New Beginnings in Art-Making
Let’s think about new beginnings and give one to our art-making!
In recent months, I have felt that a new era has begun in my life. It has been surprising. I have thought that I am already too old for anything new – that the new beginnings in life have already been experienced, at least in terms of working life. But it just so happened that my work as an artist has a new beginning thanks to the grant for creating digital art.
At the same time, I have gained a new perspective on the past and my artistic development. Now, it feels that life with its changes is full of new beginnings, and art, too, is full of them! There are big beginnings and then smaller beginnings within them.
Valuing Randomness and Intuition
I developed the latest course Liberated Artist Revisited, because I wanted to relive the idea of the old course Liberated Artist. I wanted to relive that time in 2015 when a new beginning meant letting go of excessive control and surrendering to happy accidents and intuition. Because isn’t it the case that whenever a new era begins, we need faith in chance and intuition – so, the art of letting go!
At the current new beginning, I have been thinking about what I have to give up. Because, couldn’t you say that life with its changes is full of not only beginnings, but endings, and ask if the same applies to art? While making the course Liberated Artist Revisited, I listened to Paivi from 2015.
Younger Paivi was very prompt: Step A and Step B and so on. If I compare her and I, I am partly different and partly similar. I would do some things differently now but in many ways., I am still quite the same artist. The new course Liberated Artist Revisited is a dialogue between the old and the new. You could also say that I have changed as an instructor a bit. Nowadays, I want to open up your artistic thinking, not so much to exclude options.
Life is so grand that everything that once had a beginning, stays in our hearts for a long time, even if it has ended. It’s the same in art. I can smile at Päivi after more than eight years, but not ironically, but warmly. “It’s wonderful to create something new with you again,” I say to young Päivi, and it’s also wonderful to invite you all to a new course again!
Liberated Artist Revisited – Buy Now!
Liberated Artist Revisited is a limited edition – only available for purchase until the end of March 2024! >> Buy Now!
Enrich Your Art – Play with Shapes!
This week it’s time to get inspired by shapes and start playing with them!
My dear reader, I guess you follow my blog because you love colors. And yes, isn’t it wonderful to choose, for example, a colored pencil from among several different colors: “Should I pick pink or red, hmm?“
I have a degree in industrial design and maybe that has influenced me to think like this:
A color is a child. A form is a mother.
Colors take spurts freely on the paper while forms set limits. But you can play with form too!
See more about making this in this blog post!
There is no need to turn the mother into an old woman who only sees the reality.
The soul of any shape is abstract and yet, even a simple shape has an expression. It’s fun to draw random shapes and then carefully alter them.
See more about making this in this blog post!
Shapes form a design language that you can constantly enrich. Don’t just draw isolated geometric shapes, but combine them to get more interesting ones!
More about making this in this blog post!
When you have a shape on paper, give your full attention to it.
Art Play with Shapes
Talk to the shape! Interview it!
Don’t ask what she represents, but what kind of world she would like to create around herself.
See more about making this in this blog post!
Ask where she belongs, and what kind of shapes she would like to meet.
See more about making this in this blog post!
Shapes can take you to imaginative places where realistic and abstract meet. Once you have been traveling for some time, you will notice that the delicacy of art is in the form, and the color – the child – is there only as a spice.
See more about making this in this blog post! – See more pics on the Finnish Art Store Taiko!
Art play with shapes – What are your thoughts? Tell us in the comments!
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!
From Artist’s Focus to Artist’s Between
This week, I challenge you to question what the word “focus” means to you as an artist.
I thought a lot about the artist’s focus when painting this piece. This was one of the last paintings to be finished for my exhibition.
Artist’s Focus
Have you ever said this:
“I want to find my focus in art.”
Although I want to direct my energy wisely as an artist, something in that statement has always bothered me.
For me, the essence of art is not narrowing, but expanding – not isolating but inviting. The artist expresses not only herself but humanity in general. And as humans, we are rarely completely serene or focused. We seldom belong to only one group, one era, or one world. We are often one foot in one field, one foot in another.
When we create, could the inspiring word be more like “between” than “focus?”
Focus is nice and pretty, but is it art?
Inspiration from Albert Edelfelt
In this series of paintings, my inspiration was the Finnish master painter Albert Edelfelt (1854-1905). For the painting of this post, I took ideas for the color scheme from this pastel work by Edelfelt. This piece is currently displayed at the Albert Edelfelt Exhibition in the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki.
While studying the colors, I thought about the end of the 19th century and the intelligent look of the woman. Wasn’t this also “between” rather than “focus?” Between a man and a woman, if you think about the relationship between the model and Albert. Between being a model and having her own thoughts, if you study a woman’s gaze. Between representation and abstraction, if you observe lines and shapes.
Abstract art began shortly after Edelfelt’s death. He probably already felt its presence, felt that he was between two worlds.
From Artist’s Focus to Artist’s Between
I decided to throw myself fully into being between two worlds in this painting.
“Between” is an uncomfortable state of being, so this painting couldn’t contain only easy and beautiful. “Between” is a bit like walking in nature and then bumping into apartment buildings. Or when you’re admiring clear water in a pond and your eyes fall on the filters. Focus can then only exist if you close your eyes. Not very eye-opening, eh?
This painting has two different styles and although it is small in size, I feel that it reveals the secret between what I do and what I think.
I noticed at the opening of the exhibition that I don’t like to talk about this work, because I find it somehow intrusive. Often when the paintings are created, they are nice characters, a bit shy and sensitive, but fun company. This one is straightforward and doesn’t hide its contradiction.
However, there is a lot of power in the contradictions and lack of focus. I want to continue to challenge myself to draw artistic inspiration from it.
Do you also feel that you are between two worlds?
In art-making, could you replace the yearning for “focus” with the embracing of “between?”