Paint Beautiful Decorative Flowers!
This week, we create stylized beauty. You will see how I painted these beautiful decorative flowers.
Time for Some Happy Art!
At least here in Finland, May-June is a time for parties. There are school graduations and then Midsummer at the end of June, which is celebrated not only by people but by Finnish nature too. Days are long and the deep sleeps during the dark winter are now coming into use. If different art forms had seasons, this uplifting time would be dedicated to decorative painting. Beautiful decorative flowers and other curvy motifs go well with the celebrations.
Decorative art is happy art for most people. Its tradition extends all over the world and it only requires a little sensitivity to beauty from the viewer.
Uplifting Art-Making
Three years ago, when the Corona lockdowns started, I buried myself in decorative painting. I made decorative collages from hand-painted papers and practiced decorative painting techniques.
These curvy forms and lines are still present in my paintings, where decorativeness is mixed with a more dynamic and abstract expression.
Painting in a decorative style is fun. A few thoughtful brushstrokes create beauty, and even a beginner’s work looks great when viewed from a far enough distance. Over time, the brush mark improves and has an effect on all drawing and painting, even handwriting. And it’s the perfect style for cards and gifts!
Starting a Decorative Painting
As I watched the blossoms in apple trees, I felt like painting something small and nice to celebrate the beginning of the blooming season.
I took out my black Dylusions Creative Journal and acrylic paints and painted the background very dark blue. Then I made leaves on top of each other, and so that they get lighter layer by layer.
At the same time, I watched the videos of my course Decodashery.
Decodashery – Painting Techniques for Vintage Flowers and More
I still like this course a lot. Decodashery is beautiful, inspiring, and detailed in its instructions. It is also full of ideas. When the Corona lockdown was on, I had plenty of time to experiment with decorative painting and make more examples than usual. This course is for watercolors, gouache, and acrylic paints. You can choose what you want – most of the decorative techniques suit all of them.
Beautiful Decorative Flowers in Two Parts
At first, I thought about making two separate paintings for this post but then decided to make one work in two parts. The first part is simple and stylized and the second part is more creative. In this first part, I used quite raw colors: mainly ultramarine blue and white. I also mixed some brown umber with them.
To highlight the decorative theme, I painted some parts with silver acrylic paint.
Finally, I added some Sienna brown and turquoise (manganese blue hue) to bring warmth to the details.
Now the first part is finished. The flowers that are only partly visible give the impression of continuous space.
Beautiful Decorative Flowers – The Second Part
In the second part, I wanted to bring more depth and warmth to the work. So I spread a thin layer of yellow-green color over the painting.
I used glazing gloss as a thinner here, but you can also try to thin the paint with water.
Immediately after application, I removed the excess paint by rubbing the surface with a cotton cloth. The thin color wash warms the tones of the whole painting.
After the color wash, the painting is a bit hazy. Next, I added more details and brought some of them back up from the lower layers. This sharpens the best parts.
I had lots of tubes on the table but only used a few. Decorative painting encourages making a variety of tones by adjusting the lightness and darkness of color instead of always changing the actual color.
Happy for the Artist, Happy for the Viewer
There were moments of joy that only decorative painting can give me while making the page. This style feeds gentleness and peace. And even if the pleasures of the decorative painting process are only experienced by the painter, the decorative painting leads to results that are extrovertedly joyous, ready to brighten up anyone’s day.
Decodashery online course – Paint vintage beauty – Buy Now!
Painting Roses and Their Spirit
This week, we get inspiration from roses – their spirit, resilience, and decorative beauty.
With this post, I want to encourage you to expand the use of decorative art. You can add decorative elements to any art style! See another example in the older blog post: From Decorative to Expressive Art
The Spirit of the Rose Stays Alive in The Fall
Roses surprise me every fall. When other flowers have given up weeks ago, roses still make buds and continue to bloom. Not as galore as in summer, but they try their best on cold nights and cloudy days. The spirit of the rose is born from warmth and light, but once it’s up, it doesn’t quench easily.
