Ornamental Flowers – Paint with Me!
This week, I have a video tutorial for you! Let’s paint a watercolor card that’s like a piece of beautiful floral wallpaper. Watch the video!
Flowers have always been my favorite, but now even more than ever. I hope you’ll enjoy painting this!
Floral Fantasies – Weekend Sale!
I am also happy to announce that Floral Fantasies – my flower painting class is now available again!
Honestly, this is the class to take when you want to become a floral painter + it’s for sale April 23-26 (PDT)! >> Buy here!
Delicious Colors – Salvage Them!
I have never been overly enthusiastic about bright reds, but now seems to be the time. I feel that in this black world, we need to salvage the delicious colors and amplify them with sugary decorations!
Finding Comfort from Delicious Colors
In the evenings, while waiting for the news around the world to be gathered, I paint in my little studio room. The more I think about the sad statistics, the more I want to create the opposite – a careless world with deliciously tasty and juicy colors.
My studio is now like a sweet bakery, and as the main cook, I have lots of motivation to create!
Delicacies from DecoDashery!
What first was just one little painting, has now grown to resemble a series that expresses an imaginary world. I call this world as DecoDashery, inspired by the old haberdashery from the movie Emma. DecoDashery will also be the next class that I am building, hoping to release it within a couple of months!
You Can Always Start Small!
As usual, I haven’t made paintings only, but also collage pieces to my boxes of joy.
Delicious Meringues, Lace, and Porcelain
Now when my husband is working from home too, we eat together more than ever. Fortunately, he can cook! I have never been into that so much. But my specialties are side dishes and desserts, and it’s been fun to make one good meal in a day and combine our skills.
I had never made strawberry meringues, but a recipe from a knitting magazine caught my eye. Strawberries, an old plate, and a hand-crocheted lace doily were all as essential as the meringues themselves.
My current oil painting has progressed well too. Even if there’s a lot of work left, I get a lot of pleasure from working on it. Salvaging all the deliciousness of the random shapes feels so good.
Doesn’t the painting look strangely similar to the meringues, lace, and porcelain? The world of Decodashery is expanding!
Meaningless Has Given Me a New Meaning
It’s kind of funny that when I decided to remove deeper meaning from my work for a while, I feel that my art the overall creative process has become more meaningful than ever.
It’s like I have released the beast that I have always quietly carried with me, and once I have seen it eye to eye, it has become my angel in the crisis.
Expressing Hope by Painting Nature
These past weeks have been black. Social distancing, pandemic, the news … However, I want to share some things that have brought consolation, hoping that they do the same for you.
This first image is a watercolor painting created as an exercise for my newest class Magical Forest. It’s painted quickly and systematically, and it’s less romantic than many of my paintings, but I really like it. I put a lot of effort and thought into all of the class exercises, but I am especially fond of the last lesson where realistic nature themes meet abstract art in unconventional ways.
Expressing Hope – Art is Needed!
One of the carrying themes in Magical Forest is spirituality, and I feel that the connection between art and spirit is more timely now than ever. The need for art that soothes will grow. It’s important that we artists create images that illustrate the inner world when there are chaos and uncertainty in the outer world. This way, we don’t only take care of our sanity but spread hope for other people as well.
Moss, Stones, Clouds – The Comforting Side of Nature
We haven’t got much snow this winter in Southern Finland, so I have had lots of opportunities to observe stones, both in our garden, and in nature. When the world is in a storm, it’s comforting to watch their stillness, and how the moss is like a warm blanket over them.
Last weekend, my husband and I took the dogs for a walk in the forest. When the sun shined through the trees, the view was like a sacred chapel.
Last year, I got a wish to include clouds in the class, and I was able to fit that in. Clouds are surprisingly fun to paint! When the bad news came, little paintings like this became even more important. I want to look at my clouds now and then. The softness of the sky draws in and refreshes my soul.
My beagle Stella also likes sunny skies. She has her chapel on the porch of the old shed that we have in our back garden.
I painted this floral bouquet last spring, and with it, I want to wish hopeful news and hopeful weekend. Let’s take some time to create comforting art!
