Dolls and Angels – Video Blog Post
This week, I have a video blog post for you! I talk about dolls and angels – winter, the new class Doll World and Christmas memories, among other things!
You will also see my table at the recent sales event. I hope you enjoy the video!
Dolls and Angels – Watch the Video!
Links to Related Blog Posts
- The previous video blog post
- Instructions for drawing a winter angel
- Preparing for the sales event
- The half-body figure: Creating a Protector of Good
- The painting: Winter Night’s Poem
- About painting a series: Inspired by Nature
Related Online Classes
- Doll World – Sign up here!
- Make a chapter for your colored pencil journal: Fun Botanicum
- The evolution from drawing to coloring and then to painting: 1) Inspirational Drawing, 2) Intuitive Coloring, 3) Floral Freedom
Let’s Draw a Winter Angel
This week, we draw a winter angel step by step!
The angel begins with a simple outline sketch. The hands and feet are hidden behind the dress, so it’s easy! The skirt is big so that you can treat it as a blank canvas for winter scenery.
Step 1 – Make an Outline Sketch
Pick an A4-size or US letter-size paper and a regular pencil.
Draw a horizontal center line and then another line that divides the upper part in half.
Place a head right above the upper line and draw a simple body and a long hem.
Add a circle for the halo behind the head, some marks for facial features, wings, and curves to divide the upper body into two parts.
Erase the sketched lines so that you can see them only vaguely. Compare the wings in the picture above with the next picture. After erasing, the pencil sketch is visible only barely.
Step 2 – Add Foundational Ideas
Change to colored pencils. Start with the face and color lightly. Get connected with the character that you are drawing. Add some skin tone and hair. You can also draw facial features, but do it with a light hand, aiming for a connection rather than perfection at this stage.
With neutral colors, add ideas for a winter feel. I draw fur on the top part of the dress and then sky and trees on the skirt.
Step 3 – Color Beyond the Outlines
Get more creative by breaking the outlines. Think about the air that rises from the cold and circulates around the dress. Imagine winds, polar lights, and layers of snow, but also immaterial things: thoughts and feelings and their liveliness.
You can now use more colors but keep the coloring light and progress gradually layer by layer.
Step 4 – Add Details by Coloring
Go through the angel many times and add more details and shadows at every go.
The more details you add, the more your imagination grows. For example, the wings can have decorative motifs.
Make the angel more interesting by adding more asymmetry.
Draw elements like ice so that it’s placed differently on the two sides of the angel.
Step 5 – Cut Out and Finish
Cut the angel out of the paper and make final adjustments, especially near the cut-out edges. Now it’s also the time to make final adjustments to the facial features.
I added more decoration and cut a notch to the halo so that it’s like a glamorous hat.
Step 6 – Play with the Winter Angel!
Combine other items with the doll, and enjoy making the settings! I like to pull out stuff from my boxes of hand-drawn elements – boxes of joy, as I call them!
I drew this little Christmas Girl one evening when I was too tired to do anything else. I think it looks lovely with the winter angel!
Doll World – Sign Up Now!
Come to draw more dolls and other beautiful items for your box of joy!
Doll World begins on January 1st, 2023. Watch the video and sign up here!
Inspired by Nature – Finishing a Series of Paintings
This week, I celebrate a big finish – the series of ten nature-inspired oil paintings that I started in July!
The series has four small, four medium-sized, and two big paintings. All of them are some kind of floral landscapes.
Small Paintings + Video!
I worked from big to small. I like to start the series boldly and then pick ideas from them for smaller pieces. This is the last painting – Rapunzel of the Garden:
Because of the small size, this painting required very thin brushes and a lot of precision. Here’s a 1-minute video where you can see me painting it:
These are the rest of the small paintings:
I like the idea of having a secret tiny treasure, so I try to make the small paintings look like that.
Medium-Sized Paintings
The medium-sized paintings are in two parts: two are smaller, and two are bigger. I like to paint “sisters” – so two paintings in a row or at the same time so that they complement each other. It’s an easy way to create variation in the series.
I like to name each painting of a series so that the titles have some kind of similarities. For example, the previous series all had celestial bodies in their names, and the one before that was a V-series – all the titles started with the letter V. This time, the similarity is not perhaps so evident, but it’s there – all the titles have a genitive form.
Four seasons are also present in this series. Expressing seasons is an idea that I could repeat in future series too.
Currently on display at the exhibition “Talven taikaa” in Galleria K, Vantaa, Finland.
In every series, there are paintings that have seeds for the next one. In this series, I like how abstract I went with Winter Night’s Poem, and the natural look in The Echo of Moss inspires me a lot. These two will set the foundation for the next series.
Usually, I am exhausted after finishing a series, but this time not so much. I have many ideas and already ordered the canvases. I like to plan the size of the series and the sizes of the paintings beforehand. Before I even begin to make any background studies, I have ideas on interiors they could fit or galleries or exhibitions they could go to, and decide the size based on those.
Big Paintings
Even if all my paintings are my children, I can’t help picking my personal favorite of the series. In this one, it’s Tiger’s Eye.
Currently on display at the gallery Gumbostrand Konst & Form.
See more pics in this blog post!
Tiger’s Eye is a sister to another big painting – Queen of the Night.
I like the drama in these big paintings.
Nature Inspired The Series of Paintings
Often, people ask an artist: “What inspires you?” and the artist responds, “Nature.”
But I think that it’s really important for an artist to get more specific. For me, it’s the plants – who they want to be and what kind of world they hope to build. I love to imagine what kind of personalities plants have.
In the upcoming class Doll World, the plants become alive as flower girls!
Come to draw people in nature-inspired dresses – Sign up here!
New Class Coming Up – Sign Up Now!
This week, I open the registration for the new class Doll World.
This fun class is about drawing human figures in adorable fantasy dresses. It will run from January to May 2023. You will get a new lesson every month.