Artistic Line Drawing – What Do You Think About This Course Idea?
To me, all visual art begins with drawing. When you want to get to know yourself, draw! When you want to develop as an artist—say, as a painter—draw! To draw is to think. Make your lines come alive, and gradually, a whole new world will emerge, even on a small piece of paper. That’s what artistic line drawing is about.
Black drawing pen and colored pencils.
Past and Present Drawing Courses
In most of my courses, drawing plays some role. Free and artistic line drawing is especially close to my heart. In the past, I have taught two courses on the subject: Inspirational Drawing and Inspirational Drawing 2.0. These are already retired. Of my current courses, Mystical Minis comes closest to these.
Passion For Teaching Artistic Line Drawing
For some time, I have wanted to offer more help with line drawing. Not just how to draw, but also how to alter the process to take it in a more artistic direction. By “artistic,” I mean moving beyond the conventional and creating something that is both personal and at least partly abstract. I want to speak especially to those of you who want to create freely and push your boundaries—both in how you think and how you create.
Watercolors and colored pencils.
At first, I thought the material I had gathered over the past few months would be just for these blog posts. But as I have started to unpack the topics, I find myself wanting to share more than what fits into a single post—to show things in both theory and practice. So, I’ve started developing a new course, under the working title Artistic Drawing.
Artistic Line Drawing – Course Themes
Here are the themes I have selected for the upcoming course:
- Ways to Start a Drawing: I want to help you explore how you begin. You can approach your drawing like an architect, building a clear structure first—or like a gardener, letting everything grow from a single seed.
- Letting Go: If drawing does not make sense and feels directionless, letting go can be difficult. I want to give tips on how to feel free and draw anything without too much inner resistance.
- Interaction: I want to help you notice the possibilities of interaction in the creative process. This is about both how you speak to yourself and how you work with drawing. For example, a line you draw can invite another line to join the conversation.
- The Scale of Shapes: An impressionist draws in a pixel-like manner, placing tiny dots one after another. An expressionist creates larger, vector-like shapes. I want to help you use both approaches and find the combination you enjoy most.
- Presence: At its best, your drawing radiates presence. I want to help you become like a singer who doesn’t just go through the notes, but pours their whole soul out to the audience.
- Clarity: You can begin a drawing with plenty of elements, but towards the end, it is worth striving for clarity. I want to help you discover a minimalism that is not based on scarcity, but on the ability to pick the essential.
- Sense of Style: I want to help you find the things you want to add to your drawings, and the ones you want to get rid of. It is not just about developing a style, but also about developing your sense of style.
Which of these themes interests you the most? What else do you hope to be included in the course?
Can Playful Art Be Serious?
This week, I want to talk about my newly finished painting titled Fauna. This is one of my most peculiar pieces, filled with strange ideas. With this, I want to challenge us to ponder the question: Can playful art be serious?
Ideas Have a Mental Age
This painting combines many ideas. I tend to come up with all sorts of ideas quite easily, and I usually try to categorize them: some make it here to the blog, some become sketches in my planner, and others turn into courses. Only the most mature ones are usually included in the paintings.
But let’s think about this word: mature.
Ideas have a mental age. Some ideas are like those of a five-year-old, while others contain ancient wisdom. For a long time, I have tried to ensure that my best ideas are “sensible adults”.
Fauna’s Ideas
Fauna started from an old idea: the Baroque style and historical ceiling murals. So I thought that the painting could feature flowers and have plenty of light blue. Here’s how it started:
But then I heard my inner child whisper that I should include an animal: “Fur is so wonderful to paint. Let’s include something like a ferret!” The adult me wondered, “Who would want a painting featuring a weasel?” But you know, some ideas are like tiny butterflies that appear and vanish in an instant, while others are like moose that take over your entire mind. And this was a “moose idea.” It wouldn’t leave me alone, so fine —let there be a weasel of some kind!
But what else could be included?