Nature is definitely expressing hope here in Finland. Let’s keep creating towards brighter days!
P.S. Weekend Sale! There’s a new presentation video about Magical Forest, and to brighten the weekend, I have reduced the price too. The sale ends on April 5 (PDT), so be quick! >> Buy here!
Art Inspiration from Sanditon
This blog post is for us who love Jane Austen and Sanditon tv series. I watched the series last month, and it has inspired me a lot. I hope you enjoy this Sanditon inspiration overload!
Torchbearer – Esther and Lord Babington on the Beach
My newest watercolor painting called Torchbearer had a modest beginning and I had no clue how to finish it – until I saw episode 8 of Sanditon!
My favorite female character of Sanditon is Esther and the scene where she is in the carriage with Lord Babington was so romantic! The sudden change in her appearance, his gentle smile, black horses, empty shore – oh my! It hit me, that even if my painting has flowers, not people, I could express the emotion from the scene.
The tallest flower and the glow come from Esther’s powerful spirit.
The flower that bends down, expresses her sensitivity.
I tried to paint every flower so that they highlight the bubbling energy. Their stems are like the carriage where the couple sat.
The black background represents both the horses and the lord, supporting Esther’s joy.
In this painting, Esther is a torchbearer who leads us to better times.
Tin Box – A Souvenir from Sanditon
I like little boxes that can be used for storing hand-drawn pictures and papers. I wanted to decorate a small tin box so that it would have old-fashioned and luxurious feel. So that I could think of it as a souvenir from Sanditon!
I already had saved a hand-drawn piece that was quite perfect in size.
I also found some papers with a watercolor print. They were test runs of the surface pattern designed earlier this year. I mostly designed the pattern manually, so by painting a design on the center of the paper and then cutting the paper into four parts.
This way you get a continuous design.
Avoid painting edges, and re-arrange papers until they are all fully painted.
Then scan the papers, and clean the edges in an image processing software. Here’s a sample of my design.
I made several variations in Photoshop. These papers go really well with hand-drawings, so they were perfect for the box.
The center motif was first colored with watercolors.
Then I hand-stitched it on a background paper and added more hand-stitching around the center. In the photo below, I highlight the surroundings of the stitches with a pen so that they look more 3-dimensional.
I also added beads, more colors and decorative marks.
The centerpiece is a button with a shank removed. I love this little box!
Esther Denham – Sanditon Paper Doll
I also wanted to create something for my ever-growing collection of collage figures. “Just an unknown habitat of Sanditon”, I decided first. I didn’t use any reference and drew the doll just freely, but when she was colored, she looked just like Esther!
I played with her proportions so that she has overly long legs. That way I could make the dress more imaginative. The hem was cut from one of the watercolor papers. I couldn’t help playing with her right away, trying wings on her, filling the teacup with herbs from Sanditon. The wings and the teacup are from my fun class Magical Inkdom.
Her hat is also a collage piece cut from watercolor papers.
Souvenirs from Sanditon!
The Romance Continues
I am currently painting an oil painting that looks quite romantic already.
My vision is to make it the third in the series after Icebreaker and Torchbearer – and put it in the middle of them.
One Source of Inspiration – Many Interpretations
If you have been following my blog, you know that some of my projects are fine art, others more illustrational, and there can be a bit crafty things too. This blog post demonstrates well how the inspiration can be the same, but the interpretation is different. For me, the wide range of projects is a way to stay inspired and creative, and I hope that you have tolerance for all of them. I don’t believe in getting too serious or not getting serious at all. The humorous side of art allows us to get playful, and the playfulness feeds our ability to express the deeper side of our inspiration.
Esther can be the person who handed me a crafty gift box, or an innocent paper doll, or a mysterious flower in a painting that took tens of hours to create. The key to your artistic style is less in the looks and more in the inspiration. For me, it’s often old-fashioned romances, like Sanditon.
Welcome to my online classes!
– Paint watercolor fantasies – Sign up for Magical Forest!
– Draw the magic – Buy Magical Inkdom!