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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Time will tell how this journal continues!
Doll World – Join Us!
Come to draw adorable dolls and their dresses with me!
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!
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
- The previous video blog post
- Instructions for drawing a winter angel
- Preparing for the sales event
- The half-body figure: Creating a Protector of Good
- The painting: Winter Night’s Poem
- About painting a series: Inspired by Nature
Related Online Classes
- Doll World – Sign up here!
- Make a chapter for your colored pencil journal: Fun Botanicum
- The evolution from drawing to coloring and then to painting: 1) Inspirational Drawing, 2) Intuitive Coloring, 3) Floral Freedom
Let’s Draw a Winter Angel
This week, we draw a winter angel step by step!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The more details you add, the more your imagination grows. For example, the wings can have decorative motifs.
Make the angel more interesting by adding more asymmetry.
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.
I added more decoration and cut a notch to the halo so that it’s like a glamorous hat.
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!
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!
Doll World – Sign Up Now!
Come to draw more dolls and other beautiful items for your box of joy!
Doll World begins on January 1st, 2023. Watch the video and sign up here!
Inspired by Nature – Finishing a Series of Paintings
This week, I celebrate a big finish – the series of ten nature-inspired oil paintings that I started in July!
The series has four small, four medium-sized, and two big paintings. All of them are some kind of floral landscapes.
Small Paintings + Video!
I worked from big to small. I like to start the series boldly and then pick ideas from them for smaller pieces. This is the last painting – Rapunzel of the Garden:
Because of the small size, this painting required very thin brushes and a lot of precision. Here’s a 1-minute video where you can see me painting it:
These are the rest of the small paintings:
I like the idea of having a secret tiny treasure, so I try to make the small paintings look like that.
Medium-Sized Paintings
The medium-sized paintings are in two parts: two are smaller, and two are bigger. I like to paint “sisters” – so two paintings in a row or at the same time so that they complement each other. It’s an easy way to create variation in the series.
I like to name each painting of a series so that the titles have some kind of similarities. For example, the previous series all had celestial bodies in their names, and the one before that was a V-series – all the titles started with the letter V. This time, the similarity is not perhaps so evident, but it’s there – all the titles have a genitive form.
Four seasons are also present in this series. Expressing seasons is an idea that I could repeat in future series too.
Currently on display at the exhibition “Talven taikaa” in Galleria K, Vantaa, Finland.
In every series, there are paintings that have seeds for the next one. In this series, I like how abstract I went with Winter Night’s Poem, and the natural look in The Echo of Moss inspires me a lot. These two will set the foundation for the next series.
Usually, I am exhausted after finishing a series, but this time not so much. I have many ideas and already ordered the canvases. I like to plan the size of the series and the sizes of the paintings beforehand. Before I even begin to make any background studies, I have ideas on interiors they could fit or galleries or exhibitions they could go to, and decide the size based on those.
Big Paintings
Even if all my paintings are my children, I can’t help picking my personal favorite of the series. In this one, it’s Tiger’s Eye.
Currently on display at the gallery Gumbostrand Konst & Form.
See more pics in this blog post!
Tiger’s Eye is a sister to another big painting – Queen of the Night.
I like the drama in these big paintings.
Nature Inspired The Series of Paintings
Often, people ask an artist: “What inspires you?” and the artist responds, “Nature.”
But I think that it’s really important for an artist to get more specific. For me, it’s the plants – who they want to be and what kind of world they hope to build. I love to imagine what kind of personalities plants have.
In the upcoming class Doll World, the plants become alive as flower girls!
Come to draw people in nature-inspired dresses – Sign up here!