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12 Spring Art Ideas from Over the Years

Posted on March 21, 2024March 21, 2024Posted in Art Journaling, Doodling, Fantasy, Flowers & Plants, Music & Literature, SceneriesTagged acrylic paints, canvas, colored pencils, oil paints, watercolors8 Comments

This week, I share spring-themed art from the past 10 years and give ideas for creating spring art.

12 spring art ideas from over the years by Paivi Eerola of Peony and Parakeet.

There’s a variety of ideas and I hope everyone can find some that inspire to get creating!

#1 – For Beginners and Dull Moments

Doodle spring flowers with the mindset “more is more”!

Doodle easter flowers. For beginners and dull moments. See more spring art ideas! — Easter Flowers, mixed media, 2013.
See the blog post: Subconscious Art

Course recommendation: Collageland

#2 – For Self-Explorers

Express your spring energy by following this step-by-step exercise: Bursting Circle

Bursting Circle, mixed media art exercise by Peony and Parakeet — Bursting Circle I, mixed media, 2014.
See the blog post: Bursting Circle

Course recommendation: Inspirational Drawing

#3 – For Free Spirits

Splash color and let everything grow from there!

Free Spirit, acrylics on paper by Paivi Eerola, Finland. Abstract floral art. — Free Spirit, acrylics, 2015.
See the blog post: Art is Freedom

#4 – For Those Who Want to be Freer

When you want to be freer, the art of seeing is as important as the art of creating.
See the video of making “March Still Life”: Painting in Liberated Style

March Still Life, mixed media art, see more spring art ideas by Paivi Eerola. — March Still Life, mixed media, 2016.
See the blog post: Painting in Liberated Style

Course recommendations: Liberated Artist Revisited and Freely Grown

#5 – For Minimalists

Pick a small piece of watercolor paper, moisten your watercolor pans, and let water do the trick.

Easter Flowers, a simple watercolor painting. — Easter Flowers, watercolor, 2017.
See the blog post: Easter Still Lifes in Watercolor – Video Included!

#6 – For Travelers

Paint a spring panorama. More examples: Watercolor Panoramas to Express Travel Memories

Spring in Scotland, watercolor panoramas by Paivi Eerola. — Spring in Scotland, watercolor, 2018.
See the blog post: Watercolor panoramas to Express Travel Memories

Course recommendation: Watercolor Journey

#7 – For Beautiful Mess-Makers

Beautify the mess by adjusting the details: paint frilly edges and draw fine lines!

After Winter, a floral watercolor still life by Paivi Eerola, Finland. — After Winter, watercolor, 2019.
See the blog post: Freely Born Watercolor Florals

Course recommendations: Floral Fantasies and Freely Grown

#8 – For Journalers

Decorate a journal cover with your original art! See more instructions in this blog post: Painted Paper Collage

Art journal cover. See more spring art ideas! — Art journal cover, mixed media collage, 2020.
See the blog post: Painted Paper Collage – 6 Tips for Intricate and Fun Art

Course recommendations: Collageland and Decodashery

#9 – For Bird Watchers

Take this challenge to move from illustration to fine art:
Step out of your comfort zone and think about a bird shape as a canvas for expressing its surroundings.

Blackbird, oil painting, Paivi Eerola, 2021. — Blackbird, oil on canvas, 2021.
See the blog post: Pros and Cons of Becoming an Artist

Course recommendation: Floral Freedom

#10 – For Art Lovers Who Procrastinate

Reduce watching those photo-realistic colored pencil videos and start coloring freely. One heart shape can lead to many and start your flight to the world of imagination!

Illuminated Heart, spring art ideas in colored pencils. By Paivi Eerola. — Illuminated Heart, colored pencils, 2022.
See the blog post: 5 Reasons Why I Love Colored Pencils

Course recommendations: Intuitive Coloring and Fun Botanicum

#11 – For Wannabe Fantasy Artists

Find the story first, then its surroundings! A character is not only described by his face.

Magician's Tea Party, oil on canvas, 2023. By Paivi Eerola, Finland. Alice in Wonderland inspired art. Spring art ideas. — Magician’s Tea Party, oil on canvas, 2023.
See the blog post: Wonderland Art – Inspiration from Alice in Wonderland

Course recommendations: Magical Forest and Magical Inkdom

#12 For Artists at Heart

Our creativity has winter and spring too. We need each other to keep the inspiration going – to turn the winter into spring.
A challenge for you: How can you make a new start – create a new spring for your art?

Mixed media art. Liberated artist Revisited, an online course by Paivi Eerola. — “I Will Be Back”, mixed media, 2024.
See the blog post: New Beginnings in Art-Making

Course recommendations: Liberated Artist Revisited

Bonus Idea #1: Spring Art Display

Gather your art on a side table for display! Make a collection of all kinds of pieces – even the smallest drawings and collage pieces can look fun this way.

Spring art display. By Paivi Eerola of Peony and Parakeet. Most of these are from her course Decodashery. — This picture is from 2020 when I was making the course Decodashery.
I have a plastic plate that is the same size as my table.
It protects my art, and it also protects the tabletop when painting in watercolor.

Bonus Idea #2: Listen to This!

I also have a music recommendation: “Kevät”

Kevät is spring in Finnish and the song was presented by a Finnish girl band Tavaramarkkinat in 1985. Here’s an English translation of the lyrics. The tone of the song is melancholic. This kind of controversy between melancholy and joy is one of the most inspiring things in spring, I think!

P.S. PostScript for Spring Art Ideas

We still have a lot of snow in Finland, and I miss spring so much! In these spring art ideas, I wanted to combine my yearning for spring and the celebration of being a full-time artist for ten years. The actual anniversary is in September, but I want to celebrate this life span the whole year of 2024.

One part of the celebration has been making the course Liberated Artist Revisited where I invite you to paint with me – to follow directions from Paivi many years ago, and then create more with the current Paivi. At the same time, you can ponder, how your art-making has changed and will change.

Liberated Artist Revisited - online art course by Paivi Eerola.

Because of the 10-year celebration and the nature of personal stories, Liberated Artist Revisited is a limited edition – only available for purchase until the end of March 2024! >> Buy Now!

Ninety-Ninety Rule for Art-Making

Posted on March 14, 2024March 21, 2024Posted in Finishing, Flowers & PlantsTagged canvas, oil paints

This week, we talk about the agony that’s associated with finishing.

Käännekohta - Turning Point, oil on canvas, 50 x 61 cm. Painting by Paivi Eerola, Finland. — Käännekohta – Turning Point, oil on canvas, 50 x 61 cm.

Last fall, I had a turning point when I started making digital art. I’m not giving up painting, though. There will be just fewer oil paintings this year.

New Start

This year’s first oil painting started already in October last year. First, I made a mess with pastel hues. Then I began to figure out what kind of personality the painting could be.

This kind of intuitive painting is wonderful and for example, my latest course Liberated Artist Revisited is based on it. Instead of the model, we study the painting itself and let it go in its own direction.

When I paint, I often listen to some talk or music program at the same time, that’s why the iPad is also visible in these pictures.

Ninety-Ninety Rule

Programming and painting have a lot in common. One of those is definitely the ninety-ninety rule. It states that 90 percent of the work is done effortlessly and takes only 10 percent of the time. And the remaining 10 percent is difficult and takes 90 percent of the time!

Intuitive painting in progress. By Päivi Eerola, Finland.

For example, in this part of the painting my intuition was working fluently, and finishing these details was also easy. I especially like that beige flower near the edge.

A detail of an abstract floral oil painting by Paivi Eerola.

But the further the painting progressed, the less often I worked on it. I wasn’t satisfied with the center and the soul of the painting was missing. I looked at it every day, but all my ideas seemed too ordinary.

Then when I finished the video artwork last week, I suddenly got ideas for the painting. First, I brought similar greenish tones and then, by keeping my mind on the video, I solved the puzzle stroke by stroke!

The name was now easy to find: Käännekohta – Turning Point.

The ninety-ninety rule applies to the fond factor as well. It’s easier to like an unfinished painting than one that is close to a finish. When under 90 percent, you can see the potential and ignore the unpleasant parts by saying that the piece is not ready yet. When working on the last 10 percent, things get more complicated and there are times when you hate the piece!

Old Supports New

During big changes, I have often thought that I leave the old completely and jump fully into the new. But this time I feel that the old and the new support each other.

Life is an interaction between the past and the present and that applies to art-making as well.

Liberated Artist Revisited

With the newest course Liberated Artist Revisited, I invite you to paint with me – to follow directions from Paivi many years ago, and then create more with the current Paivi. At the same time, you can ponder, how your art-making has changed and will change.

Liberated Artist Revisited is a limited edition – only available for purchase until the end of March 2024! >> Buy Now!

Life After Death – Commissioned Art

Posted on January 11, 2024January 11, 2024Posted in Artistic Identity, Flowers & Plants, Processing IdeasTagged canvas, oil paints16 Comments

This week, I have a commissioned art piece to show you. I have fewer words than I normally do – not only because the project is confidential, but also because this project went beyond words in many ways.

Floral tribute painting. Commissioned art piece. Oil on canvas. By the artist Paivi Eerola, Finland.

