Art Inspiration from Lucas Cranach the Elder
This week, I gather inspiration for the next painting of a series, enabled by the grant that I got from Arts Promotion Centre Finland. This is the third blog post of this project, see the first one here and the second one here!
German Renaissance Portraits by Lucas Cranach
The first painting of my series (The Empire of Light) was inspired by Sandro Botticelli, Italy. Now I move further up in time and on a map and go to Germany to meet Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553). Here’s a spread in my colored pencil journal inspired by Cranach’s style.
She is a weird-looking little woman but so are Lucas’s portraits too.
Their faces are small and not so pretty at all, at least according to today’s standards. Are these two even smiling at all? Is that boredom or irony?
Cranach’s women seem so arrogantly materialistic that it doesn’t feel suitable for a series about spirituality at all. But because expressing light is impossible without painting the darkness, I have decided to explore spirituality’s ultimate opposites as well. Like insolence, materialism, and money.
Lucas Cranach’s Super Production
Lucas Cranach the Elder wasn’t just a painter. He was a businessman who ran a workshop and a pharmacy too. His unusually large workshop wasn’t just for fine art. Printing presses produced religious images for people who had less money.
Lucas Cranach surely knew how to run a business. When he needed pigments, he decided to found a pharmacy at the same go. He got friends with prestigious people like Martin Luther. I can imagine Lucas whispering to Martin at a dinner: “What kind of images does your religious movement need? I can produce thousands of them!”
He must have had a sense of humor too. And yet, his figures and the way he painted the clothing, are a bit stiff and clumsy.
From Cranach’s Bluntness To Sharp Pencils
When Botticelli made an elegant curve, Cranach added a straight like like saying: “That’ll do. They won’t notice it anyway.” So my Cranach imitation was built around similar angular lines and weird proportions.
But the more I worked with the face, the more real it felt. The woman wasn’t just an angel but had vices as well. She felt so relatable and maybe because I was glancing at my new sharpener. In the middle of the spirituality project, I had become very materialistic and spent almost 150 EUR on it.
Botticelli’s goddesses wouldn’t be even willing to touch it. But Cranach’s women would grab the handle without hindrance. They would crank fast and smile quietly, and it would all look a little immodest.
My workshop has produced a lot of pencil shavings lately.
I can assure you that all my pencils are sharp!
Long Live the Spirit of Lucas Cranach!
Queen Dido’s smile in Cranach’s painting is deceiving. She had made a decision to leave the materialistic world.
Her story goes like this: Dido founded the city of Carthago after her husband died. Then her lover, a Trojan hero Aineias was taken away and in agony, she killed herself.
Black and white always go together. Dido was not just a wealthy royal, but a sensitive woman too. Maybe Lucas Cranach and Martin Luther had deep discussions over dinner. Perhaps my sharpener will live longer than I do and serve many enthusiastic colorers after me.
The most inspiring detail in Dido’s clothing is this carelessly painted ornament on the hem. It just floats there! It doesn’t follow the folds of the fabric at all. But its living line documents Cranach’s spirit.
No matter what the subject is, art always carries a spirit with the way we draw lines.
Like Cranach, I made two layers of lines, first x-shapes, then swirls.
Colored Pencil Journal
This journal spread will be my inspiration for a new abstract oil painting.
My little journal has quite many drawings already. I browse it often and it brings me joy.
Do you also have an art journal, a visual diary, or a sketchbook that you like to browse and fill? Can you find your living line there?
P.S. My photos of Lucas Cranach the Elder’s paintings are from an exhibition in 2019, see this blog post for more pics!
Art is a Lemon Tree – How’s Your Lemonade?
This week, I talk about art and lemonade and share some news about the rest of the year!
I was going to make a cheerful spread on my colored pencil diary, celebrating a beginning of a period that I have never experienced so far in my life. But I started the drawing intuitively, and here’s what came up: a murky image with a bittersweet impression!
“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” they say.
I have never been fond of that kind of forced optimism, but I guess there’s also a seed of truth. In art, you have to make most of what you have.