Words help when I am brainstorming. I read through various word lists and wait for the moment my intuition says “Bingo!” That’s how I found the word “hunaja” – honey. I thought about the intricate swirls of the Baroque style and the way honey drips, and I boldly added them to the painting.
Here I am painting the fur. I use not only short strokes, but also paint small patches with different tones. Layering is the key!
In the final version, the fur is softer and shorter, and lit by a rainbow. It took some time to decide whether the fur should be spiky or softer.
With the idea of painting honey, I found myself on a “mad path” where I stopped categorizing my ideas and challenged myself instead: could I create a painting that looks like a floral piece from a distance, but reveals a more playful character upon closer inspection? Could the animal theme lead toward animal figures—even toys? I wanted to achieve a purity of style that isn’t tied to a single era, but rather to my own way of dealing with shapes and lines.
Here you can see the beginning and the end side by side.
Playful Art – Drawing Animals
I have always loved animals and have drawn them a lot. Drawing with a pen is much easier than drawing with a brush.
Animal Inkdom and Magical Inkdom have been highlights of my course creation because, while making them, I decided to believe that everyone wants to draw animals. That mindset brought a lot of confidence and joy to the process, which also translates into the atmosphere of the courses.
I have had so much fun with all the animals drawn in those courses. My father used to draw with quite a similar technique, so I have continued on his path here.
The Playfulness is in the Details
Fauna is full of playful details. Many of them are quite subtle, barely noticeable. Here are some detail pics.
I see myself in this painting—all the versions of me at different ages, with ideas of all ages.
Even if Fauna was a challenge to create, it was also fun. I think I will create more of this kind of playful art.
Age of Ideas – Just Playing or Only Focusing on the Serious Side
This painting process made me reflect on how people who start making art often fixate on the “age” of their ideas. Some decide they are just having fun and playing. Others believe that skills—and thus art—can only be born through realism. But as artistic thinking and skills develop, there is an opportunity to combine the playful with the more serious. It is possible to be a child, an adult, and an elder all at once. Art doesn’t need to be narrowed down, because creating is a search not just for oneself, but for a broader understanding of humanity.
Fauna is a bit different from Halo – the painting that I showed last week.
See the blog post about creating this painting
See more pics and a video at Taiko Finnish Online Art Store
Which one do you like more – Halo or Fauna?
Crazy about Ornaments!
I believe that in every artist’s journey, there are moments when you feel you’ve hit the core—or at least, you’re getting very close. For me, many of those moments have been about ornaments. I simply love drawing and painting decorative lines.
>> See more pics and a video at Taiko Online Art Store
This week, I share a recent watercolor painting that is full of ornaments and how I fell in love with ornaments in the first place.
Ornaments in Watercolor
This is how the watercolor painting started.
Ornamental shapes are much easier to draw than paint. In 2020, I made this watercolor painting.
I can now paint much more elegant shapes.
I have been after this skill for so long.
Ornaments – Are They Scary or Harmless?
An ornament is an animal. At first, it’s like a fox that is a bit too tame. You meet it on an evening walk and feel like shouting: “Don’t follow me, I’m not giving you a home!”
Then someone says, “It’s just an ornament, a harmless little decoration. It’s not a fox, it’s a bird.” And that’s when I realize I am dreaming about a magpie, picking only the oldest and most beautiful spoons from the pile.
But when I go to my imaginary pile of spoons, I see snakes. I can only catch the slowest and clumsiest one. My line was quite ugly for a long time, yet it has been my mascot for years. For just as long, I have been searching for the core of my expression.
In 2018 and 2019, my drawing skills took a jump, and I was able to incorporate more and more ornamental expression into my drawings. I participated in Inktober and built two drawing courses: Animal Inkdom and Magical Inkdom.
Looking Through The Lens
Lately, I’ve read many descriptions of artists—both by the artists themselves and by critics. It felt as if I were forcing myself to read tiny text through a small lens, all while swallowing an ornament-shaped lump in my throat.
