How to Add Depth when Creating Abstract Mixed Media Florals
When I started drawing and painting as an adult, it took quite a long time for me to understand the power of creating visual depth. Before that, every time I wanted to highlight a particular element, I added more lines to it and it just looked stiffer and stiffer. When you add depth, your art is not like a sentence where every word is underlined.
Instead, your art becomes more like a paragraph that invites the viewer to dig deeper.
How to Add Depth – Create with Me!
In the video, I create a floral painting without any reference photos and give you some basic tips along the way. I use a mixed media approach and combine pens with paints to make the job easier!
Come and Create Unique Floral Treasures!
Level up your skills, find the process you love and let flowers show the way to expressive art! You don’t want to miss this class!
Floral Fantasies in 3 Styles begins on Feb 19th – sign up now!
Flower Art Inspiration from the Students of Floral Fantasies
Today, you will see beautiful art from the students of Floral Fantasies in Three Styles!
In this online workshop, you play with three different approaches and pick the best from each of them.
Week 1 – Designs to Spark the Imagination
I think we all have browsed Instagram or Pinterest and found inspiring images from illustrators and pattern designers. In the first week, I show how to use flower photos to create simple designs that still look lively and unique. You will build designs from simple shapes and get inspiration from art nouveau, art deco, mid-century modern, and Scandinavian retro.
What I love about the students’ designs, is that they are all so original and express personality as well. I have included my favorite detail in the images.
Stephanie Carney:
Cathy Cale:
Diane Williams:
Jenny Baeta:
Gill Turner:
Nancy Kvorka:
Week 2 – Watercolors to Bring Up Expression
In week 2, we go to a different direction but use the idea of simplifying as a foundation for painting intuitively. The best media for quick, intuitive painting is watercolors, of course!
Tina Mitchell:
Darci Hayden:
Christy Tattersall:
Wendy Holmgren:
You can be less or more abstract when creating flowers with watercolors. You can adjust the theme to paint a still life, scene or landscape. See how Lisa Wright’s and Pirkko-Liisa Mannoja’s styles are different, yet both have their strengths.
There are so many different kinds of energy that you can express from quiet power to bubbling bursts, or maybe you want to splash boldly as Darci did in her piece.
Weeks 3 & 4 – Acrylics and Glazing Medium to Create Softness
In the next two weeks, we use all the things we have learned from watercolors as a new foundation for painting with acrylics. If you like to create quickly but get frustrated with the result, these weeks can be ground-breaking to you. Instead of rushing, you will calm down. You will see nuances and softness that you hadn’t noticed before. You will learn to use glazing medium so that it will make acrylic paints speak the language of flowers.
This old technique has many applications. You can use it for intuitive art, and it’s especially good for figurative painting. Practically most of the old pieces from the 16th to the 18th century use the technique with oil paints. I have adapted the technique to acrylic paints. I also have experience in oil painting so I can give you some tips if you prefer oils instead. These pieces created by students are made with acrylics and glazing medium.
The first layers are painted with umber and white. It’s called underpainting. Martha Winslow shows you an example of that:
Mackie d’Arge’s underpainting and the painting after some color layers:
Susana Trew shows the softness I talked about earlier:
Leena Meinilä’s piece shows the romantic approach with glowing details that was popular in Renaissance:
Marie Jerred shows how you can still play with colors even if you are painting like old masters:
Paula Snyder said about the class: “The old masters portion was earth shaking for me. Really good material I’ll use all my life. I feel like I am turning a corner in my artistic growth.”
See how her painting is full of delicacy in shapes and colors, and still so captivating in simplicity.
Many contemporary painters use this old technique, especially the underpainting part. It helps you to get away from the flat look, and bring depth and 3-dimensional impression to your work. Wendy Holmgren’s flower is a beautiful example:
Marion Berkhout said: “I found a way of working which I didn’t expect at all. And it gave me the confidence to trust myself in art. The class gave me the opportunity to develop myself as an artist and learn new skills.”
Marion’s painting takes the old technique to the contemporary era:
Come and Create Your Floral Treasures!
Floral Fantasies in 3 Styles begins on Feb 19th, and the early-bird registration closes this week. Get the reduced price – sign up now!
More Art Inspiration – Join the Free Webinar too!
Tomorrow, I will broadcast live from my studio in Finland and talk about finding your visual voice. Welcome to the webinar! >> Save your spot here
The webinar will be recorded. If you save your spot, you can also watch the replay later!
Paint Gentleness – Watch the video!
It’s the time for a video blog post! This week, I talk about gentleness and how you can experience that through a painting technique. I show some basic elements from the old masters painting techniques. In the past, artists painted with oil paints. For acrylic paints, the secret is to use glazing medium for thinning the paint. Have fun!
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13 Prompts for Expressive Art – Illustrated by the Students of Peony and Parakeet
When you wonder what to create next, here’s a list of prompts for expressive art! Use these for art journal pages, drawings, paintings, mixed media, even for creative writing. The inspirational quotes from famous artists complement each of the short prompts. The students of Peony and Parakeet created the beautiful pieces that illustrate the prompts. They are based on the mini-courses “Botanical Discovery” and “Romantic Geometry.” These mini-courses are included in Imagine Monthly Art Journaling Class Bundle 2.
1) Living Colors
Claude Monet: “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.”
2) Dreamy Sharpness
Rene Magritte: “If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream.”
3) Speaking with Shapes
Vincent van Gogh: “The emotions are sometimes so strong that I work without knowing it. The strokes come like speech.”
4) Composition of Absurdness
M.C. Escher: “Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible. I think it’s in my basement… let me go upstairs and check.”
5) No Stereotypes!
Henri Matisse: “There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted.”
6) Bring in The Sun!
Pablo Picasso: “Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.”
7) Taking Flight
Michelangelo: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
8) Blue Escape
Wassily Kandinsky: “The deeper the blue becomes, the more strongly it calls man towards the infinite, awakening in him a desire for the pure and, finally, for the supernatural… The brighter it becomes, the more it loses its sound, until it turns into silent stillness and becomes white.”
9) Nature’s Mystery
Francis Bacon: “The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.”
10) Colors of the Night
Vincent van Gogh: “I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.”
11) Strong but Gentle
Paul Klee: “One eye sees, the other feels.”
12) Explosion
M.C. Escher: “We adore chaos because we love to produce order.”
13) Panorama of Your Inner World
Wassily Kandinsky: “To create a work of art is to create the world.”
Buy Botanical Discovery!
Georgia O’Keeffe: “I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge scale, you could not ignore its beauty.”
Botanical Discovery is a mini-course inspired by the famous American artist Georgia O’Keeffe and botanical art. Create beautiful collages from hand painted papers – Buy here!
Buy Romantic Geometry!
Wassily Kandinsky: “Everything starts from a dot.”
Romantic Geometry is a mini-course inspired by the famous abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky, Renaissance masters and computer games. It’s a journey through centuries and especially suitable for you who want to make your art more dynamic! – Buy here!
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