Video: Abstract Painting
I made this abstract mixed media painting last fall and it has been waiting in the queue ever since as I also recorded a video of the process and had no time editing it.
The painting is called “Wheel Mechanics”. It expresses my thoughts about how good engineering, design and art are connected together but maybe you see something else? With abstract art, it’s good to present a basic idea (in this case: “merging”) in such a general level that it leaves room for interpretations. That’s one of the main difficulties in creating abstract art, I think.
I was about to make a video introducing my online classes so I combined the two together. You can watch me painting + get info about the classes.
Inspirational Drawing is the next class!
It’s my “the drawing class” and especially good for you who wants to enjoy drawing without boundaries. See these blog posts for fabulous drawings created by the students of this class: Explore by Drawing!, Do You Have a Talent for Creating Art? and sign up now!
Find Your Art Journaling Inspiration!
After stretching my limits at the last blog post, I felt the need to go back to basics. I picked my Moleskine Watercolor Notebook and made three spreads by just answering the question: what does continually inspire me?
The short answer is: I am constantly inspired by the history of decorative art. I believe that it’s important to respond to the question on a general level like this. If you only list specific artworks and other artists, there may be less room for personal interpretation. If you define yourself too tightly through others, you can find it hard to figure out what to create next and how to find your personal style.
My Art Journaling Inspiration Sources
I am constantly inspired by embroidered fabrics and wool rugs from the first half of the 20th century.
I am constantly inspired by art glass, fabric prints, and the way these characteristics are seen in today’s street fashion, especially Japanese street fashion.
I am constantly inspired by Russian decorative plates, European Art Nouveau and the way they combine drama with natural colors and shapes.
Even if I don’t have the ability to paint decorative plates or the looks to wear Japanese street fashion, I can use them as a constant source of inspiration. I can let them show in art journals and other artworks, often in a way that is less literal but still obvious for myself.
The history of decorative art fills my mind with values that I can resonate with. They are understanding nuances, focusing on details, telling stories that last time, uplifting people with beauty and spirituality and integrating production with technology. It may not be the whole big picture of the subject, but it is how I look at it. That in turn, inspires me to create art, to blog and to deliver new techniques and workshops.
Let art journaling make you happy – fill your pages with subjects that truly inspire you!
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Processing Visual Inspiration
Last week, I visited Natural History Museum of Helsinki. My idea was to take a sketchbook with me and make few sketches – if I happened to see something inspiring. My skeptic attitude changed once I entered the place. I remember visiting the museum over 20 years ago but only the front door of the old building seemed a bit familiar, everything else looked new to me. I was mesmerized by the colors and details of stuffed animals, and only after a short while, almost overwhelmed by the amount of information and visual stimulation. It would have been impossible to put all the inspiration into sketches, so I took photos.
When I got back home, I knew I had to create an artwork inspired by the visit. But my mind seemed too full, not knowing where to start, what to express. I started a painting but against all my principles, I tossed it because I was totally clueless even if my mind was full of inspiration!
After a couple of days, I decided to make a sketchbook spread to help me process the subject. I loaded the photos to iPad and created several layers of watercolors while browsing the images.
I wrote down some of my thoughts: how I admired lions and African animals in general when I was a child and how rich country Africa is, in terms of nature.
After this spread, I asked myself: what inspiring did I see that than the animals. The answer was: glass cabinets and the concept of collections that were kind of surreal. With that in mind, I started a painting on a thick watercolor paper.
Randomly creating new layers with ink mists, watercolors, alcohol inks and gouache paints, I focused on the color first. Greens, turquoises and ochras were the ones that made the strongest impact on me when looking inside the glass vitrines.
With gold paint and white ink, I created more details to embark my imagination. Then I thought about Slavic melancholy, fall, piano concertos and let all of that get mixed with glass and nature. When I looked at the end result, I kind of like the idea of mixing a landscape with a still life. The idea is surprisingly similar than what I saw in the museum: still-lifes that are also landscapes! I would have not thought it this way though without processing the subject so much. By taking photos, painting without a clue, working with the sketchbook and then creating a lot of layers made me somehow understand what inspired me in the first place. When I let go and followed the pencils and brushes, it was ready to come out.
What I learned was: sometimes the creative process takes a lot of time, a lot of phases, don’t stop too soon!
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Add More Creativity to Your Art!
Here is my abstract still-life with watercolors, acrylic paints, and colored pencils, called “Harvest Stillife.” It’s created very intuitively, without any idea of the end result when started. But like so often before, when I selected images for this blog post, I found recent photos that must have been in my mind when I made this.
I love the complexity and the number of details that can be seen in these shots from my garden. Many who struggle with creating art overlook the complex nature of reality. In these photos, they only see a flower, bush, and some berries. Instead of labeling the obvious, you can examine all the color variations, different shapes, sharpness and blurriness of the elements, depth, patterns, the way each color connects with the next … Then you can try to summarize what the hierarchy of all these factors in the photos could be, how all this could be modeled. It seems too complex to describe in a simple way. That’s when creativity starts working for the solution, figuring out what things to bring out without losing the connection to all of it.
A big part of the visuals today has a simple, graphic look. If you get exposed to that a lot, you might think that simplicity is the key to creating good art. I believe it’s totally opposite: complex things are the best source of inspiration. Trying to see complex systems behind simple stereotypes feeds our creativity much more than trying to simplify the simple.
The same idea applies to painting: Embrace the complexity by adding a lot of variation and then bring out the essential.
Painting an Abstract Still-Life
Watercolors and acrylic paints:
Placing a plastic wrap over the wet watercolor paint to add more delicate details:
Ready for finishing:
A detail of the finished look, done with colored pencils and a black drawing pen:
Creating abstract still lives so that they appear naturally is so much fun!
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