I believe the most accurate descriptions of how art is born are linked to childhood. My love for ornaments comes from my own.
Our family wasn’t wealthy, but we were dreamers. We followed the lives of European royalty with admiration. The large yard of our old wooden house, with its meadows and little woods, turned into a queen’s castle in my mind. I imagined grand halls, furniture, and a magnificent atmosphere. Nature became my palace once I understood that a plant should be looked at as a structure, not just a decoration.
From a Clumsy Snake to Expression
In the process of making art, however, the ornament is not a child, but an old soul. When a line is still young, it has no idea of the wisdom and beauty it can eventually store within its curves.
I believe that anyone who has the patience to feed their “clumsy snake” will eventually be rewarded. This madness—this love for ornaments—begins to transform from simple decoration into pure expressive power.
Almost all of my drawing courses are about developing a living line that can then transform into an ornamental one. A great courses to start are the colored pencil courses, especially Mystical Minis.
Painting Ornaments
It has taken me a long time to paint more ornamentally. I have had to learn to imagine an ornament as a 3-dimensional structure rather than just a decoration.
Now that I can paint like I used to draw, I can add many things that I have missed from that era, for example, tassels.
I can now also include what I learned from decorative painting when creating the course Decodashery.
There is a sense of the medieval and the Baroque here, blended with the historical fantasy and folklore.
I have also worked in this ornamental style not only in watercolor, but also in oil, but I will share those projects later.
In the world of ornaments, every line has its own age. Is your line still a curious child, or is it beginning to store the wisdom of an ‘old soul’? Tell me about your process in the comments!
Making The Art Journal More Magical
I have been working on my square-sized art journal again. This week, I share a couple of magical art journal projects that include hand-drawn collage pieces.
My journal is Dylusions Creative Journal. The first project is the decoration of the pocket envelope that’s on the backside of the front cover.
The Magical Mindset for Art Journaling
My journal is almost full, but I have decided not to hurry with the last pages. Recently, I have started to think that using what I have is better for me. That if I rush with the last pages and buy a new journal, it’s not as good as if I slow down and fully honor those few blank pages. You could call this a magical mindset because it makes you appreciate what you already have: skills, little drawings, time, blank paper.
With the magical mindset, you don’t just look forward and think what you could have. Instead, you look back and focus on how you can take the old to the next level.
So, I went to my boxes of joy – the boxes that store my handdrawn collage pieces – and picked a set of leaves from a few years ago and glued it on the envelope. The leaves are a print and smaller than the original drawing. I love some of my handdrawn pieces so much that I have scanned and made prints of them.
I drew some more leaves and then glued the tassel which is an original drawing too. The tassel divides the image in two parts. I drew and colored a seascape on the right side of the tassel.
I love the oldfashioned and luxurious look of the envelope now. The inside cover was made earlier with markers.
I had two tassels to choose from. I love them both.
Magical Stripes on Art Journal Page
The second project is a page with hand-drawn collage pieces. The idea here is to draw stripes and then decorate them. I made my page so that some of the decorations extend over the stripes.
The teacups, the heads of the cats, monkeys and rabbits are prints made from bigger hand-drawn pieces. The rest is drawn with a black drawing pen and colored with colored pencils.
Here you can see the print sheets that I have made for myself and the original drawings. These are all drawn for the courses Magical Inkdom and Animal Inkdom. I had so much fun making these courses. The details are magical and I think the stripy page became magical too.
The rabbit and the teacup are two separate pieces.
I have randomly created on the pages over the years. The page on the right is painted and very different in style, but I think these are just layers of time. Like home, an art journal can have some old pieces, some newer ones, and some that connect all the years. I started my journal in 2020.
The abstract house could be the place where this magical tea party happens.
Magical Letters
In the previous blog post “Mini Drawings on Art Journal Pages“, I showed a spread that was still in progress. That’s finished now. I think letters on the black background with some leaves and flowers look magical too.
I hope these projects inspired you to make your art journal more magical!