Drawing Inspiration – What I learned from Inspirational Drawing
This week, I have some drawing inspiration for you. Let’s celebrate our living line!
Recently, I heard the term “transition” and it resonated strongly. After receiving the grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation, I have thought about my artistic career forward and at the same time also backward. I’ve noticed that it’s hard to think about the future without thinking about the past. I thought I’d write a few blog posts this spring about how I’ve grown my artistic skills by building courses.
First, I want to talk about a course that formed the basis not only for everything I teach but also for how I paint today.
From Dots and Circles to a Living Line
Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) said “Everything starts from a dot.” On the same topic, Paul Klee (1879-1940) stated: “A line is a dot that went for a walk.” I think that when a person feels the call of fine art, he is at a point where he wants to get to know himself, to walk inward. I first went on a small tour only: I drew circles.
When I finally understood that I could open the circle and boldly move forward, a new world opened up. I saw my living line pulsating strongly. I felt I could draw anything and didn’t have to “know how to draw” to draw.
Fall in Love with Your Line
It became my calling to help people who are stuck and going around in circles move forward. In 2015, I first made a trial course for Finns called “Inspiroidu piirtämisestä” (Get inspired by drawing) and learned how to make an online course and clarify my points. Then, based on the Finnish course, I made an English version called Inspirational Drawing. When time passed and I got more experience, I made the same course a third time. In 2017, the most comprehensive version Inspirational Drawing 2.0 was born, which is also in my current course selection.
Inspirational Drawing is based on getting to know your own line. You don’t immediately remove your hand from the paper, but let the line travel a longer distance. This technique is commonly called “contour drawing”, but in my version, you don’t copy what is presented, but walk with your line and let the landscapes open up to the unpredictable.
Your line is as unique as your signature. The most motivating thing in art-making is to fall in love with your line. When you want to repeatedly see your line and cherish it, it will also reveal its hidden potential. With your line, you can go much deeper in drawing inspiration and feel much freer than if you cut and compose collages from magazines or use stencils or stamps.
Drawing Inspiration
Inspiring pictures are also at the core of Inspirational Drawing. It’s natural for a creative person to collect pictures in one way or another, and drawing is a wonderful way to spend time with them. In the course, you will be guided to use the pictures you have chosen in drawing so that the pictures are not copied in the traditional style. To fuel free drawing, ideas are extracted from them. I still use this kind of inspiring effect of images in my painting process.
When moving from a point and closed shapes to an open, free-roaming line, inspiration has been a keyword anyway. With inspiration comes courage. It’s wonderful to draw when inspired. And it’s wonderful to inspire others with your own creative outcome.
Start Drawing!
Inspirational Drawing is now for sale this weekend, from March 15-19, 2023 (midnight PDT).
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Colored Pencil Doodling
This week, we are doodling wildly with colored pencils.
Free doodling is the most natural way for me to create. I can just start. No browsing the internet for ideas, no trying to think what to express. It only requires trust that something will appear – that a problem I wasn’t aware of gets solved, a key to a door that I didn’t notice is found, and a place that didn’t exist is born for everyone to explore.
Mindless Doodling
When doodling with colored pencils, I like to pick a pencil and start coloring mindlessly.
I often pick a neutral color and use a light touch so that I can later add layers on the top.
The mindless curves can go on top of each other, already creating a new layer.
When I get bored, I pick another color and do the same.
I try not to worry about how it looks because it’s just a warmup.
Enjoying Colors
When my thoughts begin to flow effortlessly, I add more colors. Now I color areas or spots over the doodles.
I also highlight some parts of the doodles with color.
I cover most of the blank areas so that the image becomes less busy.
Drawing Something Intentional
If I get stuck and feel discouraged, I draw something to cheer me up.
A heart is a message for myself: “Keep going; everything will be ok.”
Discovering by Shadowing
“What should I draw?” we often ask ourselves. I often push through by picking a fairly dark tone and shadowing around a random area.
I also like to color stripes, so I color and shadow them. It usually doesn’t take long when I feel the sense of new, exciting scenery.
Doodling All The Crazy Stuff
Recently, I have become more open to allowing all the things that don’t seem to make sense. I also have got more courage to put expression over prettiness.
The success of this kind of wild doodling is connected with the more traditional art skills. I have noticed that after doing the projects for the class Doll World, I have been able to include human shapes and characters more effortlessly for drawings and paintings.
Colored Pencil Doodling – The Result
I think that the finished work expresses that I am at a crossroads. I have a new exciting project on the horizon that you will find out more about soon. I am considering what old things to continue and what to abandon.
But I think that everything will be ok anyway because when I turn the spread upside down, the world still looks exciting and inviting.
