Four Creative Ideas From Hilma af Klint’s Work
Last week, I went to see the exhibition called Arcana Borealis – Northern Women and Ecotericism. The fourth floor of the Finnish National Gallery was full of mystical paintings, sculptures, and textile art. My favorite mystical artist is Swedish Hilma af Klint (1862-1944), and I took some photos of her paintings. Now I pick four details from her work and share four creative ideas with you.
Idea #1 – Counterparts
Combine two different shapes in one painting or drawing so that they lean on each other. One can be geometric, the other more organic. Be bold and use strong contrasts.
Idea #2: Big in Small – Small in Big
Play with size differences and express something so big and great that it makes everything else shrink.
Hilma af Klint: The Dove, nr. 13, 1915, detail
Idea #3 – Two Spirals
Paint or draw two spirals, but so that they are different from each other. Experiment with tension and balance.
Hilma af Klint: The Large Figure Paintings no. 4, 1907, detail
Idea #4 – Rising Energy
Paint colors and then visualise their rising energy.
Hilma af Klint: The Dove no. 1, 1915, detail
Inspired by Hilma af Klint – Create with Mystical Minis!
In the course Mystical Minis, we create abstract art with colored pencils.
There’s a lot of abstract art theory behind the course, but it’s all packed in a captivating way. The course is both spiritual and technical, but in a different way than many of my other courses. In this course, we share a safe space to learn and go deep into abstract art-making. >> Buy here!
Recent News with Mystical Thoughts
This week, I’m sharing a bit about what I’ve been up to. This fall has been and will be full!
Giving Life to a Line
Creating the course Drawing Soulfully has been one of my biggest projects this year. The videos are packed with content, and making them took a lot of time.
Now, it has been wonderful to see the participants’ drawings and discuss them together. Everyone has their own unique line, and I tried to design the exercises to bring that out as well as possible.
My motto is: Art begins with a line!
And you could also say: Style begins with a line.
A line can be so much more than just an outline. It can express emotion, movement, space, and spirit.
Tough Break Ended
In August, I finished a series of 10 oil paintings that I had started last year. That was another big project, but as I was finishing up the final details, new ideas were already starting to pop up.
Most of the time, my ideas are connected to broader themes rather than exact subjects or techniques. These thematic thoughts are verbal, so I write them down in my calendar. But writing is not the same thing as expressing yourself visually. The breaks between paintings are always tough for me. First, I’m exhausted, but as new ideas start to pile up, I feel restless and suffocated. It’s like being a fish without water!
Fortunately, I’ve now been able to release the tension and start the first painting of a new series this week. It’s still in its early stages, but I look forward to working on it week by week.
I usually work on two paintings at once, because that way, each painting has a sibling, so to speak, and doesn’t have to grow up alone. And even now, I have a canvas of the same size waiting that I hope to start soon.
Babies, Toddlers, and Hamsters – One Killed!
In my dreams, unfinished paintings and courses appear as babies or toddlers, while smaller tasks appear as hamsters. I used to raise hamsters a long time ago, and even though I don’t have them anymore, my subconscious has somehow given them a symbolic role.
Usually in these dreams, I suddenly realize I’ve forgotten to feed the hamsters—but recently, I had a nightmare where I was trying to kill a hamster. When I woke up, I knew I had to let go of the mentoring program I had been advertising lately.
So, there won’t be a mentorship group, but if you buy any of my courses, you’ll get access to my Bloom and Fly Facebook group where I am very active!
Sales Table Preparation
I’m attending at least one art fair at the end of this year. I’ll have cards and prints with me, but I also dug out some of my old watercolors from storage. I should probably touch up a few of them from this pile, as my skills have developed over the years.
Do you like to see revamped projects here on my blog? Do you ever revamp your art?
My biggest paintings have their own sales channels, but attending a fair is a great way to meet people and see their reactions. The last time I had a sales table was in 2022, so it’s about time!
Mystical Meetup!
Do you remember when I launched a course called Mystical Minis at the turn of the year? Making that course was a mystical experience. It started when I heard a whisper: “Intuitive Power.” I then connected the words to the Swedish esoteric artist Hilma af Klint. The course was made in a flow state, and it’s perhaps my most unusual course yet. I took its structure from a short story by Virginia Woolf and included a third artist, the English painter Georgiana Houghton, in the exercises.
And guess what? At the end of October, a super-interesting exhibition called Arcana Borealis – Northern Women and Esotericism opens in Helsinki. It features paintings by Hilma af Klint and her partner Anna Cassel, alongside other Nordic female artists. I will go to see the exhibition and hope that Hilma starts whispering to me again. I’d love to make a new mystical course!
