Artist’s Life – Starting New Media Art
This week, I share my latest new media art and thoughts about my career as an artist. This is a sequel to the blog post called Beginner’s Video Art that was published last month.
Unstill Still Life – Video Art
The video above is my latest artwork “Unstill Still Life.” I have done this largely by programming. I have developed generative algorithms that create and alter shapes. I have designed the individual shapes with a 3D modeling program called Blender. The models and the code are put together with the Unity Engine which is a software environment for developing games.
Inspiration from an Old Painting
With the artwork, I participated in the Finnish National Gallery’s Web3 community Alusta challenge called “Nature and Nourishment.” The Finnish National Gallery has many copyright-free images and the organization encourages artists to use them for creating new media art.
I have taken inspiration for the colors and surfaces, as well as the concept itself, from Fanny Churberg’s 1876 painting “Still Life with Vegetables and Fish.”
I love old paintings, so this challenge was made for me. It’s so interesting to examine the brush strokes and think about the 3-dimensional shapes that they are related to. And I have so much to learn in making generative art, that I need small challenges to keep heading forward.
I Will Continue Painting, But …
I am still going to continue painting traditionally but I also want to start a career in new media art. I want to bring back my skills in programming from the years when I was a software engineer and use those for creating art. I also have a degree in Industrial Design that helps a lot with 3D modeling. The grant that I received from The Finnish Cultural Foundation has enabled me to develop my style in new media.
But all this is not only exciting but hard too. Do you know that feeling that comes when you have to start life over again? There is enthusiasm in the air, but also some “oh no”.
Building a CV
For a full-time artist, most opportunities are based on a CV.
That was not a problem when I graduated in software design in 1996. I thought: “I have plenty of time to grow my CV.” Then, when I graduated as an industrial designer in 2009, life seemed to be halfway over, but I was able to get quite a decent CV by combining some old and new projects.
When I started working as a full-time visual artist in 2014, I didn’t think about CVs at all at first.
The picture above is from 2015 when most of my art was in art journal pages.
But when I moved forward in painting, the reality hit me – it was very hard to get accepted to exhibitions and organizations without a CV. Mine was practically blank at first, and it has taken a lot of time and effort to add rows to it.
The picture above is from last summer at the exhibition organized by The Albert Edelefelt Foundation. See more pics in this blog post!
New Media Art – New Career?
And just when I thought that life was almost over at the age of 55, this new media digital art came into my life and it hit me – I’m a beginner again with an empty CV. So, I need and want to participate in challenges, competitions, and exhibitions, to get accepted again. And I want to believe that I still have time to create this new kind of art, not only paintings.
Some leaves of the big plant are connected to an invisible virtual camera that moves around and sends a mirror image to them.
I learn new things about generative art every day and I am amazed that I have been given this long life to experience it. Gratitude is the overriding emotion that emerges from this new beginning. I am lucky in what I have seen in the development of information technology and what I have been able to develop and be involved in developing in the past. I want my future CV to tell the story of a girl who wanted to become an artist as a child, who fell in love with computers as a teenager, and who finally has the artistic vision and the technical tools to combine the two.
Looking Back Enables Seeing Forward
If you have been following my blog for a while, you must have noticed that my blog posts are often self-reflective like this one. Visual art-making needs self-reflection too. It’s useful to go back and see how things have changed to make future changes and take steps forward.
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!
Beginner’s Video Art – Paintings Come Alive
This week, I have a video, but it’s different than what I have ever made so far.
A lot has happened in the last few months, and it has also changed my attitude towards life. I have come to believe in destiny. Usually, when I’ve looked back, I’ve seen my life as loose threads. I remember the words of a professor of control engineering from decades ago: “Miss Eerola, what are you aiming for with your studies?”
I finally have an answer for him, maybe he will read my blog from the afterlife and be pleasantly surprised.
Now I know why I have studied programming, vehicle navigation, robotics, control engineering, and industrial design with 3D modeling. Now I know why the boys playing computer games feel my tribe even though I don’t play at all. Now I know why the nerd in me didn’t die even when I was painting oil paintings day after day.
I have programmed this digital work using the Unity game engine. The video has two of my oil paintings in the background: Runaway Sun and Happy Earth.
Beginner’s Video Art
I’m still quite clumsy in this sport. so this is more of a practice piece than a fine video artwork. But I have learned from all art-making that it’s ok to be a beginner. And it’s ok to share pieces that are not the best of you, at least when you look at them after a while!
When my husband saw the video, he wasn’t very satisfied with the outcome. But I told him that it doesn’t really matter if you’re going on a long hike if the first gas station serves a modest meat pie. The journey is long and there will be plenty of experiences – at least if fate works as it has so far!
Thank you to the Finnish Cultural Foundation for the grant, which allows me to make digital art for many more months.
Now and Then – Development of Style
I started a grant project in October. The project lasts a year and covers half of my working time. I am making a digital artwork that can be experienced with virtual glasses. This will definitely give a boost for my artistic development, including the style as well.
I used a fun sculpting app called Nomad and a 3D modeling software called Blender.
This image is based on replicating one shape only.
One of the recent practical changes is that I have given up using a Mac computer and bought a new Windows gaming laptop, which I call Turandot. I am now writing this blog post with her. She must have imagined that she would be owned by a young man, but no – she has a woman in her fifties. Turandot must have sounded like a great name to her, but after googling it, she might have been upset: Puccini’s opera! Well, she just has to adjust and learn my style.
Style Development – Looking Back
The new big project has made me think back and explain it all to Turandot. Ten years ago, I wanted to learn to paint so well that I would be satisfied with my paintings: “I could then die happy!” I thought that as an artist I had to abandon what I have been until then and build a new vision and a new world of my own.
When my paintings started to reach the level I had hoped for, I felt first grateful and then empty. I couldn’t see forward anymore.
See the gallery of my oil paintings!
Now, however, I’m on the brink of something new again and the crises of the past seem strange: how was I so hopeless? Why didn’t I realize that everything meaningful that I’ve done in my life will tie into my art over time?
Always a Beginner
My artist friend said that I have developed quickly as an artist. However, it doesn’t always feel that way. I always have self-criticism and always notice things to improve. That’s why it feels frustrating now when I’m starting over again and building a three-dimensional digital expression. At the same time, I remind myself that the beginning of today is much further than the beginning 10 years ago – there is a lot that I already know and what I can already see, not only style-wise but in a more general level as well.
The balance between encouraging yourself and criticizing yourself is essential when making art. You have to be able to observe your pictures as if they were created by someone else and at the same time, you have to see forward – what all this could be and where it could lead when I will learn more skill and imagination.
Fortunately, I haven’t listened to those who say that everything you do must be in the same style and form a unified experience. When you’re a beginner, forcing a certain style only leads to getting stuck at a level where you really don’t want to stay. When you’ve done enough, your own style pushes out naturally.
Yarn, Thread, Line, and a Telescope!
10 years ago, my line was clumsy and closed, while now it’s elegant and curious, like a telescope that lets me see beyond what I’m currently aware of.
I’ve always liked knitting and embroidery. Thread and line have a lot in common. That’s where my style started.
Collageland teaches this style!
Now my task is to continue developing my style and step into the world of digital art. However, I will still be drawing and painting next year, so there is no need to worry that this blog will change too much!
Dreamy Watercolor Flowers
I’ve been down with bad flu and haven’t been able to blog for the past week. But now I have recovered and continue the spring blog post series, where I go through techniques and themes that have been important in my artistic development. This week the topic is watercolors, flowers, and expressing dreaminess.
Flower is a popular subject in art and I also like painting flowers very much. I don’t use models, I paint abstract shapes that look like flowers.
What Makes a Flower Dreamy?
In 2019, I painted a lot of flower-themed watercolors and then I thought about what flowers are all about for me.
The species of flower is not important to me. I often paint flowers that have no real equivalent. For me, the interesting thing about flowers is their relationship with light.
Without light, there are no flowers. The light continues the flower and makes it bigger and more beautiful.
When you paint light, dreamy watercolor flowers grow into the picture as if by themselves.
In ProCreate, it’s easy to zoom in and out, pick colors, and change brushes. Apple Pencil is also surprisingly pleasant to work with.
In real watercolors, splashing water more fun, but maintaining lightness is more challenging, especially when you only use the whiteness of the paper.
Then you start with light layers and gradually add color. It’s surprising how much you can fix and fine-tune the details when working this way.
Dreamy Flowers by the Water
Another important element is water. That’s why flowers and watercolors go well together. Light, water, and flowers are a refreshing combination. I try to bring the element of water into the picture in one way or another.
I used to paint a lot of vases, but nowadays flowers grow more freely near water.
I think that when a plant blooms, it dreams – just like we do when we make art!
Floral Fantasies – Paint Dreamy Watercolor Flowers!
For all flower lovers, I have a flower painting course Floral Fantasies, from which the watercolor part can also be purchased separately.
Floral Fantasies – Intuitive and loose approach to flowers – Buy here!