. Various colors and states of one object can be gathered and everything can be lifted into flight and movement.
By thinking about what a landscape means to me, I have built a bridge to my childhood and enabled creative play.
From Traditional Landscapes to Expanded Sceneries
Even if I now see playfulness in landscapes, it took me a long time to realize that traditional landscape painting can be expanded. You can choose to express a real place, but make a completely own interpretation of it.
For me, watercolors have played a key role in this realization. In 2018, I started making small panorama paintings, in which I painted holiday travel memories, picking up details here and there from the photos as if reconstructing the place.
See this post to read more about these watercolor panoramas!
I also had a small sketchbook where I made watercolor sceneries, some realistic, some fantasy. See this post to watch a video about keeping a watercolor diary!
And of course, I also made the course Watercolor Journey from my insights.
In this course, you travel between imagination, memories, and reality. >> Buy here!
The Journey Continues
At the moment I am painting a small ditch, from which I have grown a beautiful landscape on a large canvas.
In the painting, a lot is happening and nothing is static or insignificant.
In art, the only limit is our imagination. It doesn’t matter where we live, in our paintings we can make it the place we want to travel to next!
Dreamy Watercolor Flowers
I’ve been down with bad flu and haven’t been able to blog for the past week. But now I have recovered and continue the spring blog post series, where I go through techniques and themes that have been important in my artistic development. This week the topic is watercolors, flowers, and expressing dreaminess.
Flower is a popular subject in art and I also like painting flowers very much. I don’t use models, I paint abstract shapes that look like flowers.
What Makes a Flower Dreamy?
In 2019, I painted a lot of flower-themed watercolors and then I thought about what flowers are all about for me.
The species of flower is not important to me. I often paint flowers that have no real equivalent. For me, the interesting thing about flowers is their relationship with light.
Without light, there are no flowers. The light continues the flower and makes it bigger and more beautiful.
When you paint light, dreamy watercolor flowers grow into the picture as if by themselves.
In ProCreate, it’s easy to zoom in and out, pick colors, and change brushes. Apple Pencil is also surprisingly pleasant to work with.
In real watercolors, splashing water more fun, but maintaining lightness is more challenging, especially when you only use the whiteness of the paper.
Then you start with light layers and gradually add color. It’s surprising how much you can fix and fine-tune the details when working this way.
Dreamy Flowers by the Water
Another important element is water. That’s why flowers and watercolors go well together. Light, water, and flowers are a refreshing combination. I try to bring the element of water into the picture in one way or another.
I used to paint a lot of vases, but nowadays flowers grow more freely near water.
I think that when a plant blooms, it dreams – just like we do when we make art!
Floral Fantasies – Paint Dreamy Watercolor Flowers!
For all flower lovers, I have a flower painting course Floral Fantasies, from which the watercolor part can also be purchased separately.
Floral Fantasies – Intuitive and loose approach to flowers – Buy here!
Response from the Universe
This week, I have exciting news and talk about life’s big decisions.
In the spring, I will only paint canvas, but later this year, in addition to that, I will also paint the virtual world! Namely, I have received a part-time 1-year grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation to produce a digital, three-dimensional artwork called Unknown Land.
This is an excerpt of the application that I sent last fall to the foundation.
In my works, I search for a solution to the problems of the external world through the root causes, so strengthening the inner power of a person. By inner power, I refer to imagination and intuition – the human ability to imagine and sense the future. The future is an unknown land.
We can think of this unknown land as a new untouched continent. When we arrive there, everything seems like a newly born fantasy at first, but soon, we will see that this is not the case – only the emphasis has changed. Things emerge from the past, the meaning of which we have previously underestimated. In an unknown land, we are in a state where we no longer want to return to the past, but on the other hand, we cannot escape it. Then it is possible to see the old shadows in a new light and make an effort from that to the new one. Like my paintings, we, therefore, travel between the future and the past – the abstract and representational.
In the project, I will create an interactive virtual reality artwork based on my oil paintings. The project has many kinds of computer work – digital painting, 3D modeling, programming, testing, etc. So, things that feel more like my past self than the current one.
Past’s Big Decisions
Let’s rewind to the 1980s when I was making big decisions in my life. My father had just died. I was engaged but not in love. I sent applications to universities and got accepted by them all. Although I tried not to think about it in the picture below, I knew this would happen: I would move far away to the south to study technology, I would not marry the guy I was engaged to, and I would leave art – at least for a while.
I had wanted to be an artist but didn’t think the art schools would be as accepting as the universities. I had self-evaluated my skills and talent, which weren’t where they should have been. When I said no to art, I got yes to many good things: intelligent ideas, challenging jobs, better income, etc. I was fascinated by computers, and I believed that the universe wanted me to study software engineering.
But later, it dawned on me that the universe is not quite that simple.
Worlds Are Fighting Over You
Even if I am not a big believer in destiny, I believe that there are worlds that fight over you. No matter how depressed on unpopular you feel at times, remember that some worlds would always do anything to win your heart. And even if you shout to the universe and it remains silent, the worlds are still there for you, waiting for the right moment.
Art didn’t give up on me even if Technology won the battle in the 1980s. There have been big fights since. Last fall, just when Art thought that Technology had been beaten for good, I got excited about VR – virtual reality. Art and Technology have their own ways of capturing my attention. Art is like the beast of my inner world, demanding attention and energy. Technology always attacks outside – sends a few inspiring lines to read about innovations, an abbreviation to figure out, or an invitation to a special event for nerds.
“I will let the universe decide,” I told myself when I wrote the application. But so it happened that the two worlds that had been fighting over me for all my life finally agreed to come together. My life’s big decisions make sense now.
Changes Will Come
I will start the exciting new project in the fall. It will take a lot of my time, and changes will come, but I don’t want to think about them yet. I am painting for the next exhibitions and leading the class Doll World this spring. Then it’s time for Art and Technology to collide.
What are the worlds that are fighting over you? Tell us – leave a comment!
The Joy of Drawing Paper Dolls
This week is about drawing paper dolls. At the same time, we celebrate the social nature of hand-drawn paper dolls.
For an artist, the difference between a doll and a human is that the doll opens the door to a fantasy. Thus, drawing paper dolls is very different from painting portraits. But if I have to pick from the two, I would say that paper dolls make you more of an artist.
Compared to a human, only a doll can be a creature of the imagination – for example, a plant and a spirit at the same time.
Dream Wardrobe
Only a doll can have a wardrobe where every piece is organized.
Only a doll can get out of the box and go where ever the imagination takes her.
Only a doll can wear a butterfly as a wig and rose leaves as a bodice.
To be a fashion designer for a doll is the play we can’t resist.
Unspoken Secrets
Only a doll can hold the secrets that every artist has.
Because isn’t it so that no matter how close we are, there are dreams that we can’t tell anybody? Dreams that would perhaps sound silly, too grand, or too selfish. Dreams that make you an artist.
True Friends
Only for a doll a true friend is easy to find.
With paper dolls, I examine the social aspect of an artist’s life – how we can feel less lonely when creating and how the result can be a bridge between all the art that we have created. And when we give or share a picture of a doll, it also invites other people to play and connect with themselves and others.
Doll World – Drawing Paper Dolls
Come to draw adorable dolls and their dresses with me!
Doll World lasts from January to May. When you sign up, you will get the published lesson right away. >> Sign up Now!