Drawing a Summer Ornament
This week, I want to show that an ornament can be more than just a decoration. An ornament can be a framework for expression in the same way as a portrait, a still life, or a landscape.
I love drawing ornaments. It feels as though the universe is shouting at me: “This is right, this is a good thing!” If I’ve had past lives, I’d think this is the work I’ve always done in some form, because it feels so natural.
Step 1 – Grid
If I decide to draw an ornament, nothing holds me back—not even the requirement of symmetry. This time, I made a grid to help me achieve similarity on both sides more easily.
It’s good to have center guidelines, but there can be more and placed anywhere. All guidelines are helpful when drawing the ornament freely.
Step 2 – Pencil Sketch
I sketch the biggest symmetrical parts in pencil. But I try to keep this phase short because the best part of drawing ornaments is letting loose and discovering how the symmetry can be broken.
Drawing an ornament is like putting your soul into a lion’s cage and then watching it break out with cleverness, rather than violence.
Step 3 – Getting Creative with a Non-Erasable Pen
For the actual drawing, I use black markers. Here, I’m using Copic FineLiner pens and a Copic Gasenfude brush pen. An ornament is like a meandering canvas where you can draw anything. You can draw both the realistic and the abstract, and it all looks great because it’s embedded in the ornamental structure.
We currently have summer here in Finland, so I wanted to draw summer-related things: the sea, a garden, and birch leaves.
Step 4 – Getting Lost in the Details
When I have most of the things in place, I put on an audiobook or a talk show and focus on the details!
My ornaments almost always have jewels because I find them fun to draw and the result rewarding. A jewel comes to life when you draw geometric shapes with a fine pen and fill them differently.
I always include elements that are pitch-black to create contrast. The brush pen is quick in these details.
The Freedom in Drawing Ornaments
The longer I draw, the more I want to create tension and asymmetry. In this ornament, the lines took on a life of their own and spread beyond its borders. Ah, so liberating!
It’s exciting and even contradictory that such freedom can be evoked from a rigid ornament.
The Summer Ornament
Here you can see how I’ve used the pens for the fine details in the center.
I hope this summer ornament inspires you to pick up your pens and start drawing!
For more inspiration, see also these blog posts:
Dramatic Peonies with Colored Pencils and Black Pens
This week, I have a free video for you. Create these dramatic peonies with me!
Use colored pencils to add the softness and color, and black pens to bring in the drama!
I used regular colored pencils and two black pens – thick and thin. My thick pen is the Copic Gasenfude brush pen, and the thin one is a Copic fineliner, size 0.5. You can use any brands. This is an exciting project with many things to learn.
Dramatic Peonies – Watch the Video!
By following the video, you can create your dramatic peonies. Start with the soil, and then grow a garden on it. Watch the video below!
It took me about an hour to create the dramatic peonies, so this is not a big project. The effect is based on sharp contrasts rather than details.
Dramatic Peonies and Your Living Line
In the video, I talk about discovering your living line. The longer I have been an artist, the more significant that has started to feel. When I look at my past work and compare it with the current paintings, I can see a glimpse of my style here and there. It all started with a simple line, so I wish I could inspire you to wake up your line and let it show the way. I am currently building a new course where learning from your line is the key content. Stay tuned!
Inspiration for Colored Pencil Journal
You can create dramatic peonies either on a separate sheet of paper or in an art journal. I created mine in an A5-size colored pencil journal, and the drawing fills the whole spread.
Useful links for you who want to start or make more pages for the colored pencil journal:
- Starting a Colored Pencil Journal
- All posts tagged with “Archer & Olive notebook”
- The course Fun Botanicum – Make a chapter for your colored pencil journal!
Ikigai – Making Intuitive Painting Feel Natural
This week, I show you my newest oil painting, ‘Ikigai,’ and talk about how intuitive painting can become logical, and how a logical painting can feel natural.
There are many extraordinary elements in this painting, but it still feels quite realistic and natural.
Find the Guiding Element
When you create intuitively, the first layers get all kinds of random details. After that, it is about:
- What to save
- What to tone down
- What to highlight
- What to hide
- What to add
In Ikigai, I looked for an element where the canvas had already come to life as a painting. When I found it, I protected that pulsating spot so that its spirit spread and a small world grew around it.
Can you already guess what element guided me through the whole painting? The picture above is the first layer, and the picture below shows the painting in progress.
Intuition is like a whisper that can expand into a stronger sense of presence. That requires time and skills, but also logic.
From Writing a Course to Painting a Picture
Lately, I have been writing a script for a new course (some info). The more courses I make, the more I realize how important the script is. Having a script doesn’t mean I cannot choose my words freely when speaking to the camera. It also does not stop me from throwing myself fully into the drawing exercises while the camera is rolling.
Course videos include many different elements: theory, examples, explanations of the process, and reflections on artistic thinking. All of this needs a good rhythm. I need to know what I am saying and how freely I am speaking in different parts of the videos. My goal is to build a logical educational structure behind the course, without forgetting the human side of making art. I want my courses to be inspiring, entertaining, and encouraging, but also educational, so that you will move forward in your art-making.
Painting is very much like making videos. Even if you didn’t sketch beforehand, you still need structures and ways to connect single elements into a whole. You need both technical and expressive skills. It’s also beneficial to be able to see what is essential and to understand the role of logic.
