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Painting the Best Work for the Show

Posted on May 12, 2022Posted in Big Projects, Flowers & Plants, Sales and Marketing, SceneriesTagged canvas, oil paints18 Comments

This week, I present the main artwork for my solo show in June and talk about the pressure of painting the best work.

Juhla Neptunuksessa - Jubilee in Neptune, 90 x 140 cm, oil on canvas, by Paivi Eerola. — Juhla Neptunuksessa – Jubilee in Neptune, 90 x 140 cm, oil on canvas

This oil painting, “Juhlat Neptunuksessa – Jubilee in Neptune,” is a part of my series Linnunrata – Milky Way, where I explore planets and outer space. (See previous work: Pluto here, the Earth here, Venus here, and the Sun here!)

Painting the Best Work – Feeling the Pressure!

I have had terrible pressure to create my best work for the show. Especially the two big pieces on the back wall needed to reach the next level, not that I was able to define what that would be. So I couldn’t pre-process and plan the paintings in my mind. I had to trust the brush and the intuition and start painting.

Beginning a new painting and producing your best work. Painting in progress.

This size (about 35,5 x 55 inches) was also new for me, so I felt like being in a new territory. But several smaller paintings of the same series had already been made, so it was a continuum too.

Extrovert

Last week I talked about introverts and extroverts, and this painting definitely was an extrovert. From the beginning, it knew what it wanted and kept talking to me gently but determinedly, and all I had to do was listen to its spirit.

A detail of Juhla Neptunuksessa - Jubilee in Neptune, 90 x 140 cm, oil on canvas, by Paivi Eerola.

I felt like the painting gently carried me over a mystery of life and took me through the gates that I would not have dared alone. I don’t usually talk about the painting process in this mysterious way, but this time, it all felt pretty magical.

One part of me, the inner engineer, was wiping the sweat from the outside pressure, and the other part of me, the inner artist, couldn’t care less. She was only serving the needs of the painting.

A detail of Juhla Neptunuksessa - Jubilee in Neptune, 90 x 140 cm, oil on canvas, by Paivi Eerola. Quick strokes, but painting the best work.

I am very happy about the brush strokes – many of them have been created fast, but they still look pretty flawless.

Creating a Panoramic View

I wanted the two big paintings to be individual in identity but still share some parts when placed side by side. This way, the overall view of the gallery’s back wall could be panoramic.

Two oil paintings to create a panoramic view. By Paivi Eerola. — At Home in Pluto and Jubilee in Neptune side by side

To achieve this, I needed to finish the pieces so that they were placed side by side.

Whales in a Small Bond

My studio is a small room attached to our home, and the two whales were much too big.

Trying to paint the best work. Paivi Eerola and her big oil paintings.

But I managed anyway. In art, I don’t want to live a life where everything needs to be perfect before I can do something. I want to accomplish paintings like this right now and can’t wait for a better situation. And I love our home and working from home, so I just have to make things work. Fortunately, we have quite a lot of wall space in the other parts of the house so that the paintings can dry elsewhere.

Main Promotion Piece for the Show

The new painting is airy, but there are a lot of details too. I am very fond of this piece and feel relieved.

This painting is the artwork in all the promo material for the exhibition. See the press release here! Because the show is in Finland, the text is first in Finnish but scroll down the page to read the English translation.

Paivi Eerola and her oil painting for her first solo show.

My first solo show Linnunrata will be June 3-19, 2022 at Gallery K, Vantaa, Finland.

Pros and Cons of Making Postcards from Your Art

Posted on May 23, 2019June 16, 2019Posted in Sales and Marketing10 Comments

Art postcards by Paivi Eerola from Finland.

I have just got new sets of postcards printed from my art. These have been ordered from Moo (affiliate link) and are now available at Paivieerola.com. Here’s how I see the pros and cons of making postcards of your art.

Pro: Seeing Your Art as Collections

When selecting art for postcards, group similar work so that you can make sets. You can also aim for the specific set size and make more pieces with that style. This way the postcard project can inspire you to work in series and explore a certain topic, medium, and style.

Watercolor floral art postcards by Paivi Eerola from Finland.

One of my new sets have watercolor florals, and another has acrylic and oil paintings inspired by art history.

Paintings printed to postcards and stickers. Art by Paivi Eerola from Finland.

