Let’s Get Inspired by Tassels!
This week, we dive deep into the soul of tassels and get the most out of our creativity.
Here’s one of my newest paintings called Church of Saturn. This oil painting is a part of my series Linnunrata – Milky Way, where I explore planets and outer space. (See previous work: Jupiter here, Uranus here, the Moon here, Mercury here, Neptune here, Pluto here, the Earth here, Venus here, and the Sun here!) When I painted it, I thought about the rings of Saturn, the god of agriculture, branches and twigs, an old wooden church from my childhood, wabi-sabi, and the beauty of – tassels!
Tassel Dolls
When I was living in Eastern Karelia in the 1970s, the simplest doll we could make was a tassel doll. I painted it in watercolors so that you can check if it’s something that you had too!
The doll was made of wool yarn and so simple that even a 5-year-old could make it. It’s a good example of a thing that is not valued by our adult self, but that brings up our inner child: “Hey, Miss Tassel, where do you want to go?”
Tassels as Extra Decorations
I rediscovered my love for tassels in 2018 when I participated in the Inktober challenge. Back then, I thought of tassels being a fun accessory and I have enjoyed using them as extra decorations in my drawings.
This week, I drew a new tassel for my boxes of joy and had a lot of fun making it.
First I drew some circles and lines with a black drawing pen, then added textures and shadows in the style I each in the classes Animal Inkdom and Magical Inkdom.
After colored pencils, I picked some other hand-drawn pieces from my boxes and admired the luxurious collection.
Who needs shopping when you can have your own personal store and draw all the good stuff for it!
Blowing Life to a Tassel
A tassel drawing can be more than a decoration only. You can have more fun by playing with it so that it will get a personality. Imagine a tassel as a person or an animal – a living thing. Here I see two tassel ladies on a stroll!
Now, the tassel has a mind of its own. An artist can see any simple object as an element of expression.
In the painting “Church of Saturn,” the tassels have a spirit that makes them an integral part of nature.
These tassels are organic, and the style is abstract rather than illustrative.
As artists we need to do this – go beyond what’s expected and commonly seen.
Ornamental Figure with Tassels
In the class Magical Inkdom, I draw a funny bunny with a tassel on her head and now I got the idea of making an ornamental figure so that the tassels form the body.
To make a symmetrical ornament, I traced the tassel three times on the right side marker paper. Marker paper is thin so it’s easy to see through it.
Then I taped the paper to the window and traced the three tassels on the left side of the paper. I added additional elements to the center and some facial features too. My tassel doll!
But when I continued the drawing, I got a crazy idea of a knitting hamster. Tens of years ago, I was a hamster breeder, attending shows and everything. I know those little animals well! Knitting is one of my favorite hobbies and the thought of a hamster collecting all the yarn and trying to knit it made me smile.
Then the word “Knitwork Orange” came to my mind, and I included the orange as well!
Here’s me, in the middle of the night, knitting away!
Tassel Dolls on Mars
Last spring, I had a small canvas that was first just a mess. I like to start my paintings in this intuitive way and without a plan. I had some leftover paint so nothing was wasted.
The first ideas are terribly traditional and mine was to make a vase with flowers.
But after this, I was taken to another planet, to Mars! There, tassel dolls met art deco, and I had a lot of fun finishing the painting with all the decorative details.
I love the Great Gatsby movie from 2013. It has the best party scenes and good music. I had a lot of fun creating a tassel doll party that took place on another planet.
This small piece ends the Milky Way series – 11 oil paintings from March to May. I have taken a break from creating art, but feel like I am recovering now. Thanks to making the tassel drawings for this post! I hope they work for you too!
Expressing Moonlight Magic
This week is about the moon and expressing the magic!
Here’s one of my newest paintings called Kuutamon Taika – Moonlight Magic. This oil painting is a part of my series Linnunrata – Milky Way, where I explore planets and outer space. (See previous work: Mercury here, Neptune here, Pluto here, the Earth here, Venus here, and the Sun here!)