In our garden, roses are more my husband’s thing – I collect peonies! But in the fall, I have to admit how superior roses are, queens of the garden, one could say. When the colorful leaves take over the scenery, even the most modest rose flowers stand out simply because they are different in colors and shapes.
It reminds me of how resilience and beauty are connected. So mere persistence in creating makes your art beautiful.
Expressing with Small and Decorative
This painting is a small one, only 20 x 25 cm (approximately 8 x 10 inches). When I was a beginner in painting, the small size felt easier. But nowadays, I prefer big canvases, and if I want to create something small, I usually grab my colored pencils, not brushes. But on the other hand, I like the challenge that the small size gives.
When painting roses in a small size, I need to have an extra focus on the quality of brushwork. Even the tiniest strokes should be elegant, especially if the painting is called ”The Spirit of the Rose.”
Decorative paintings often look very static, but I like to add movement with lines. At best, my small paintings are like short classical musical pieces with a clear melody, lots of short violin strokes, and clever piano tunes in major. It often helps me if I define the desired outcome by other art forms like music or movies.
But decorative art has its limitations. The spirit of a rose is not visible if you only paint one kind of rose and if all that you paint is roses. Add flower variations, how the flowers affect their surroundings, and how the surroundings gather around the flowers. Add elements that resemble the living spirit, and let colors interact too so that the roses are not separate but part of the living scenery. So, painting roses is never just about roses, it also expresses how you see the world.
Painting Roses – Decorative Flowers of Decodashery
Even if single floral motifs are often not so expressive, I am fascinated by the techniques of decorative art, especially folk art. A couple of years ago, I noticed that I need practice with the brushstrokes. I wanted to learn to paint in a decorative style and then combine that with a looser and more abstract approach that I already had in my style toolbox. I think that style should not be a matter of narrowing down but expanding, and I felt that more experience in decorative painting was something that I could benefit from. So I made a course called Decodashery and painted flowers after flowers to improve my strokes.
You see, preparing for the course requires deep understanding. A teacher isn’t only someone who masters the technique but one who can also break it into pieces and explain it. And by doing that, the skill becomes more stable and versatile. So, you can create quicker when knowing how things are constructed, and it’s easier to adapt the technique to your own liking. In the classes, whether you are a student or a teacher, the resilience grows, and the spirit of the rose becomes stronger: ”There’s still time to bloom, and I will do it!”
Drawing Roses and Flower Girls – New Course Is in the Making
This fall, I have not only been painting a new series but also developing a new course.
Its working title is ”Doll World,” and it’s about drawing human figures. I think it’s a skill that enables us to do illustrations that captivate the viewer and something that we all would like to do for fun too. We will draw flowers as warmups and decorate the dresses with colored pencils. I plan to run the class next year and open the registration next month. So stay tuned!
Pink Inspiration
This week is full of pink art inspiration. I hope that this post will get you to find your pinks and start creating sweetness!
Dreamy Pinks in Colored Pencils
First, one of the journal spreads that we will create at Fun Botanicum, the newest class.
The softness that you can create with colored pencils is divine and you can highlight that with sharp strokes. The versatility of colored pencils always amazes me. With one pencil you can create the whole value range from light to dark so a few pencils go a long way. I like those shelves of individual pencils in art supply stores because it’s like picking candies!
Pink Handdrawn Playing Cards
These cards are from the class Magical Inkdom. They are drawn with a black pen and then colored with watercolors.
My husband asked when he saw me drawing these:
– “Playing cards? What’s the game?”
– Well, these are like collector’s items! And you can invent the game yourself!
Because if you make more than one, isn’t that like a little oracle deck? You can ask yourself how you feel by picking a card that reflects your mood.
Lots of Pink Petals
I am already waiting for summer and see my pink peonies bloom in June. If I was a small fairy, I could live in those petals!
Petals, petals, more pink petals – that’s how the flowers are constructed! These are from the class Decodashery.
