Fantasy Forest – Combining Two Ideas in One Painting
I just finished this fantasy forest! The painting is called “Once Upon A Time.” I think this will begin a series of fantasy watercolor landscapes. Recently, I have got lots of inspiration from daily walks.
First Idea: Forest Is Like a Golden Palace
This fall has been beautiful, and I have especially enjoyed yellows and oranges. It looks like the trees are decorated with gold, and even the most modest specimens look noble and precious when the sun highlights their leaves.
The fall sceneries took me back to childhood when I used to wander in the surroundings. Often it was an escape from boredom, sometimes from unpleasant feelings. I didn’t admire nature like adults do. I saw myself as the queen of England (because I didn’t know anything more exotic and powerful!), pacing around her palace. Trees were pillars of the luxurious hall, and the mosses were sumptuous carpets. In my eyes, every living plant became a grand artifact, contributing to my perception of ultimate beauty.
Earlier this fall, I painted this watercolor scenery that perhaps has some remains of those childhood memories.
>> Watch the video of making this watercolor painting!
Two Watercolor Painting Stations
When painting with watercolor, it’s important to be patient and let the paint dry properly before adding more details on the top. I have learned that just staring at the painting and waiting for the layer to dry is not a working solution to me. I try to figure out something else to do too. This time I had two painting stations and another painting also got some layers even if I didn’t get to finish it.
I have big plastic plates covering the top of the tables so that I can splash water quite freely.
From a Building to a Fantasy Forest
I started the paintings with simple geometric shapes and used photos of interiors as inspiration. The staircase of Palais Garnier inspired the painting of this blog post.
Here you see some details of the painting in an early stage. The elements are more architectural-looking than organic. Maybe because of my childhood experiences, I find it easy to see the connection between interiors and outdoor scenes. If I look at the photo like the one below, it’s more difficult for me to pick the shapes that define the 3-dimensional space.
When I continue the painting, I change most of the shapes so that they are more organic.
At this point, I was working from my imagination only. I find it most freeing when I don’t have to keep any photos visible. I had quite a flow here, listening to old cembalo music and painting!
I like those leaves in the bottom corner. It’s always a bit pity when something pretty appears near the edges. I had to tone them down a bit so that they don’t steal all the attention.
Second Idea: Orchids
Orchids have never been my thing until I received my first one from Patricia, one of my students, as a birthday present. I was so impressed by getting the orchid that I learned to take care of it. When I changed the pot, I was fascinated by its roots. The months went by, and I became more and more interested in all kinds of orchids. A few weeks ago, I went to see a show organized by The Finnish Orchid Society.
So no wonder that my second idea was to add orchids to the fantasy forest!
I have quite a few orchids to take care of nowadays. All of them don’t show in the picture below … These plants are as inspiring to me as the golden forests!
Fantasy Forest
Here’s the finished piece again, combining the ideas of seeing a forest as a luxurious place and expressing the love for orchids.
I hope this inspires you to paint a fantasy forest!
How to Use Art Prompts for Self-Expression and Creative Enjoyment
Now when Inktober is running, art prompts are especially popular. This week, we use them so that they highlight more than suffocate our self-expression.
Art Prompts – Threat Or Opportunity?
Using art prompts is a tricky thing. The prompt can be your master, telling you literally what to create. You can take “Snow” and draw a pile of white stuff, and then wonder if that was fun at all. On the other hand, many say that they want to create freely from their ideas but then struggle with getting in touch with what they truly want to create.
I have been using art prompts successfully to expand my artistic expression and to become more clear with my artistic vision. For me, a prompt is a starting point to discover things I love to spend time with. I don’t just draw the first idea that comes to my mind, but process it further before I start drawing.
Ideas vs. Techniques – How to Become a Better Artist with the Help of Art Prompts?
Art blogs rarely talk about processing ideas, and in general, the discussion about art, especially when artists lead it, is very technique-heavy. But if I had to choose between ideas and techniques, my choice would be ideas. In my opinion, it should be ideas that make you learn the techniques, not vice versa. The art that is only about mastering the techniques is more like craft – it can be skillfully made, but the freedom of expression and creativity doesn’t shine through. On the other hand, we sometimes create art that is packed with emotion that other people don’t see. Then the process was cathartic, but the lack of techniques flattened the expression.
Balancing between the ideas and the techniques is not easy, and all artists struggle with it. If you focus on the techniques only, the process of creating becomes joyless and meaningless. The ideas bring back the passion for creating. That’s why I also talk about ideas in my classes.