More Mystical Thoughts
It’s a bit sad that winter is coming to Finland. Our summer is exceptionally bright, but our winter is very dark. Still, I think the turn of the year is the best time for esoterics, as we find ourselves in a kind of extreme state.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about what our world needs right now. My thoughts are that in the middle of fast consumption, we need a deeper connection with ourselves. Whether one believes in the supernatural or not, there is always something mystical and unexpected in going deeper. I also feel that in art, we don’t have to decide what is imagination, what is intuition, or what is a stream flowing directly from the outside.
Just by stopping to look and listen more closely, we bring mystical depth into our work. Visual poems start to rise, quieting the outer world.
What do you think?
Make Old Art Journal or Sketchbook New Again
This week, I have a 1-minute video about revamping my old art journal!
This sketchbook is from 2018, back when I was practicing different portraits and creating a course called Innovative Portraits. There’s still plenty of empty space left in the book.
My Old Journal and How the Cover Was Decorated
My old art journal is from The Pink Big. I decorated the cover around 2020.
I cut hand-painted papers, added shadows, and protected the collage with gel medium. See an old blog post about how to create the collage!
Now I brought the book back out to start filling it up again.
Oil Pastels in A Journal
The first page was done with smudgy oil pastels, so I left the opposite page empty.
Oil pastels are fun, but maybe not the most practical for journals. See an old blog post about ideas for using oil pastels!
Abstract with Colored Pencils
On the next page, I made an abstract drawing using colors that go well with the original 2018 page.
Fun with Sakura Gel Pens
These brown pages are great for trying out gel pens. I made a new drawing on the opposite side.
My newest course Drawing Soulfully is about drawing all kinds of lines, and it was fun to use those techniques here.
Flowers and Fabric with Colored Pencils
I placed a paper sheet to protect the previous page, and then colored flowers with colored pencils. The opposite page only had three faces, so I added flowers there, too. I love historical styles, so the main figure got a big, decorative sleeve with dramatic folds.
The next spread is already waiting! I hope this inspired you to make an old art journal or sketchbook new again and use your past pages as inspiration.
P.S. You can still sign up for Drawing Soulfully! >>Sign Up Now!
Drawing a Summer Ornament
This week, I want to show that an ornament can be more than just a decoration. An ornament can be a framework for expression in the same way as a portrait, a still life, or a landscape.
I love drawing ornaments. It feels as though the universe is shouting at me: “This is right, this is a good thing!” If I’ve had past lives, I’d think this is the work I’ve always done in some form, because it feels so natural.
Step 1 – Grid
If I decide to draw an ornament, nothing holds me back—not even the requirement of symmetry. This time, I made a grid to help me achieve similarity on both sides more easily.
It’s good to have center guidelines, but there can be more and placed anywhere. All guidelines are helpful when drawing the ornament freely.
Step 2 – Pencil Sketch
I sketch the biggest symmetrical parts in pencil. But I try to keep this phase short because the best part of drawing ornaments is letting loose and discovering how the symmetry can be broken.
Drawing an ornament is like putting your soul into a lion’s cage and then watching it break out with cleverness, rather than violence.
Step 3 – Getting Creative with a Non-Erasable Pen
For the actual drawing, I use black markers. Here, I’m using Copic FineLiner pens and a Copic Gasenfude brush pen. An ornament is like a meandering canvas where you can draw anything. You can draw both the realistic and the abstract, and it all looks great because it’s embedded in the ornamental structure.
We currently have summer here in Finland, so I wanted to draw summer-related things: the sea, a garden, and birch leaves.
Step 4 – Getting Lost in the Details
When I have most of the things in place, I put on an audiobook or a talk show and focus on the details!
My ornaments almost always have jewels because I find them fun to draw and the result rewarding. A jewel comes to life when you draw geometric shapes with a fine pen and fill them differently.
I always include elements that are pitch-black to create contrast. The brush pen is quick in these details.
The Freedom in Drawing Ornaments
The longer I draw, the more I want to create tension and asymmetry. In this ornament, the lines took on a life of their own and spread beyond its borders. Ah, so liberating!
It’s exciting and even contradictory that such freedom can be evoked from a rigid ornament.
The Summer Ornament
Here you can see how I’ve used the pens for the fine details in the center.
I hope this summer ornament inspires you to pick up your pens and start drawing!
For more inspiration, see also these blog posts: