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Peony and Parakeet

Fly to Your Inner World and Color the Emotion

colored pencils

Filling an Art Journal

One of my projects this summer is to fill one of my art journals – Dylusions Creative Journal Square. I hope that these pics from my current in-progress journal, inspire you to start filling your art journal!

Beautiful art journal spread with handpainted elements. Ideas for filling an art journal.
First a messy background, then added pictures from Decodashery, and then painted some more.

Reaching Saturation Point in Filling Art Journal

I think art journals have a saturation point. When most of the pages are full, you have to give the book a little more attention than usual. This journal was started in 2020, and I have filled it here and there over the years.

A detail of an art journal page. Colored pencils and watercolors.
Colored pencils change to watercolors in the middle of the spread.

One spread can have things done in many different years. So the book is full of temporal layers, and I think they make the best art journal.

Art journal spread made from pieces that have been created over the years. One art journal can have many temporal layers.
Old scribbles on the right, then later painted some in the same spirit,
and finally added a zebra made in the style of Animal Inkdom.
Magical Inkdom also has fun projects for these kind of small drawings.

Practicing in an Art Journal

My courses appear a lot in my art journal, because I often practice on the pages or later glue pictures I made for the courses into it. I hope my course participants do the same!

Delicious cream cakes and flowers. Inspiration for beautiful paintings.
Glued flowers and cakes made for Decodashery on the painted background
and then added some more painted petals in acrylic.
Journaled “Sweet” with watercolors.

Part of being an artist is to be happy with your own development, and also to be interested in what you have done before.

This and That Will Magically Come Together

When my art journal is full, I will make a video of it, where I go through it and talk about each spread. I also know that when the journal is finished, the flow of the spreads feels much more coherent than when I was filling them.

Derwent Artbars on an art journal. Flowery art journal spread.
Used old crayons – Derwent Artbars – with water to practice watercolor flowers.
In the style of Freely Grown.

One thing that applies to all art journals, sketchbooks, and notebooks is that they are most beautiful when full. When you purchase one, it looks too beautiful to fill, but once you hold a full one, it feels much more valuable. I am looking forward to that!

Summer Sale!

Ready to start filling your art journal? Remember the annual summer sale! All classes are 20% off.

The sale ends on July 20, 2025, at midnight PDT. >> Buy Now!

Coloring an Intuitive Selfie

This week, we draw an intuitive selfie, so without a camera or a mirror. Let’s pick the colored pencils and create a self-portrait freely and intuitively!

Intuitive Selfie, a drawing with colored pencils. Color freely without any references, no camera or mirror needed, watch the video!

We use the pencils as a camera and draw the face as it’s a photo taken from the inner world’s view. At the same time, we explore blurriness, freedom, and asymmetry. Watch the video!

Coloring an Intuitive Selfie – Watch the video!

I am creating my page on the Dylusions Creative Journal (Square, 8 by 8 inches) but you can use any paper and any size.

In the video, I talk about the difference between doing coloring pages and coloring a blank page, and how I have processed my word for the year “Release”.

Inner vs. Outer Selfie

It would be great to hear your thoughts on becoming freer and making an imperfect intuitive selfie. Leave a comment below!

Visual Vocabulary First, Style Second

This week is about visual vocabulary and how to widen it.

I often hear the worry about finding the style, but more rarely about widening the vocabulary. Style is a quality word, but vocabulary is more about quantity. Still, it’s as important, and you can’t find the style without growing the vocabulary!

Painting with a wide visual vocabulary. By artist Päivi Eerola, Finland.

Often when we create art, we use a limited variety of shapes and lines and often the most ordinary ones. For example, your strokes may be quite straight and have very little variety in thickness. Or your shapes can be mostly basic geometric shapes. When I started, I mainly drew circles and my pieces were very symmetrical in general.

An example of narrow visual vocabulary.
In 2012, my visual vocabulary only had a few “words.”

Forget the Style, Grow the Visual Vocabulary!

When you want to widen your visual vocabulary, look at the details of your work. There are seeds that can grow into great things. For example, could you repeat a random spot that almost disappears into the background and build a subtle texture from it?

Colored pencils in Claude Monet's style. Inspiration from art history.
Create step by step: How to Color Like Monet

Look at your drawing line and think about whether it could deviate slightly from its path. Could you make a notch somewhere and thus make the shape more interesting?

Intuitive flowers with colored pencils. Step by step instructions. Exercises for building a visual vocabulary. By Paivi Eerola of Peony and Parakeet.
Create step by step: Notches change circles to Intuitive Flowers

Imagine you are a child who knows only a few words. Then it’s not important to question what the topic should be, but to find more words to tell any. Stop worrying whether you should create faces or landscapes and make a wide range of art to grow the visual vocabulary.

Combining abstract and representational in one drawing. Widening the visual vocabulary.
Create step by step: Combine abstract and representational

When you can draw a wide range of shapes, curves, lines and have many ways to color, repeat, break up and assemble them, you can produce visual stimuli on the paper that makes your imagination work. From this collaboration, art is born.

Outer Inspiration – Borrowing “Words” from Others

By looking at art, you can find words, i.e. shapes, that you want to incorporate into your own vocabulary, i.e. style.

Visiting museums and galleries. Admiring Adriaen van Utrecht's still life painting at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Admiring Adriaen van Utrecht’s still life painting at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Art history is like an encyclopedia where we can pick what we like. Any art can be seen as abstract – just focus on finding a variety of shapes and colors.

Vermeer Girl with hearts, step by step instructions for colored pencils
Create Step by Step: Vermeer Girl from shape to shape
Portraits in style of Helene Schjerfbeck, art inspiration for colored pencils.
Create Step by Step: Portraits in style of Helene Schjerfbeck

Your vocabulary can be inspired of not only fine art, but crafts as well.

Art inspiration from crafts.
Create Step by Step: Doodler’s Sampler

Imagination Sets Who You Are

Too much outer inspiration causes copying, so don’t leave your imagination out of the equation! Imagine you are a singer who takes a popular song into your repertoire. Then you enter a singing competition and are told: “You sound a lot like the original singer of the song, but we want to hear who you are.”

Colored pencils on an art journal. Growing your style and widening your visual vocabulary step by step.
Step by Step: Setting the atmosphere and layering with colored pencils

So we need not only to expand our expressive language, but also to develop our imagination. Visual vocabulary and imagination are a pair, and art needs both.

For example, you can draw a circle and give it a meaning, but can others see it? With imagination alone, the expression remains hidden. With a rich expressive language, we can make art enjoyable for others as well.

Welcome to My Courses + What I Want to Teach

Päivi Eerola teaches both artistic expression and imagination. This is from her course Freely Grown.
Freely Grown – one of the courses that his about growing visual vocabulary

The goal of my courses is to develop both your visual vocabulary and imagination.

First, I want to get you to draw something a little differently than you have done before and thus enrich your visual vocabulary. Second, I want to make a crack in your everyday thinking and plant imagination in it. I want you to ask: “What if?” and to respond with something completely crazy – something that makes you feel free to tell completely new kinds of stories.

When art emerges from this starting point, richly and vividly expressing itself, you will find your style.

Intuitive Flowers with Colored Pencils

This week, we take an intuitive approach to flowers and color them freely with colored pencils. This method can also be easily adapted to watercolors.

Coloring intuitive flowers. Colored pencil art by Päivi Eerola, Finland.

Everyone’s flowers are different, but we can all start with the same steps. I will show you how to start and how to bring intuition into the process, and then you can finish the piece in your own style.

Artist Päivi Eerola and her intuitive flowers.

Let’s get the colored pencils and start intuitive flowers step-by-step!

Step 1 – Background

Start by intuitively picking one main color. I choose a color that I feel strangely drawn to, or a pencil that looks a bit sad and needs some quality time with me. I may sharpen or re-arrange the pencils before I start, so that I feel more connection with them.

With the chosen pencil, color the paper lightly and softly. Leave a part of the center blank so that you will also have white in your work.

Starting a colored pencil drawing without references.

When you feel bored, add other colors for an energy boost and spiciness, but always get back to your main color. The main color sets the mood and makes sure that every flower will breathe the same air.

I use soft-tipped colored pencils, such as Prismacolor Premier and Caran d’Ache Luminance. Thin layers are a joy to color and the strokes are soft. My paper is Fabriano Accademia Drawing Paper (200 gsm/94 lbs).

Step 2 – Circles

Color a new background layer so that you leave round areas uncolored. These are like ghosts that will be turned to flowers in the next step.

In progress. Coloring circles freely with colored pencils. You can change the circles to the flowers in the next step.

Make sure you have big, small, and medium circles, not just one size. Let some circles overlap and some disappear partly near the edges. This step is simple, but not very intuitive, because we tend to create circles of one size and separate from each other.

What does intuitive mean to you?
For me, it’s an emotional connection to colors and bringing out the spirit rather than the material. If you think intuitive is what feels easy, you’re holding back your development in making art.

Step 3 – Notches

Turn circles to flowers by coloring notches with the background colors. Make all kinds of shapes this way. I try to avoid symmetry, because flowers are rarely perfectly symmetrical. The more imaginative the shapes are, the more spirit I see in them.

Adding notches and changing circles to boost the intuitive process of coloring flowers freely.

You can also add some color to the flowers if it helps you to form a tighter connection, but do it only lightly in this step.

Step 4 – Colors

Add more colors – and not only to the flowers but also to the background. I like to think that the spirit of the flower is larger than its outline. The flower radiates the spirit, and the color of the flower is more in its surroundings than in the flower itself. This makes the background as fun to color as the flowers.

Colored pencil art in progress. Coloring freely without photos. Abstract floral in colored pencils.

Make stems thin and curvy when you want the flowers to look delicate.

Step 5 – Repeat!

Add more details with the techniques of steps 1-4: more background color, more circles, more notches, more colors.

What to put in the background? The intuitive coloring process treats it as a spirit.

The more experienced you are, the more patience you have. Intuition is a rusty vehicle. The connection improves with time, and your piece will begin to speak to you.

Colored pencil art in progress.

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Intuitive Flowers and Colored Pencils

For me, being intuitive also means being flexible. I cherish every little flower, but also accept that not every flower can remain in the final piece.

Working with details of a flower drawing. Prismacolor Premier soft core colored pencils.

A flower can bloom and give her soul to you, and then become a background spirit only. In this piece that happened a lot.

My drawing took about four hours to make.

Artist Paivi Eerola and her colored pencil drawing.

What does intuitive mean to you? Do you aim for intuition when you are creating art?

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