What Kinds of Lemons Does the Tree Produce?
In 2014, when I became a full-time artist, I thought about growing my skills and how that would naturally lead to something good. But nowadays, my leap has felt more like changing a long CV in technology and service design to a very short, almost non-existent, CV in art.
Art is like a lemon tree. You can nurture it, but you can’t change its variety. Over the years, I have learned not only to teach but also to illustrate, make surface designs, and even draw ornaments and logos. But my heart has always been in fine art, and especially in intuitive abstracts.
In my opinion, fine art makes the best lemons. But the weather is harsh, and the harvest becomes too small to be enough for the lemonade. So my passion for teaching has often been the lemonade maker, not the actual paintings.
But now, things change for a few months. I have got a grant from The Arts Promotion Centre Finland to create a series of paintings and write about the process. I will publish the art and most of the writings here in my blog, so you will also get to drink this lemonade!
The project has a set theme that also includes a background study. I will also continue the colored pencil diary and document a part of the process in colored pencils. Later posts will reveal more.
I hope that my project will also inspire you to create – grow more lemons and make your kind of lemonade!
P.S. You can still sign up for Intuitive Coloring! You will get the published lessons immediately after signing up, and can start having fun right away. >> Sign Up Now!
Life in a Colored Pencil Diary
Recently, my life has not been a life of a middle-aged woman, but of a female tiger. With a new puppy, we have tried to find a balance in the family, and it has felt like a fight sometimes.
At some point in every evening, I become exhausted and demand my herd to calm down. It’s usually 21:34 exactly, so it seems that we run an accurate schedule.
But there’s not much else accurate in our life, because the puppy requires us – like my husband kindly puts it – to go with the flow. We are not talking about a flow state here, but a flow of random things that keep the puppy either awake or asleep.
I feel that the puppy is like a peacock which my husband, I, and our older beagle Stella stare at – the central character of our zoo who makes us happy or miserable, and often both at the same time.
We have had stress. Stella got ill and my oldest budgie Bonneville died, both sudden events.
But when Stella got back from the hospital, I began to think that we will survive. That the peacock sometimes looks like a dove, and that the rest of us can just admire its flight through the youth.
But that would be another page for my colored pencil diary!
P.S. For more colored pencil inspiration, remember to sign up for Intuitive Coloring!
Colored Pencil Fantasy Art – From Sunnyland to Starryverse
This week, we go from happy and light to adventurous and dark. This is how adventurous colored pencil fantasy art is born!
Imagine walking in a sunnyland through sunshine meadows, seeing pinks, fresh greens, smiling yellows, and trotting happily along a path that feels pleasantly warm and soft. And then, suddenly, something dark hits you, and you no longer feel the ground. Should you fight back to the sunnyland? Or try to figure out what this new place is that feels like a deepwater or a starryverse? That’s what happened to me with colored pencils.
I have made drawings for the upcoming class Intuitive Coloring, and it’s been fun. Happy pictures have filled my studio, and bright colors have got shorter.
But then, boom! Somebody wanted to come out, and she was not a smiley face.
“Let’s make you smile,” I told her. “Let’s take away the darkness, and you will fit better with others. So, here’s a rose that will guide our path back to the sunnyland.” But she didn’t stay behind the flower, and her eyes refused to smile.
It’s easy to follow intuition when she plays with the butterflies promising good things and much harder when she takes you to a less defined zone. For example, can I let go of not drawing an arm or a leg? Not that I would specifically enjoy drawing them, but because humans do usually have hands and feet.
Colored Pencil Fantasy Art
I didn’t know what was what, but I let her appear anyway.
While spending time in this strange place, it started to feel exciting and inviting.
I found myself thinking: why do I give restrictions to my imagination when pens and paper don’t set them? When imagination hits our intuition – or is it vice versa – why not just let go and see who’s the little monster that wants to come out.
I want to fit and belong, and yet, it’s not always so.
My art and my expectations don’t always meet. But the dark starryverse feeds the bright sunnyland, and I need both to keep the sun shining and fairies moving forward.
How’s this with your art?