If you like to fill art journals as I often do, go through the journal pages too! This girl was just a sketch but I really like it as a postcard!

An art journal page as an postcard. By Paivi Eerola from Finland.

Pro: Saving Good Pictures of Your Art

It’s easy to neglect taking good pictures of finished work. However, there’s more use for them than just postcards. It’s easy to browse your pieces quickly when they are archived digitally. You will also share them more!

Making postcards of your art. A watercolor painting as a postcard. Art by Paivi Eerola from Finland.

If you organize the image archive chronologically, you also see your progress at a glance. The archive also brings memories and inspiration. Whether you make postcards or not, it’s always good to take good pictures of your finished projects.

I use a tripod and manual settings of my DSLR camera to get the best possible photo. Then I crop and process the photo using Photoshop. New phone cameras take good pictures that don’t necessarily need more adjusting than cropping. Taking photos outside is also a good option!

I like to use white cardboard so that I can adjust the image according to the white area first, and then crop it away.

Pro: Playing between Digital and Physical

If you like to create digital art, seeing it in physical postcards is wonderful. I also like to play between physical and digital art so that I scan the elements of collage art, and then make the final image by combining them in Photoshop.

Art by Paivi Eerola from Finland. Digital art from hand-drawn components. Zebra postcard. Circus postcard. Zebra illustration.

I really like this digitally composed but hand-drawn zebra postcard! You can find the instructions for drawing zebras in my class Animal Inkdom!

A set of postcards by Paivi Eerola from Finland.

Pro: Getting Ideas for Other Products as Well

If you have good images and great collections, you can also make other products as well. There are services like Redbubble or Zazzle where you can make a variety of products. I printed some stickers to go with the postcards at Moo (affiliate link).

Paintings as stickers by Paivi Eerola from Finland.

Pro: Postcards Market Your Art

By getting your contact information printed with the postcard you also spread the word of you as an artist.

Designing the backside of the postcard. By Paivi Eerola from Finland.

I also like to think that postcards spread the joy that’s packed in my art. When I hear people keeping my postcards visible so that they can look at them often, it feels good and makes producing the cards meaningful.

An oil painting and a postcard. Art by Paivi Eerola from Finland.

Cons: Making Postcards Can Be a Bad Financial Decision

Good-quality postcards are expensive and selling postcards alone is not good business. Especially if you want to sell original art or bigger art prints, having postcards in the same shop or sales table can reduce other sales.

But I also have other experiences. If I go to an art fair or another small local event, I find it easiest to introduce people to my art by letting them select a business card first. Then I introduce them to postcards, then to prints, and finally to originals. That’s why I always get a selection of small business cards printed too, showcasing my latest work.

People love selecting their free image! They often explain it in detail why they selected it. It’s fascinating and useful information for me as an artist!

Business cards printed at Moo.com. Art by Paivi Eerola from Finland.

If you print cards – postcards or business cards – make sure that there’s some contact information where people can go to look before contacting you. Many are shy to call or send an email right away. Having a website is the best thing. But if you don’t have a website, write the address of your Instagram feed or set up a Facebook page for your art.

My final advice is to start small and print a very limited set and let people curate the collection. The image that appeals the most to you is most probably not your best seller. At least that has happened to me many times! As artists, we value the process of creating, but as customers, we only see the result and how it fits with our home and perspective. Sometimes the beauty of art is more in the process, sometimes more in the result. So, whether you make postcards or not, keep creating!

Buy my art at Paivieerola.com!
I ship every order personally from Finland!

Take Your Art to a Passionate Level

Posted on August 17, 2018August 17, 2018Posted in Artist Friendships, Artistic Identity, Processing Ideas, Sales and Marketing, Videos, Visual Voice / Style2 Comments

What Does “Passionate” Mean to You?

This week, I had a free live webinar of how to conquer the excuses and become more passionate about art. I asked what does “passionate” mean to you and then divided it into four categories. After that, I re-phrased five excuses so that you see them from a new perspective. It may sound theoretical, but you also get ideas of how to apply these things in practice as well. I hope you will enjoy watching the recording below!

Take Your Art to a Passionate Level – The Recording of the Webinar

The Exploring Artist Begins on Sept 10 – Sign Up Now!

