New Free Mini-Course for Subscribers
Great news! I have updated the free mini-course “Paint the Emotion” and it’s now called “Color the Emotion.” I have added a new project with colored pencils and more talk about how to approach art-making. The mini-course is about 40-minutes long and it’s available for all the subscribers of my weekly emails.
Here I am talking about the free mini-course in a video:
P.S. If you are already subscribed, no worries! I will send you an email today with the link to the mini-course!
Creative Take on Damask Motifs
This week, we look at damask motifs from a new perspective. I challenge you to make this traditional motif your own and use it in your art!
It all started from a dream I saw a few days ago. “You should wear more decorative clothes, Paivi,” I was telling myself. “Like the old historical dress that you had at a ball as a teenager.”
I still have the dress. It has damask motifs – woven ornamental patterns that seem to never go out of date (more about their history). The idea of perfecting not only the actual swirls but also the shapes between is a good drawing practice that doesn’t have to be boring at all!
This week, I played with colored pencils mostly, but in 2015, I made a mixed media piece called Rococo. So check out this post too!
Damask Lady
The reason for my dream was an unfinished page in my colored pencil journal. I had started it at the end of last year but found it terribly uninspiring. I didn’t feel any connection with the figure, and she looked like someone had forced her to be there. In a way, that had happened. After a series of big paintings, I was knackered, as readers from the UK and Australia would describe. I had no motivation to take a brush and only a little to do something with colored pencils.
First, I added a bit of watercolor to cover white and then colored intuitively without any predefined ideas or models.
Sometimes it’s just that when you are tired, it’s best to leave the piece and come back later, even if it would be a tiny spread in a small journal. After the dream, I knew what to do: play with damask motifs!
I feel drawn to this damask lady. She looks both curious and self-confident – everything I would like to be in this new year!
Looser Damask Motifs – Nature
I got so inspired by coloring the swirly lady that the next spread was born quickly. Again, first some watercolor splashes, and then details with colored pencils.
If you compare the flowery spread above with the portrait below, you see the change in looseness. The flower is much freer than the lady, but I like both. I like how damask motifs can be seen as a part of nature – snow on trees, water drops, butterfly wings and their spots. But I also like how they can be more architecture- and design-related and a part of human fantasies and mysteries.
Which take do YOU like more?
Sketching a Damask Motif
Next, I wanted to go even further in stiffening the expression. I would design a damask-inspired motif so that there would be no looseness at all.
I started by sketching the motif in the middle of the spread, using the fold as a guide to achieving the required symmetry. In damask motifs, the negative – the shape of the background – is as important as the positive is. So after the careless sketch, I then went through the surrounding area and adjusted its swirls.
This motif felt like a forbidden fruit. I was surprised to hear myself saying: “You have crossed the line now, Paivi. Even if you always paint the inside, now it will be reverse – illustrating the outside world.” I didn’t get this first at all – I thought I was just drawing was a simple flowery ornament inspired by damask motifs!
But when I was making the finishing touches, I realized that my drawing did illustrate the outside world – our living room: a wooden ceiling, windows on the left, a wall rug on the right, a vanda orchid hanging without a pot, and the snake plants growing lower.
Here’s a picture of my vanda when it was blooming in 2020!
This spread is not loosely made at all, and yet I find that the looseness is how I unconsciously picked and interpreted the subject.
Which of the pieces of this post inspire you the most?
Are you inspired by the stiffness or looseness?
How do you want your damasks to look?
Please leave a comment! It would be so interesting to know!
Christmas Rose – Happy Holidays!
May the spirit of a simple plant, Christmas Rose, shine to you!
Happy Holidays from me and my shorties! Let’s keep creating!
Painting with Music and About Music
This post is about art, music, and spirituality and enabled by Arts Promotion Centre Finland. This is the eighth blog post of the project, see the first one here, the second one here, the third one here, the fourth one here, the fifth one here, the sixth one here, and the seventh one here!
Lately, I have made two small pieces that go with the biggest paintings of the current series. So the one above has similar colors to the big blue painting in the photo below.
And the other big painting on the right has a fairly similar color scheme to the second small one below.
These two small paintings are inspired by 17th- and 18th-century Baroque music. However, despite their theme and titles, I did not listen to Händel or Vivaldi while painting them! Namely, this fall, I have wanted not only to raise the bar in art-making but also to widen my taste for music.
So I have moved from melodic pop and baroque songs to electronic soundscapes and contemporary classical music. What used to be annoying and disturbing isn’t so anymore. I can paint more freely when a catchy melody isn’t telling me what to do.
Painting with Music or about Music
Rather than an instant energy booster, music can be seen as a concept or a memory that can be painted or drawn. I never thought before that a song could be a subject for my painting even if I don’t listen to it. Different music that plays in the background can start an inner journey to express the song. So you can paint with music A and express music B.
After finishing Water Music, I did play some Händel to check that the painting is in line with it.
Mixing Music with Other Inspiration Sources
Creating becomes exciting when inspiration is collected from several sources. One of my orchids surprised me with a small flower which affected the painting too.
I often check that my art and plants go well together. I have taken the idea from Paul Cezanne, who said: “When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art.”
In the other small painting, Vivaldi’s violins are mixed with the recent incident of seeing a fox carrying a hare in his mouth.
I feel that listening to music that I call “asymmetric” has developed my thinking. Instead of going around and getting back to the melody, music can travel long distances without repetition and create a sense of a vast space. For example, a Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho‘s orchestra piece Orion opened that way.
Jazz for the Control Freak!
Next, my plan is to learn to tolerate jazz! My husband likes it, but it’s always been too rambling for me. “Music for those who like to be idle and lazy,” I have said sarcastically when he’s been listening to it.
But now I think differently. I don’t have to be the music. I can just let the music be what it was born to be. And similarly, the music lets me be. It’s like my best paintings: they let me be who I am, and I let them grow in the direction they want.
So, I can just be and let others be and still create a connection that takes us to the next level. I think that’s what it means to “let go” when we talk about intuition and creativity.
My series will have seven paintings, and the last one is now on my easel. I will share more pics about it in later posts. It’s been quite a lot of painting and I have started to miss my colored pencils!
Tell me, do you paint and draw with the music? What kind of music do you listen to when creating?