This week, I share my ideas behind the recent Inktober prompts (days 11-18). I rate how difficult each prompt was for me between 1 to 5, how I discovered the ideas for the images, and what I learned from the process. Like last week, I have also written stories for each image, articulating my thoughts after the creation process. This post is also an example of how you can use journaling to clarify your artistic vision. Words go well together with the art prompts. If you feel the need to write as a part of the actual image, you can challenge yourself in visual expression. Think about how you could visually express the words you want to write!
Prompt 1 – Snow
Difficulty: 1 – Easy
Ideas: I live in Finland, I know snow! I was thinking about the harshness of winter and if my new orchids will survive it. I am always inspired by Russian folk art and wanted to the illustration look like a northern fairytale.
Lessons Learned: When I look at the image, my emotional reaction is strong. This is who I am and what I love to create at the moment.
Story: Hope carries us. When times are hard, we have the need to protect and nurture. We want to find something to fight for. Even if those things are like rare orchids, freshly wounded, impossible to plant, we want to believe they can be saved. Women have the strength to give a home to a helpless. As well as the weakness to suffocate with love. Still, it is one of the reasons why the world functions, how we can cope through the snowy seasons, and why absolute compassion still exists in this universe.
Prompt 2 – Dragon
Difficulty: 4 – Challenging
Ideas: I elaborate on my challenges more in the story part below, but this prompt made me feel that it has to be done quickly and with as little damage as possible! So I picked my sketchbook and found a face, painted with watercolors, and decided to made it look like a dragon. The agony disappeared once I started drawing, and I really enjoyed adding horns, scales, and all.
Lessons Learned: Drawing can be a role-play or a dress-up party where I can stretch my perception of myself.
Story: This prompt has been the most uncomfortable for me so far in this year’s challenge. I do like to draw animals, but I haven’t seen myself as the one who draws dragons. I realized that I was also questioning whether YOU want to see any dragons either, and every time I begin to overthink what I should or shouldn’t draw, there’s a creative block that I must overcome. So, I wanted to show myself that yes, I can be the dragon lady. I don’t just create art to protect and admire what I love, but to become open to new adventures. I had a lot of fun drawing this one, inspired by Renaissance too!
Prompt 3 – Ash
Difficulty: 2 – Normal
Ideas: Ash reminded me of the Phoenix bird, and I wanted to include some orchids too. My original idea was just to make a woman rising from the ash, but I accidentally drew the thumbs on the wrong side of the hands! Then I remembered cupids from old paintings and added the two little girls so that the hands are theirs. I really like those two mischief-makers.
Lessons Learned: Working with the non-erasable media stretches creativity and mistakes can take the work to the new level. The processing of ideas can happen also while creating, not only before.
Story: We are all mythical phoenix birds. When one era ends, another one begins. About 10 years ago, I had a long row of African violets. Then a few years later, I fell in love with Streptocarpus flowers. Now they are gone, and I am beginning a new era in my hobby of growing houseplants – the era of orchids! So my love for plants is regularly reborn. Do you recognize this kind of rebirth in your life?
Prompt 4 – Overgrown
Difficulty: 1 – Easy
Ideas: One of the easiest prompts for me! The image came instantly to my mind, and all I had to do is to draw it. I wanted to make the hands, legs, and wings for the playful fairy so that they are very plant-like.
Lessons Learned: I need to draw more fairies. It’s funny that I haven’t ever been drawn to them before this year, and now I am really fond of them! I guess I have found my way to interpret their playfulness.
Story: I used to think that when my art grows, it will become deeper and deeper, reaching the remotest end of fine art. But during the past couple of years, my images have become more humorous, playful, and illustrational. It’s been surprising to notice that the same building blocks and ideas that could express the agony in the world can be used for making illustrations that include hope, even childishness. I cherish this child in me, and I want her always to grow bigger than her current pot. And at the same time, I want to protect her from becoming so big that she stops seeing life’s little pleasures.
Prompt 5 – Legend
Difficulty: 5 – Agonizing
Ideas: I hated the prompt. It made me think about photo-realistic images of Marilyn Monroe and old rock stars which are not my favorite art at all. Then I tried to approach the subject from the story-perspective, and all that I could think of was Robin Hood, King Arthur, and other similar historical stories that didn’t inspire me. I realized that I needed to pick a legend that I truly appreciate, and Jane Austen came to my mind.
Lessons Learned: I really like this illustration! There’s a lot of elements, but their hierarchy is so clear that the image is easy to look at. It was perhaps because I started the sketch in the evening, but finished the image the next morning. All the ideas that I had, fell in place during the night.