The Exploring Artist is a 12-week group coaching program for artists, between Sept 10 – Nov 30, 2018. This coaching is for you who wants to get clear about your artistic passion and become more open about your art, for example, share your art in social media, blog about art, sell your originals and prints, teach classes, etc.

In The Exploring Artist, you will get coaching as a part of a small and tight-knit group. I will personally help you to put your passion into words and visual insights. We will work together to discover what you want to change in your art, where you want to move forward and how to do it.

The maximum number of the participants is 12,
and the early-bird sale ends on August 19 (midnight PST), so sign up now!

Artist Statement, Portfolio, Prints – Presenting a New Website for My Art!

Posted on February 28, 2018April 8, 2018Posted in Sales and MarketingTagged acrylic paints, oil paints14 Comments

I have a new website for my art! It has an online shop filled with originals and prints, a portfolio, pictures of the paintings in progress, and my story. Go to paivieerola.com!

This Peony and Parakeet site will also continue, as well as blogging, classes, etc. but I wanted to have a better presentation of myself as an artist, not only as an art teacher. First, my intention was just to update this site, but it is already full of information, many of which I would like to bring more rather than less visible. So I decided to keep this site for art education and create a new site for selling art. Time will tell if having two sites is too confusing, hopefully not!

Artist Statement or Not?

I re-wrote the About page tens of times! It was quite easy to pick the things that I wanted to say, but it’s still difficult to not to be too boring! I decided not to put it in the form of an artist statement because I didn’t want to alienate anyone with long and grandiose sentences although the first sentences under the title could be seen as one:

“When Paivi Eerola is painting, she is a scientist who plays with the reality. Ducks can become plants, a fruit can replace fabric, and flowers can form a factory that produces glass. In this new world, everything is changing and moving, and it’s all celebrating the lushness of life.”

I wrote my story in the third person so that it can be used easily on other occasions too. While writing my story, I questioned if it’s really how you see me and my art. But in the end, everyone has their interpretations of the images, and this is just how and what I think when I am creating them. One thing that I left out is how I test my paintings.

Original Canvas Paintings and How I Test Them

When I paint on canvas, my goal is to create a treasure rather than just an image. I test the painting so that I lay it flat on the table, walk away from it and then turn back to see what my gut reaction is. If I just make a mark that there’s a painting on the table, I need to continue working on it. If the painting looks more like a thing, a glowing treasure box, then I have achieved my goal.

It’s really important to me to make paintings that stand the test of time. I have spent tens of hours painting these, and I hope that they will live longer than me. Sometimes I wonder if I have this strong aspiration because I don’t have any children.

Nothing beats the luxury of an original painting, especially when it’s varnished and the colors glow like the paint would still be wet. See the originals that I have currently available!

Prints from Me to You

So far, I have sold prints via Saatchi Art. It’s great for US customers especially because the prints are delivered directly from there, and they also provide canvas prints. However, I also want to have few prints available directly from me, and there’s a small selection at my new store. I have printed them with an inkjet printer on a lovely fine art paper.

I am selling one of the prints as a limited edition. Every copy of it is signed and numbered. The painting in the print is called Healing Power. The original painting is sold, and I only produce 40 art prints from the image. So if you wish to have some healing power, would like to give that to someone, get your copy!

Portfolio

To show a big picture of what I have done, I wanted to include a portfolio that is like a small art gallery on my new website. I tried to pick the pieces that present my style but there was a lot to select from.

For example, I didn’t pick this one because I didn’t want to add too many. Anyway, I have a gallery on this site too, and it can be less curated!

Harvest Still Life, 2015. A mixed media painting by Paivi Eerola. — Harvest Still Life, 2015

Picking pieces for the portfolio is a really good exercise. It made me think about my artist’s path and see how my ideas have merged and grown to produce new work.

Paintings in Progress

I always aim to be as transparent as possible. Being very secretive has never worked for me, it’s against my personality. So there’s a section called In Progress which shows the paintings that I currently work on. Now it shows my first series of oil paintings. Here’s one of them so far:

Oil paintings take even more time than acrylic paintings because I need to let them dry properly before adding a new layer. You can follow the progress at the new site. I also have a separate mailing list for all who are interested in buying my paintings. Subscribe to the list here!

Hopefully, you enjoy the new site!

Color the Emotion

Category: Sales and Marketing