Pick a small brush, some pink gouache paints or watercolors, and paint small spots in layers!
Red and Green are Pink’s Best Pals
Here’s more pink gouache art – a small journal cover that also has reds and greens.
I love this color combination. Each color makes the other shine brighter. I can almost taste the colors when I look at them.
Pink Glow in the Dark
Pink is also a wonderful color with darks. You can paint a pink glow that makes the image look romantic.
Here’s a blog post where you can see process pictures of this painting.
Powder Pink Inspiration
One night my husband showed me new Swatch watches. I wasn’t so interested at first, but when I saw the photos and got the concept, I got so inspired that I am using that inspiration for the new series of oil paintings!
Here’s the new pink Swatch called Mission to Venus. I am definitely going to somehow incorporate all this into a painting! Not literally, but conceptually.
The powder pink with decorative details speaks of a beautiful adventure to me.
This watercolor painting has powder pinks too.
I painted this one a few years ago when my mission was to find the best way to paint flowers freely in watercolors without using a reference. I have a class about it too Floral Fantasies – Watercolor Edition!
Pinks and Other Pastels
What about selecting some acrylic paints and going wild on an art journal?
Add darks on the bottom and let dry. Then mix white to the colors and have fun with pastels. Use different brushes to have some variety in strokes as well.
You can be rough like above, or go in a more delicate direction with thinner brushes.
Black with pink is also a great color combination!
Pink Inspiration – How to Go Deeper
If you are a color-oriented artist as I am, pink is never just one pink. Challenge yourself to make all kinds of pinks from light to dark, from warm to cool, and use them all in one painting. Nature doesn’t select just one pink, so why would you?
The same goes for shapes, lines, and ideas. The more you embrace the variety, the more exciting the art-making becomes, and the more you create. Restrict supplies and increase imagination!
I hope you have an adventurous Pink Inspiration Day!
P.S. You can still sign up for Fun Botanicum and make wonderful colorings of plants!
Pop Music in Art Journal
This week – turn some pop music on and start art journaling!
Since I started working full-time as an artist in 2014, my taste for music has gone wider. Listening to different genres has enriched not only my life but also my art. Music has taken me to all kinds of visual worlds. Even one sound can bring color or a shape to mind.
I have an old book as a music-inspired art journal. I like how the variety of music is shown on its pages. Now I wanted to make a spread inspired by Asian pop.
Sometimes Music is a Human, Other Times a Machine
Asian pop music is fun to listen and very easy-going – like an acquaintance who is always ready for a visit to a candy shop and to have a light conversation about current movies.
But when I paint big paintings, I prefer music that’s more like a vehicle – no melodies, only interesting sounds that make me go deeper and deeper in concentration.
Without a repeating chorus and clear rhythm, I don’t feel the need to express the music or paint at its speed. That’s how I have become a fan of contemporary classics that I used to find too boring.
Pop Music in Art Journal – Playtime with a Friend
But this week, I wanted my friend back. I went to the Finnish radio website and turned on the newest of “Papananaaman K-Pop Show” which plays current Asian pop. My candy store was the box where I keep my red, pink, purple, and orange colored pencils.
My music-inspired pages are in the “beautiful mess” style that I show step-by-step in an art journal mini-class called Music. It’s relaxing to create step by step and not worry too much about the “proper” supplies. I played with black pens, stamping inks, and the shortest pencils.
When I create canvas paintings, I use oil paints, but acrylics are great for this kind of messy play.
The spread started as red, but I then introduced a wider range of candy colors gradually. This mono-tone approach is great when you want to keep things simple first, and then splash the colors in.
I like the candy colors and the informal look of the finished spread – pop music in an art journal!
I showed the spread to my Blythe dolls and they also gave their approval: “If that’s how you see Asian pop, we can live with that.”
Maybe these dolls have made me listen to Asian pop in the first place! One thing so often leads to another.
Music in Art Journal – Step by Step!
The art journal mini-class Music is now available as an individual class. But you have to be quick – it will go away on Feb 7! >> Buy here!