Story: Jane Austen is one of the most famous women in history. Do you think she predicted that? Did she know her books would make an impact on the world for hundreds of years? But there she was, alone with her thoughts in late evenings like creative people do, planning her plots. Her life was just a blink of an eye in the universe, but still, the cosmos echoes her name. Generations after generations, we have a human bond with her – no matter how linear time feels and no matter if we really even knew what she looked like.
Prompt 6 – Wild
Difficulty: 2 – Normal
Ideas: Because the prompt is so general, I just picked an inspirational image from my Instagram archive, and started from there. The image was a photo of an old clock, and it reminded me how the sense of time disappears when creating. So I made the clock look like it floats and falls apart, and followed my intuition for all the other elements. The couple on the left corner probably came because I have been watching Dancing With the Stars while drawing!
Lessons Learned: I like to express movement and create surrealistic illustrations. It makes me feel free, and sometimes it’s important to focus on the process of creating rather than controlling the result.
Story: There’s a place in your mind where everything gets mixed, where nothing stays static, and where rules are broken. What you can’t do is only other people’s false assumptions. The way they define drawing – or any other skill – doesn’t matter anymore. You are in a place where all is wrong and thus so right. Time flies, and you live forever. Go wild and get creating to travel there!
Prompt 7 – Misfit
Difficulty: 3 – Hard
Ideas: This prompt was for Friday, and I want Fridays to be a bit more light-hearted than other weekdays. So I wanted to make a humorous illustration that would start the weekend in a cheerful mood. First, it felt a bit challenging to combine the prompt with the humor. I love to draw women in historical dresses, and it made me think about how romantic mind and everyday chores are a definite misfit!
Lessons Learned: The empty space can be used to highlight the message. Here the composition is built so, that the romantic steps toward the past (to the left), the butterfly scene directs the eye towards her face and lower lip, and the empty space highlights the bucket. The bucket and the emptiness of the horizontal scene created by the hem are central to the message. It took a couple of extra sketches to get all the elements in place.
Story: Sweeping, scrubbing, dusting … Misfit chores for artistic souls like us, at least today!
Prompt 8 – Ornament
Difficulty: 2 – Normal
Ideas: I have been drawing ornaments quite a lot lately, and I love it. Every time I design an ornament, it makes me feel like I am doing something that I am meant to do. It’s probably because it’s so close to my studies in engineering and industrial design. This time I wanted to make an ornament that’s not symmetrical, and that would also express a personal story.
Lessons Learned: Many of my ideas easily take the form of an ornament, and I would also like to teach making them! (Would you be interested?)
Story:
This prompt is especially close to my heart. It reminds me of how important it is to become the true self. When I studied industrial design, I realized that my expression was too ornamental. “Simplify, simplify,” my teachers said. Plastic stuff that we were taught to design has to be manufactured as cheaply as possible. But I took another route and geared towards art. Ten years have passed by, and I still struggle to accept how ornamental I see the world.
But that’s how it is. To me, an ornament is a time machine. I can travel through the history of humanity by merely picking shapes of any era. It also brings me closer to my roots. My grandfather studied drawing, and my father drew to me when I was a child. These two men passed away a long time ago. I never got to see my grandfather, and I wasn’t very close to my father. But now there’s this strange yet pleasant feeling of being who I am meant to be. I continue the chain of generations, fulfilling not only my dreams but also my father’s and grandfather’s secret wishes. These people enabled me the life I am living, and I am giving back to them by drawing and designing – being as ornamental as I can be.
Repeating Art Prompts – Another Version of Ornament
Difficulty: 2 – Normal
Ideas: I started working with the prompt “Ornament”, but then realized, that this one is a more time-consuming piece. So I finished it for Day 19, instead of making the official prompt of the day. The idea became from art deco table lamps. They often have a statue that holds the bulb. I didn’t use any reference for this one, and lately, my drawing skills have grown so that I have drawn a lot without any references. I enjoy that a lot!
Lessons Learned: This one started as a quick sketchbook drawing, but I got hooked about the idea and made it a gouache painting, black and white, in the spirit of Inktober. The paper of the sketchbook (Leuchturm A4) wasn’t suitable for wet media, but I finished the painting anyway. My gouache paints were Arteza in colors Noir and Titanium White. Noir wasn’t pitch black but more greyish tones. The cheap paints usually have white to lower the price. The process would have been much more pleasurable with the art supplies of better quality. It would be best if the idea, the technique, and the choices of supplies would serve each other!
Story: I call this “The Guardians of Imagination” and it is to our soul sisters in art. They keep the lights of imagination switched on, and support others to do the same. They bring the best of the past times to this day, so let’s thank them, and let’s be sisters to them as well.
