Color the Emotion

Pick a few colors and create without stiffness.

Create a Chapter Cover for the New Year!

This week, we are creating a chapter cover for our art journals that marks the new year.

New chapter cover for the new year. From the colored pencil journal of the artist Päivi Eerola, Finland.

When I think about the new year, there are lots of uncertainties that first come to my mind. What will happen in the world, what will happen in my life, and what will happen in my art? I can only present educated guesses about the threats and possibilities. This kind of wondering makes me feel passive, and it’s not very uplifting, so I rather pick up my pencils and start drawing.

Draw a Chapter Cover for a Journal!

As I told you in the recent video blog post, I got the idea of making a chapter cover in the colored pencil journal, marking where the new year begins. So all I had to do was to add the numbers on the next spread and then color a bit on them and around them. This project was a lot of fun, and I highly recommend it!

Play with Numbers!

Just as the world is not only based on facts, the numbers are not just numbers either. Their shapes don’t entirely define them. The number “2” can be a kneeling woman with stockings and a skirt, or a flower that bends down – or both! The number “0” can be a mirror that not only reflects the surroundings but open ups a new scenery. Isn’t that what we want to see in the new year – not only experience the chronologically bypassing days but also make them take our minds to a new place? Stairs that are ahead can lead to nowhere or everywhere, and the fingers that hold a treasure can, at the same time, be the leaves of a plant.

Decorating numbers with colored pencils. Creating a spread for an art journal.

The way we can combine everyday life and fantasy creates joy and hope, and uncertainties feel not only exciting but necessary.

Numbers as Fashion Models

Every time I build a course, I learn something new myself too. But this time, with Doll World, I feel that there’s a lot that comes in the shape of a person.

Coloring a chapter cover for an art journal

When I am more familiar with drawing human figures, I seem to be better able to see those everywhere, for example, in numbers too. And it often seems to come to my mind that I can dress up a shape and, that way, make it more imaginative and fun.

Year of Art

The year 2022 has been a year of art for me. I acknowledge that eight recent years have been like that in one way or another when I have been a full-time artist. But this year, it felt like Art came out of the cellar and opened her heart. And when asking what to do next, she usually said: “Leave me alone,” but this year, the answer was softer, sending a question back to me: “Tell me what you want to see!” Art, who was an animal that used to escape and hide, became a pet, even a caressing spirit. She wanted to stick around and show how something little can grow to become enough – how I can be enough.

Art vs. Artist - Päivi Eerola, Finland

It all felt like a gift even if I had suffered for years by trying to tame Art’s spirit, trying to understand her, trying to stick around even if she would only live in a dark cellar. And now, when I play with the pencils, it doesn’t feel like I do that without her, but with her,
even if I am not painting.

Art journal love: creating a new chapter cover between pages.

When we spend time together with Art and together as artists too, every year is different. We don’t stay the same, but our foundation becomes more similar. And the older we get, the more we inspire each other, and our art is like a group of fairies that gently fly around us. At least, that’s what I hope for the upcoming year.

A chapter cover for the new year. This divides the pages in the art journal.

Time will tell how this journal continues!

Doll World – Join Us!

Come to draw adorable dolls and their dresses with me!

Doll World - an online art class  for drawing and coloring dressed-up human figures.

Doll World begins on Jan 1st. >> Sign up Now!

Dolls and Angels – Video Blog Post

This week, I have a video blog post for you! I talk about dolls and angels – winter, the new class Doll World and Christmas memories, among other things!

Paivi Eerola and her paper dolls.

You will also see my table at the recent sales event. I hope you enjoy the video!

Dolls and Angels – Watch the Video!

Links to Related Blog Posts

Related Online Classes

Let’s Draw a Winter Angel

This week, we draw a winter angel step by step!

Winter Angel by Päivi Eerola of Pepny and Parakeet. Colored pencil art.

The angel begins with a simple outline sketch. The hands and feet are hidden behind the dress, so it’s easy! The skirt is big so that you can treat it as a blank canvas for winter scenery.

Step 1 – Make an Outline Sketch

Pick an A4-size or US letter-size paper and a regular pencil.

Draw a horizontal center line and then another line that divides the upper part in half.

Place a head right above the upper line and draw a simple body and a long hem.

Sketches for a winter angel.
Click to see the picture bigger!

Add a circle for the halo behind the head, some marks for facial features, wings, and curves to divide the upper body into two parts.

Sketching a winter angel with a pencil.

Erase the sketched lines so that you can see them only vaguely. Compare the wings in the picture above with the next picture. After erasing, the pencil sketch is visible only barely.

Step 2 – Add Foundational Ideas

Change to colored pencils. Start with the face and color lightly. Get connected with the character that you are drawing. Add some skin tone and hair. You can also draw facial features, but do it with a light hand, aiming for a connection rather than perfection at this stage.

Drawing a winter angel - Step 2 - Add Foundational Ideas

With neutral colors, add ideas for a winter feel. I draw fur on the top part of the dress and then sky and trees on the skirt.