The Logic Makes the Magic
When a painting is logical, it feels natural. Logic in painting does not mean that the picture has to be realistic. Instead, it means that there is interaction between the elements. For example, a weak line can humbly take a curve to go around a strong dot. Or a bright line can send small rays of light over nearby shapes, changing their color. The interaction ties everything together.
Even a static image can feel alive. At its best, you can look at a painting like an event. It’s fascinating how interaction makes the unreal elements feel real. Being able to express ourselves freely on paper and canvas is one of the best things in life.
Details of Ikigai
Here’s the guiding element in my painting. I have made some additions to the original strokes, but the spirit is the same.
I have noticed that in my paintings, the guiding element is rarely a focal point. Here’s the focal point – the tulip and her two red friends.
Ikigai – a reason to live, a reason to wake up in the morning. According to this Japanese philosophy, we should orient ourselves toward the point where our passion, mission, calling, and profession meet. I feel like ikigai is condensed into the exact moment where night and morning meet.
In the morning, deep reflection is interrupted by the call to action – get things going! And we get up despite all our responsibilities, but also because of them.
I love this kind of contradiction and complexity of life, and I try to bring it out as naturally as possible in my paintings.
The Four Principles of Ikigai and Making Art
Passion – What you love – Intuitively found
Calling – Why you exist, what’s your inner purpose – Naturally rising
Mission – What you do in practice – Needs logic
Profession – Where you are good at – Skill-oriented
The sweetspot is where all are met and aligned.
What do you think?
Three Brave Questions to Ask Yourself about Your Art
This week, I have questions about your art, and I will also share my answers as an example.
As an artist, you’re always asked: 1) where do you get your inspiration, 2) how is your art made, and 3) what does it represent or mean? But when you want to go deeper and find answers for yourself, answer my set of questions instead!
My questions about your art are not positive, but negative. They are braver, but also more grounded, and I think they can be more useful than the ordinary set. When you look at your art through what you don’t instead of do, it can be easier to see what’s truly closest to your heart. If you only dare to admit the truth…
Question #1 – What Subject Do You Always Return to (No Matter How Much You Resist It)
For some, it’s portraits; for others, landscapes. For me, it’s flowers. I actually feel a bit embarrassed about being a flower painter. A woman over fifty, painting flowers … you know the stereotype.
But I feel like my love for flowers and plants runs deeper than many artists. I have rare orchids, a flower garden, and I see flowers as pets with personalities.
But I also have to admit that I planned to create a drawing of a female figure for this blog post. It never got past the early stages; I just wasn’t inspired. Then I tried an abstract idea. I started several, but still nothing. I wasted at least four hours and filled the bin with my scribbles. Finally, I gave in and drew those flowers.
It was so much fun. I felt like I found myself again. “This is so superficial, Päivi!” a voice inside me said, while at the same time: “I love this world above the clouds, where flowers bloom, and everything shines.” So, I’m sorry to post flowers again!
Question #2 – What Do You Break in Your Creative Process?
Rather than convincing yourself how you follow the tradition and how you build the image, think about the cracks in your process. What should you do, but you really don’t? How does that affect your art?
There’s one stage I always try to avoid: sketching. Predictability just kills my motivation. That might be why I don’t draw people so often. When I was creating the course Doll World, I learned how to sketch human anatomy. It’s a very useful skill, but it didn’t stop me from avoiding it. It’s nice to know I can draw a person in any position, but at the end of the day, I’d rather be drawing flowers or ornaments.
For my oil paintings, I do some prep work by researching and writing down ideas. Sometimes I’ll doodle something small in my planner among the written notes.
But I do practice drawing a lot. Even the drawing for this post is kind of a study for my paintings.
However, I never recreate the same image. I want to break that predictability and leave room for those sudden “aha!” moments.
No sketching, no pencil/eraser thing – I’m a little embarrassed by this answer. I have so much respect for the old masters like Rubens and his peers; I think about them every day. I’m also constantly trying to improve my technical skills. But — and Rubens is probably rolling his eyes now — I try to do it without sketching!
Question #3 – What Do You Defy With Your Art?
The world is full of good things that inspire us and that we want to promote. Of course, we would like those things to add meaning to our art as well. But I believe that creativity can’t be forced. You can try to overlay meanings onto your art, but that will only obscure its essence and remove its clarity.
With my art, I’m not defying authority, climate change, social division, inequality, or war. There are many things I oppose as a person, but for some strange reason, they have nothing to do with my art. My art is about defying something as mundane as everyday life.
I respect those who capture the everyday, but that’s just not me. I’m not the kind of artist who sketches the houses in her neighborhood or portrays the ordinary lives of ordinary people. My art doesn’t come from the beauty of the everyday; for me, beauty begins where the everyday ends.
Now I should mention that I’m not a particularly “special” person myself, even though I’m a full-time artist. I work regularly and with discipline. In my free time, I mostly walk the dogs, take care of the plants, do crafts, and clean. I wear wool and cotton.
But when I’m making art, everyday life is far away. I admire the Baroque, rare collectibles, palaces, luxurious fabrics, and historical gowns. I’m a romantic, a nostalgist, and an avant-garde thinker—anything that rises above the mundane pulls me in like a magnet.
I suppose there’s something superficial and embarrassing in that, too. Isn’t luxury the indication of a materialistic mindset?
What’s Behind the Questions about Your Art?
Behind the awkwardly truthful answers, I see a kind of sacredness that inspires me immensely. It’s a connection to nature’s ultimate luxury, to my own intuition, and to a human-made beauty that lifts the spirit.
How would you answer these three questions about your art?