More Intuitive Art Projects
My classes – Inspirational Drawing and Intuitive Coloring, go into this kind of free-flowing process in more detail. If you prefer watercolors to doodles, check Magical Forest for a similarly intuitive approach.
This small colored pencil journal is currently my favorite art journal. Check the class Fun Botanicum for a jump start for beginning colored pencil journal pages!
3D Paper Collage of Hand-Drawn Art
This week, let’s play with hand-drawn paper pieces and create 3D collage art.
My example is eight by eight inches (about 20 x 20 cm), so fairly small, but it has quite a lot of details. I used foam tape to add dimension to it, and the result is lovely. It brings embroidery or applique to my mind.
The idea of using foam tape between the layers is familiar to many from card-making, but I think the result is much more original when you use your own hand-drawn art.
Boxes of Joy – Shops Made by You for You
For years, I have been inspired by the idea of creating my own little paper shop. This shop is not about selling stuff for others but creative play where you are both a shop owner and its best customer. This picture is from 2016, when my shops were pretty simple and contained mostly paper sheets.
But the longer I have been in business, the more demanding my customer has got. I have got requests from myself to draw doodles, embroidery imitations, animals, magical stuff, flowers, dolls, and the little shops that I call boxes of joy have increased year by year and course by course.
Sometimes the things I have drawn feel too precious to put to use. For example, the roses that I made for Doll World.
But the older the pieces get, the more I try to use them. And if something doesn’t “sell,” I can recolor it or add something to it so that I – my best customer – feel tempted to “buy” it.
I like this process of adding more to something that’s pretty full already!
Thick Paper Love
One of my favorite papers is thick and smooth watercolor paper. It is suitable for both painting and drawing, but I sometimes avoid it because the collage gets so bulky. But for 3D effects, thick paper is perfect. It’s sturdy and goes very well with foam tape. Another paper that I like is Bristol paper. It’s not so thick but very smooth and sturdy enough for 3D.
The background of this 3D paper collage is hand-painted watercolor paper. The elements are hand-drawn on watercolor paper or Bristol paper mostly.
Colored Pencils for 3D Paper Collage
Back in 2016, I used acrylic paints a lot. But nowadays, they feel less tempting. Not only because they are messier than colored pencils or watercolors but also because they are too similar to oil paints that I use for canvas paintings. I want to separate play from the pieces that I sell.
With play, I also want to grow my drawing skills. Colored pencils are great for that. They also go well together with watercolors. I have had a break with watercolors, but I hope to use them more this year.
I like the many tones of green in this piece! I have colored many white parts with green to integrate the pieces better with the background.
Artist’s Life – Upcoming Projects
My playing time will get more limited soon because I will start a new series of oil paintings. I have been invited to a wonderful art history-related group exhibition that begins in August, and there is a smaller fantasy-related show in April. I will tell you more about these in the upcoming posts.
This spring is also full of art in other ways. I enjoy seeing all the lovely dolls from the participants of Doll World and other classes in my Bloom and Fly community. I hope to help you there as much as I can throughout the year. I am also participating in a Finnish artist coaching program to get to know the practices of the fine art world better. You have enabled my growth, and I hope that my growth will also benefit you. I hope that 2023 will be a good year of art for both of us.
The Joy of Drawing Paper Dolls
This week is about drawing paper dolls. At the same time, we celebrate the social nature of hand-drawn paper dolls.
For an artist, the difference between a doll and a human is that the doll opens the door to a fantasy. Thus, drawing paper dolls is very different from painting portraits. But if I have to pick from the two, I would say that paper dolls make you more of an artist.
Compared to a human, only a doll can be a creature of the imagination – for example, a plant and a spirit at the same time.
Dream Wardrobe
Only a doll can have a wardrobe where every piece is organized.
Only a doll can get out of the box and go where ever the imagination takes her.
Only a doll can wear a butterfly as a wig and rose leaves as a bodice.
To be a fashion designer for a doll is the play we can’t resist.
Unspoken Secrets
Only a doll can hold the secrets that every artist has.
Because isn’t it so that no matter how close we are, there are dreams that we can’t tell anybody? Dreams that would perhaps sound silly, too grand, or too selfish. Dreams that make you an artist.
True Friends
Only for a doll a true friend is easy to find.
With paper dolls, I examine the social aspect of an artist’s life – how we can feel less lonely when creating and how the result can be a bridge between all the art that we have created. And when we give or share a picture of a doll, it also invites other people to play and connect with themselves and others.
Doll World – Drawing Paper Dolls
Come to draw adorable dolls and their dresses with me!
Doll World lasts from January to May. When you sign up, you will get the published lesson right away. >> Sign up Now!