This painting is my last contribution to this year’s Inktober. I am currently working on a big illustration project, and want to focus on finishing it next week.
More About Art Prompts
Here are some older blog posts that you might want to check out too.
Experiences from Inktober 2018 when I finished all the 31 prompts:
The best art prompts of this blog:
- Fort the lovers of Matisse, Kandinsky, and other 20th century artists: 13 Prompts for Expressive Art
- 10 Rococo Art Ideas for Creative Romantics
- Guiding Word – Choosing and Visualizing Your Word of the Year
Let’s keep creating, my soul sister in art!
All Things Necessary in My Artistic Journey
Here’s my recent drawing called “All Things Necessary.” It’s inspired by the discoveries that I made while building the class Magical Inkdom. When I taught IT professionals back in the 1990s, we teachers used to say that you learn best when you teach a class. We had to constantly learn new technologies, and it made us professionals not only in teaching but also in learning.
However, some things take time, and even if trying to find the best ways to work with both ink and watercolor enabled this piece, the idea behind it goes much further back in my artistic journey, to the year 2014.
A Great Idea but Not So Great Execution from 2014
I have archived many of the old blog posts because back in 2014 I wasn’t very good at writing, and the posts are too short for the search engines. But I found the blog post in my personal archive and here’s what I wrote back in 2014:
“I often get these ideas that cost a million. Like the big painting that shines in gold and silver. It would look like a reproduction of the beautiful doors I saw last year when visiting the Hermitage Museum, in St. Petersburg, Russia. Someday I will make it! So I made a small prototype. It is a wooden block that is covered with all kinds of stuff found in my crafting space.”
This idea has haunted me since I made this crafty block, or I could say since I visited St. Petersburg, Russia. I have two blurry photos from that trip that I look at quite often. One is the golden door and the other is a handpainted plate at The State Russian Museum.
I felt I had found the aesthetics that I also wanted to create. First, I thought I would literally need real gold. Here’s how I ended the blog post:
“So, if you follow me, then you know what I will do if I win in a lottery! Real gold, jewels … wow, it will look astonishing.“
I wish I could turn back time, and say to myself: “Don’t lose this idea! Keep creating, and once your skills will grow, you will find the way.”
Dumping the Idea – “It’s Too Superficial”
The problem with me has been that when my skills haven’t met my vision, I have let go of the ideas around it. I have said to myself:
– “It wasn’t what I wanted to create anyway.”
– “It was too superficial, I want to create deeper stuff.”
– “The idea was great but not what other people would want to see”
– “Only rich and overly successful people could do that.”
– “There will be new and better ideas that are easier to execute.”
And so I have felt lost many times in my artistic journey because I haven’t been able to re-create that golden door, my true desire.
Getting Back to the Idea with More Skills
But for Magical Inkdom, I wanted to create gold. There my main message has been that we can make the wrong right, and define what’s magical to us. So I drew some golden frames, and they looked magical! (Instructions will be published in Lesson 4.)
Of course, I couldn’t just have a little bit of gold and settle with that. So I began a new piece, approximately 18 by 18 inches. It’s the biggest ink drawing that I have made so far. I knew my skills are there. I didn’t need a sketch or a prototype but just pour out everything that I love.
While I colored the drawing with watercolors, I thought about the appropriate title. The most accurate that came to my mind was “Kaikki tarpeellinen” meaning “All Things Necessary”. This kind of golden luxury may seem unnecessary and even overwhelming to many, but it’s necessary for me. I need to load this daily into my mind to keep my zest for life alive.
All Things Necessary: It’s a world where Salvador Dali travels to the Rococo era, and then back and forth between the Renaissance age and the 20th century.
It’s a world where golden birds lay Faberge eggs and land on golden fingers.
It’s a world where people, animals, and physical items share the same qualities and play the same symphony.
It’s a world where a cembalo plays a bit too loud, where all the gold hurts your eyes, and where the chaos is suspiciously acceptable.
It’s the same place that I was trying to find in 2011, when I was madly drawing circles, and when some of you started following this blog.
All Things Necessary for Moving on in the Artistic Journey
This new piece has made me re-think about the whole discussion about the artistic journey and finding a visual voice. I have blogged a lot about it, coached people for it, but it’s not easy to dig out a quiet seed that needs a lot of time and care to grow. Our artistic vision, the road sign, can be an ugly “prototype” like my old craft project that we carelessly toss away!
Let’s hold on to the things that keep deeply touching us while growing our skills in drawing and painting.
