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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Easter Still Lifes in Watercolor – Video Included!
In February, I went to see an art exhibition with my husband. The destination was one of my favorite art galleries in Helsinki. Helsinki Contemporary has interesting artists, and I also like the gallery space and how it’s located in the center, near many art supply stores. This time I was to see watercolor paintings by
This time I was to see watercolor paintings by Kati Immonen. She is a master in watercolor techniques, but I also became fascinated by the theme. The exhibition called Flora included many still lifes that were like miniature worlds. My husband is fond of bonsai trees so he liked the theme too.
Easter Still Lifes with a Wet Brush
Yesterday when I picked up my watercolor set to paint something seasonal for you, I remembered the exhibition. I became inspired by the simple idea of painting a pot or a vase and then adding some spring flowers using a lot of water. By painting with a wet brush, the flowers could appear naturally along with any other unintentional decorative elements.
After painting with oils and acrylics recently, my skills were a bit rusty so I made three paintings. Here’s the first one.
Here’s the second one.
Easter Still Life on a Video
After the second painting, I turned on the camera and recorded a video of making the third one. It is a mixture of the two previous ones, a bit simpler than the first one yet somewhat complicated and refined than the second one. After creating these, I applaud Kati Immonen! I have a long way to go to challenge her, but it doesn’t prevent me from enjoying the watercolors from time to time. Watch the video with some tips to create your own spring painting!
Acrylics or Watercolors – You Choose!
I enjoyed painting with the watercolors so much that I made an extra video for my next online workshop Planet Color. Whether you want to use acrylics or watercolors (or both) in the class, I will help you! Sign up now!
Don’t Just Create Circles! Moving on with Freehand Drawing
I have created this journal spread for the class Inspirational Drawing 2.0 where I teach freehand drawing that goes beyond just drawing circles. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t have anything against circles. I think that I, if anyone, have had a real love affair with circles. In fact, it was all I drew for a long time.
Circle Love
In 2010-2012, I spent most of my free time drawing circles.
I even went to a few craft fairs to sell – hand-drawn circles!
I firmly believed that if I create enough circles, I will find something new behind them. And yes, I slowly started to realize that there’s more than just making repeated circles that are more like backgrounds and patterns than expressive images. Now years later, I wish someone would have shown me how to move on – how to combine those repeating graphic shapes with lines that express more.
Do You Make Abstracts but Still Feel the Stiffness?
Circles and other geometric shapes are fun to create. But no matter how good I became in that, I never felt the same satisfaction that I felt when I was able to go beyond that. So when I meet people who say that they “make abstracts” and “want to get away from stiffness,” I totally get it. “I don’t really know what my abstracts represent,” says many who come to my classes. Drawing circles and playing with layers feels free first, but the more you want to express yourself, you need to explore more.
“More” doesn’t mean that you have to throw away what you have already learned. If you look at my two pieces, you can still see similarities. The first one made in 2011 called “Romance,” and the second in 2015 is called “Withering Peonies.” I called the first one “Romance” because I thought it’s all so romantic. But in the second one, I was able to express my love for peonies with much more expression without just drawing stiff flower-like shapes.
The satisfaction that came from being able to deliver a message, instead of just an atmosphere, was ground-breaking to me. My art became more powerful, impactful, it spoke not only to me but others as well.
That’s why I now teach
– how to open up and liberate the line
– how to communicate visually: create illustrations instead of backgrounds
– how to express inspiration and explore imagination in its full potential.
And that’s why my class Inspirational Drawing 2.0 exists.
Freehand Drawing Video – Create with me!
I have made a video where we start with geometric shapes and then move on to liberate the line. To create with me, you will only need a black thin-tipped drawing pen and colored pencils (or any coloring supplies).
Here’s the little drawing that we will create together.
And here’s the video!
Inspirational Drawing 2.0
is now available as a self-study class! Buy here! (Update: August 17)
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