Step 3 – Color Beyond the Outlines

Get more creative by breaking the outlines. Think about the air that rises from the cold and circulates around the dress. Imagine winds, polar lights, and layers of snow, but also immaterial things: thoughts and feelings and their liveliness.

Drawing a winter angel - Step 3 - Color Beyond the Outlines

You can now use more colors but keep the coloring light and progress gradually layer by layer.

Step 4 – Add Details by Coloring

Go through the angel many times and add more details and shadows at every go.

Drawing a winter angel - Step 4 - Add Details by Coloring

The more details you add, the more your imagination grows. For example, the wings can have decorative motifs.

Drawing a winter angel - Step 4 - Add Details by Coloring

Make the angel more interesting by adding more asymmetry.

Drawing a winter angel - Step 4 - Add Details by Coloring

Draw elements like ice so that it’s placed differently on the two sides of the angel.

Step 5 – Cut Out and Finish

Cut the angel out of the paper and make final adjustments, especially near the cut-out edges. Now it’s also the time to make final adjustments to the facial features.

Drawing a winter angel - Step 5 - Cut Out and Finish

I added more decoration and cut a notch to the halo so that it’s like a glamorous hat.

Drawing a winter angel - Step 5 - Cut Out and Finish

Step 6 – Play with the Winter Angel!

Combine other items with the doll, and enjoy making the settings! I like to pull out stuff from my boxes of hand-drawn elements – boxes of joy, as I call them!

A small Christmas girl in colored pencils. By Päivi Eerola, Finland.

I drew this little Christmas Girl one evening when I was too tired to do anything else. I think it looks lovely with the winter angel!

Christmas girl and winter angel. Handdrawn figures by Päivi Eerola.

Doll World – Sign Up Now!

Come to draw more dolls and other beautiful items for your box of joy!

Doll World - an online class for learning to draw human figures and their clothing.

Doll World begins on January 1st, 2023. Watch the video and sign up here!

Fall or Fairytale? – Creating Your Forest

This week, I talk about the colorful bridge that art can build between real and unreal.

Toivomusten metsä - Forest of Wishes, 40 x 50 cm, oil on canvas, 2022. By artist Paivi Eerola, Finland.
Toivomusten metsä – Forest of Wishes, 40 x 50 cm, oil on canvas, 2022.

This is my latest oil painting called Forest of Wishes. My fall is filled with those – wishes! Wishes that can’t be fulfilled.

I wish winter would only last a day or so. I wish there would be regular life for regular people – not war, not suffering, not lack of anything. And while I am thinking about these melancholic thoughts, it feels like my creativity ignores them and lives in a fairytale. I want to draw you in this fairytale too. I hope these pictures inspire you to create and make life more magical!

Hello Fall – Hello Colors!

In art, colors can make a fairytale. My oil painting brought this older watercolor piece to mind. Like “Forest of Wishes,” this one uses blue in a similar way: to create a connection with the viewer. It’s a reminder that blue can be strong and soulful and approach the viewer, not just stay still in the background.

Hello Fall, a watercolor painting by Paivi Eerola. A forest scenery.
Tervehdys, syksy! – Hello Fall, 38 x 28 cm, watercolor, 2019.

There’s also a video of painting this!

This painting started with the reference photo, but once the painting process got further, the expression replaced it. And splattering with a brush is a lot of fun!

The Magic of Growth

When I look at our garden, the wonders of summer become visible when trees prepare for fall. They have grown a lot, for example, this monkaburi – a pine tree that we planted a few years ago. Back then, it felt like it would take forever for it to form a gate over our heads, but now it already has a branch that grows over the path.

Monkaburi in the fall

The magic of growth also happens when filling a blank paper or a canvas. First, there’s very little life, but by adding more colors, shapes, and layers, we can grow a forest.

Fairytale painting in progress.

Sometimes the forest comes in one piece, and other times in many little pieces.

The same applies to artistic growth: sometimes it happens quickly, other times more gradually. I like to break the rules of being a serious artist only and allow play to show me the magic.

A beagle and a ball in the fall.

I want to learn from Saima, our youngest beagle. She is obsessed with the ball, but when we mention that to her, she seems to laugh: “It’s only a hobby!” At the same time, fetching the ball seems to be both her passionate work, but also a tool for imagining and playing.

Fall Fairytale

In the forest of wishes, we want to use a different mirror for ourselves – not to see the limitations but imagine the potential. It’s an exciting place that has many dangers as well.

A detail of Toivomusten metsä - Forest of Wishes, 40 x 50 cm, oil on canvas, 2022. By artist Paivi Eerola, Finland.

Going deep can take us deep down, but when combined with play, the humor steps in. Here’s my wish for a winter that would only last one day!

Playing with handdrawn and handpainted scrap reliefs. By Paivi Eerola.

Ask: “Is it the fall or is it a fairytale – real or unreal?” And then answer: “Today it’s a fairytale, a colorful escape!”

A detail of Toivomusten metsä - Forest of Wishes, 40 x 50 cm, oil on canvas, 2022. By artist Paivi Eerola, Finland.

Art can truly add magic to our lives. I feel that life isn’t real without the unreal.

Paivi Eerola and her painting in the fall garden.

What do you think?

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