Experiencing Moonlight Magic
One night in April, after a long workday, my spirit was low, and I felt tired. But after stepping outside to take the dogs out one more time, I saw a beautiful moonlight. I even took a picture but just with my phone camera, and the photo doesn’t do justice to the sight.
Everything looked black and white at first, but after a while, my eye saw a subtle variety of tones. It was like a message from the moon: “Paint me next! Let me be a part of your galaxy!”
Fantasy Art Connects Imagination and Past
This was not the first time expressing the moonlight magic. A few years ago, I started to feel that my art needed more fantasy. I had begun to follow many fantasy artists, for example, Jasmine Beckett-Griffith and Annie Stegg. Imaginative realism – as the genre is called – felt inviting. In 2018, I participated first time in the Inktober challenge, and in 2019 I made a class called Magical Inkdom.
The world of Magical Inkdom is playful and colorful, but so that some elements look historical, just like in imaginative realism, where the story often happens in the past.
I wanted fantasy art to be present in my upcoming show too. So I wanted to make a painting with a similar historical yet fantasy-oriented look. My goal was to create a traditional floral but still include something that would tickle the imagination and feel magical.
A slightly extraordinary composition and a combination of both decorative and more abstract elements make this painting stand out.
I am also surprisingly fond of the color scheme and it was much more fun to paint than I expected.
Expressing Magic and the Ability to Disappear
A part of the magic is that something almost disappears and then appears again, just like the moon in a cloudy sky. There are lots of blurry elements in this painting, even if you might not notice them right away. A sharp line and some dots on a blurry spot make the flower.
Old master painters of the 16th to 18th centuries used this technique a lot.
For example, look at the hair and the pearls in this portrait. Just blurry spots that have been sharpened with lighter and sharper strokes and dots. Don’t they look magical!
Preparing for the Show
This painting is small, 30 x 50 cm. Here’s a quick snapshot where you can see the size better.
I am currently varnishing paintings for my upcoming solo show in June. All the tabletops are full and the not-so-pleasant odor is in the air. I hope to have photos of the show next week.
P.S. Magical Inkdom is for sale until June 16th! >> Buy here!
Coming Up with Ideas that Make You an Artist
This week’s blog post is about working with ideas that bring more of you together and make you an artist.
Here’s one of my newest paintings called Merkuriuksen lämpötilat – Mercury Temperatures. This oil painting is a part of my series Linnunrata – Milky Way, where I explore planets and outer space. (See previous work: Neptune here, Pluto here, the Earth here, Venus here, and the Sun here!)
My first intention was to create Mars, not Mercury, so I started with sharp strokes and fiery colors.
But it happened that Mars appeared in another painting, so I changed the subject after the first layer. This wasn’t hard. All I needed was to get back to left-brain thinking, which I call my inner engineer.
Fact-Finding for Artistic Inspiration
It has been fun to find out facts about the planets. I have also had great discussions about them with my husband. We both love science and are interested in the bits of information about outer space. The mind-blowing fact about the planet Mercury is that its temperature varies about 650 degrees! Night and day in the same location can have very different temperatures.
I try to keep the fact-finding separate from the painting process as possible. I want the facts to be just one of the many inspiration sources and be intuitive and inventive during actual art-making. For example, in this painting, I also thought about pattern designs, interior decorating, wallpapers of William Morris and Designers Guild, fantasy stories with unicorns, gardening … all kinds of inspiration got mixed into one piece.
Hidden Love for Natural Science
Over a couple of years, natural science has got more and more impact on my art. However, I have been pretty quiet about it because it feels weird to talk about science and then show flower paintings. But now, my inner engineer said that Mercury Temperatures is the only appropriate name for the piece, and I noticed how happy she looked, being involved and accepted more than many times before.
This spring, I have learned a lot about leading myself artistically. I have noticed that if my inner engineer can provide concepts like “temperature changes” rather than direct images, my inner artist can then tie them freely with visual ideas. Together they form an effective pair. My inner engineer can provide exciting ideas based on her background studies, and my inner artist can still get all the creative freedom she needs.
Digging Deeper into the Professional Identity
It has started to feel that there’s a reason why I first studied engineering, then moved to design, and only finally to art. I play with the question that if my career had started as an artist, would I be studying technology now? It feels that my ideas are on several levels, and if I omit the science level, something is missing.
For years and years, I have been trying to manage what my inner engineer can do and how she should not disturb the inner artist. But now, when I have given the inner engineer a significant role, the inner artist hasn’t complained at all. On the contrary, it feels like the artist praises the engineer and vice versa.
This understanding has also closed the gap between design and art. Some of my work can now be openly more design-oriented than others. My inner designer had a lot of fun participating in this painting.
I feel happy about being able to use my curiosity about natural science in the artistic process. I have even started to think that my background in technology and science can be one factor that makes my art unique, even if it doesn’t get the leading role when marketing my work.
Coming Up With Genuine Ideas
We often think about using the skills from one profession to another very literally. But the identity in one can be used for another when we get to the level of ideas and inspiration. Every field has pieces of information that are super inspiring, especially if you already have the foundational knowledge of the area. With the knowledge, your imagination can build bridges between what is and what could be.
Ideas that make you an artist are not about art.
The artistic identity is more like an umbrella rather than an individual thing. An artist is a connector rather than a lonely one on a closed island.
What do you think?
How to Freely Express Sunshine
This week is about the sun! Let’s dive deeper into how to express sunshine when you want to create freely without reference photos. My example is an oil painting, but you can apply the tips to any supplies.
Here’s my newest painting that begins the new series where I explore the stars and planets of the Milky Way. The subject of the first one is, of course, the sun! I named the painting “Runaway Sun” – “Karannut aurinko” in Finnish because I wanted to express sunshine in a dynamic way.
Closed or Open?
Often we paint or draw the sun as a static yellow spot in the blue sky, but I feel that the sun is different. It’s not a closed circle but a very open one. It’s radiating and moving, making things appear and disappear.
The painting was only a green mess when I took the picture above. “Oh no, the photo of Stella failed badly!” I thought when looking at it. But then, bad photos are the best. They challenge us to see what the world really looks like. Here, the sun has swallowed Stella and entered the room like a giant animal, so it’s not a little closed spot at all.
Isolated or Impactful?
The sun is the star, and the earth belongs to its solar system. The earth could be seen as a toy and the sun as the one who plays the game.
But in our art, the sun often has very little effect on its surroundings. We isolate the sun and keep it far away. For example like this:
But the sun impacts everything. It travels in the scenery like a runaway that goes here and there, but it’s impossible to catch as a single being.
When my painting progressed, it got strong differences between light and darkness. The sunny look requires shadows too!
Is the Sun a Thing or a Person?
Art is only a technical skill as long as you think about drawing or painting things. But if you treat the elements as living beings of some kind, the game changes. When your paper or canvas is filled with people or animals, not just shapes or flowers, everything gets more exciting and it’s easier to express sunshine too.
So, ask: Who is this person called Sun? How does she impact everybody in this piece?
Some will love it, and some will escape from it.
Yellow or White Sunshine?
Some people get any yellow for the sun, and some select their yellow carefully. But I think that one yellow is never enough, and without white, the sun doesn’t shine.
I usually work with a limited set of colors, but I change the tubes every session. So, if I use Indian Yellow in one session, for example, I switch to Lemon Yellow in the next. I do the same for other colors as well. When I create new color mixes from different base colors, my paintings will get a huge variety of tones and look more natural.
I try to always mix some color to most whites so that the variety of pastel tones is present too.
I also add color to blacks or make my own blacks. Browns and blues make wonderful darks!
Does It Express Sunshine? Test!
I like to do a test for all my paintings where I lay them on the table, walk away from the room, and then get back.
I wrote about the test in this blog post too.
By resetting my mind, I try to get an immediate impact of how the painting affects the surroundings and whether it’s captivating enough. The sunny painting should draw attention and warm the room.
Here’s my little studio one night with other paintings that are still in progress.
The paintings are too big for my little studio, but I have decided to manage!
Sunshine to Your Weekend!
I hope this post inspired you to bring more sunshine to your art!
Happy Easter!