Last fall, I got a commission for this oil painting. It was ordered by a man in memory of his recently deceased spouse. We brought elements of the wife’s life and references to what she liked into the painting. The painting is, therefore, a secret portrait, from which loved ones recognize familiar things, but which do not need to be explained to strangers, unless they want to.

Commissioned Art – Sketch First

I started with a digital sketch. Here you can see the sketch and the final painting side by side.

Making commissioned art. A digital sketch made in ProCreate and a final oil painting. By Päivi Eerola, Finland.

I painted the sketch freely in the ProCreate app. The sketch is more abstract than the finished work and is more about the impression than the details.

Painting Process

After the sketch was approved, I ordered the canvas. The size of this piece is 50 x 40 cm (about 19.5 x 15.5 inches). Here are the first blurry layers.

Starting a flower painting. A commissioned art in progress.

I worked several sessions and let the painting dry for 1-2 weeks between the sessions.

Working on a commissioned art piece. Painting flowers layer by layer.

The sketch helped with the painting process so that I could save my energy on the details.

Final Treatments

When the painting was finished, I photographed it outdoors. The natural light is wonderful now when Finland has a lot of snow, but the shoot had to be done quickly.

Photographing a painting in natural light.

I varnished the painting with Gamvar after the photoshoot.

I like to think that varnishing was like giving a special blessing to the painting.

Spiritual Meaning

This project made my work as an artist feel even more meaningful than before. I learned more about what kind of artist I am.

A detail of a flower painting by Paivi Eerola, Finland.

I thought: “What could be a better assignment than building a bridge between life and death?”
What do you think?

Art-Making and Garden Life

Posted on September 14, 2023September 22, 2023Posted in Flowers & Plants, Processing IdeasTagged canvas, colored pencils, oil paints, watercolors2 Comments

This week, I talk about how gardening inspires both my husband and me. The garden is present in these two new miniature paintings as well.

Two miniature oil paintings, inspired by a garden. By Päivi Eerola, Finland. — “Kesän viemää” (gone with summer) and “Syksyn tuomaa” (brought by fall), miniature oil paintings on canvas, 6 x 6 inches

It is already autumn in Finland, but we have summer in our hearts because we have done a lot of work in the garden during the summer. My husband has put all his energy there, I don’t have quite as big a passion. The garden is his canvas, but for me, painting is the most important.

Freely Grown – and a New Sweet Spot

Päivi Eerola and her art, inspired by a garden. Watercolors and colored pencils on paper.

I have a new course in the making called Freely Grown, which I hope to run in late October and get for pre-sale next week. There we will paint layered flowers in watercolor and finish the painting with colored pencils.

Lately, I’ve found my sweet spot in the way I look at plants. I can see both playfulness and soulfulness in them. This perspective has brought new positivity to my life. I think that art always has a lot of possibilities. Making art is like walking down a long corridor full of doors. Now I have found a door where I can be funny and profound at the same time. This insight also affects the creation of the course. I’ve had a lot of fun, although I haven’t compromised on explaining the details.

Making a Dream Come True

The garden is my husband’s canvas. He’s been making a bigger water feature all summer. It’s big enough to be called a pond. I wasn’t terribly excited about it, but the further the project has progressed, the more I understand his vision.

One of the hardest things both in art-making and garden life is visioning – so, dreaming! The dream must be simplified so that it can be remembered during the making. All projects have ugly phases. The dream must still be maintained.

Even these miniature paintings, for which I use leftover paints from the palette, looked pretty terrible at first.

Miniature paintings in progress. First dark layers.

However, I had a dream and knew these would become really nice.

Two miniature paintings inspired by a garden. By artist Paivi Eerola.

I also made small paintings like this earlier this year, remember?

Four miniature paintings by paivi Eerola.

See this blog post for more pics!

Planning a Garden

In the spring, we hired a professional garden planner to draw a plan for a part of our backyard.

Garden perennials. End of summer in the garden.

It was a bit like taking a course. We got points of view from a professional and she helped us to see further in our dreams. With that, I learned a lot about plants and how to plan a garden like dividing a house into rooms. It is not very far from a painting.

Think about a painting as a place that has its own identity. My small paintings are like tiny closets but bigger ones often like halls.

Runaway Sun – Karannut aurinko, 70 x 120 cm, oil on canvas. By Paivi Eerola. — Runaway Sun – Karannut aurinko, 70 x 120 cm, oil on canvas.

See more pics about this big painting in this blog post!

Art-Making and Garden – Back to the Pond

The pond is entirely my husband’s work – although he has probably watched all the pond-building videos on YouTube!

I feel that the pond already affects my paintings. Do you remember this watercolor painting I presented a couple of weeks ago?

Freely grown flowers and water. Watercolors and colored pencils on paper. By Paivi Eerola.