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What Artists Keep Doing – Series of Inspiring Quotes #3
This post ends the series of inspiring quotes that I have heard or read recently. In the last week, I wrote about the feeling of not being ready yet, and the week before about being honest about what you want to create. But now to this week’s inspiring quote!
This Week’s Quote
Don’t ever quit anything.
Who: Finnish journalist Kimmo Oksanen
Where: A column in the local newspaper Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish)
At the age of 16, Kimmo bought a typewriter and a guitar with the money earned from a summer job. He thought he could be a famous singer-songwriter. But he quitted singing and writing songs when he went to university and found out that lyrics are not “real poetry.” He also used to draw, paint and do sports when he was a teenager but ended up quitting all that too. He used to aim for perfection and didn’t realize that mistakes make the master. Now he regrets that he hadn’t just kept doing, and his advice is: “Start a lot and never quit anything.”
Not Quitting Crafting and Writing Made Me an Artist
When I was a teenager, like Kimmo, I also loved to write. I wrote poems and short stories and attended some competitions too. I was also a crafter, always knitting and crocheting. My deepest desire was to become a visual artist, and I painted and drew almost every day.
Then I saw a computer for the first time and fell in love. It was the early 1980s, and the computer age was just getting started, but I knew that technology was my thing. I changed my plans to become an English teacher to a software engineer. But despite my interest in computers, I kept on writing, drawing, and crafting. There was a period when I spent less time with creative activities, but in one way or another, I have been a writer and crafter all my life.
When art began to call me again, I also wanted to start a blog. I was still quite a beginner in art, and my vision was bigger than what I could put on paper, but the encouragement I got from the readers kept me going. But now when I think about it, my old hobbies also had some role in that. I had learned resilience from crafting, self-expression from writing, and the old dream of becoming an English teacher oddly changed to the courage to blog in a foreign language. Without being a writer and a crafter, I wouldn’t be a blogger, and without being a blogger, I wouldn’t have become a working artist.
I Regret Quitting These!
However, there are a couple of things that I loved as a child but quitted doing. I used to write short plays and gathered an acting group from a few of my schoolmates. I also played the violin for a few years. During the past four years as an artist, I have regretted quitting both. When running classes, it’s good to be able to present things in a memorable and fun way. When selecting the music to the class videos, I try to find songs that fit with the topic of the project and keep the attention on the subject. The little that I learned in my childhood years has been useful, and I wish I had continued both acting and playing through all the past years.
Stephen King and Does Talent Dictate What We Should Keep Doing?
In art, the question of talent usually comes up in the discussion sooner or later. I just finished reading Stephen King’s book “On Writing” where he tells how it’s just a waste of time trying to learn something that you don’t have any passion. His son played an instrument, but because he showed no talent to him, Stephen advised him to quit. He had wanted to see some free playing, some evident joy, and some promise of the career as a musician. Because there were none, he thought the son could use his 30-minute practice better than playing.
I find the story and in general, the discussion of talent depressing. It determines both the person and the profession from a very narrow perspective and generates powerlessness. That’s why I have tried to avoid to think whether I am talented enough or not. However, the question of talents always lurks somewhere behind the surface. I got to realize that when suddenly, a few weeks ago, I was told that my grandfather had graduated from a design school. He had been a farmer and died a long time ago. I never met him, but some of his letters have been saved. Based on them, he was an unhappy man who yearned for bigger challenges than what country life could offer. Clearly, he wasn’t meant to be a farmer, but someone who develops new things.
When I heard what my grandfather had studied, a thin string around my heart broke, and the tension relieved. I was no longer the one who had just got an accidental obsession for art and design, but a link in the chain of generations. It became more meaningful than ever to continue the work that my grandfather wasn’t able to do. It also made me partly re-write my story – I had some talent after all! I have also felt embarrassed about how much that meant to me. In the end, the fact that we keep on practicing has much more effect on our skills than any inheritance.
Art is About Not Needing to Quit Anything
When making the illustration for the blog post, I brought things from the past that I carry with me. Many of them are funny and harmless, like my first dream profession of becoming the queen of England. My parents helped me to plant a bench of Queen Elizabeth roses under the window of my room. When drawing, I don’t have to quit that dream. I don’t have to quit anything.
In art, we enter a world where we get to play freely with the things that have made an impact on us. If we hadn’t experienced or practiced anything, our imagination wouldn’t have the tools and the topics we have now. Let’s keep practicing, let’s keep not quitting, and let’s be assured that whether we feel talented or not, we don’t have to give up anything when we keep drawing.
Take the Next Step – Do This!
Open a new page in your art journal or sketchbook. Draw and/or glue a collage of things you have grown to love and never stopped doing!
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