Peony and Parakeet

Fly to Your Inner World and Color the Emotion

Color the Emotion

Pick a few colors and create without stiffness.

Category: Doodling

Subconscious Goals

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A Horse Tells a Story, an illustration by Peony and Parakeet

Here’s an illustration that came out without any pre-planning. I just added a layer after another and in the end was surprised about the animals, and the scene. What was I thinking about?

Creating Subconscious Art

Background paper, by Peony and Parakeet

First I created the background paper in Photoshop. I duplicated my old sticker designs there!

Subconscious art. Decorating a background, by Peony and Parakeet

After printing the background I made some random spots with alcohol inks and random lines with white correction pen. Then I added a lot of details with markers and gel pens.

Decorated background paper, by Peony and Parakeet

Yes, a lot of details.

A Horse Tells a Story, the illustration by Peony and Parakeet

Finally, I constructed the main elements from decorated papers. Then it came: the horse on the pedestal and the dogs. The horse tells a story for the dogs, and the dogs are captivated by listening to it. When finished, I realized that I want to be that white horse! I want to develop skills to tell visual stories.  I want to learn how to create images which not only appeal to the eye but the mind as well.

Isn’t it a wonderful thing that with creativity we can reveal our subconscious goals!

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Doodled Lace Patterns

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Doodled lace cards, by Peony and Parakeet

I am constantly inspired by surface patterns and textures. From a pile of doodled papers I found lace like doodling on unbleached printing paper. I decided to decorate it by adding white on some of the details and empty areas. It was a quick card: just adding the white and cutting it to the proper size. I pretty liked it so I made another card using the same concept but with different background paper. So, here are instructions to create these fun lace cards!

Doodled Lace on Paper

Creating a doodled lace pattern, instructions by Peony and Parakeet

You can create an interesting effect of color changes in the background by painting the background paper with watercolors. Pick a thin black pen for doodles. I love making doilies that look like they are on the top of another. Draw the doily on the top first. Group your doodles and leave some empty areas around the groups.

Doodled lace card, instructions, by Peony and Parakeet

Add White to the Background

Creating a doodled lace pattern, instructions by Peony and Parakeet

I used Copic Opaque White in a jar for bigger areas and Uniball Signo pen for smaller areas. A white color pencil was used too. White acrylic paint does the job too.

Doodled lace, a detail, by Peony and Parakeet

You can easily make georgeus and unique projects with this technique!

A doodled lace card, by Peony and Parakeet

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Increase Your Creativity

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Courage, a collage by Peony and Parakeet. See creativity tips for artists.

People often say to me that they have very little creativity. They describe how difficult it is for them to let go when crafting or making art. I assume that everybody have blocks in their creativity. I struggle with them too. But here’s how I managed to get rid of many obstacles and enjoy creating.

First, speed up! Create faster. You will get into uncomfortable, unbalanced state where the voices in your head say: “Slow down! You need to think first! Don’t do that! NO!” And then it’s easy, you just do the exact opposite: increase your speed, stop thinking what color you choose, implement all the wildest ideas (like mess up the areas which begin to look ok). Replace your NO with YES! You can do anything!

Courage, a detail. Collage by Peony and Parakeet

Stop drawing lines that do not intersect! Put the elements on the top of each other. Get rid of the clear shapes. If you work fast enough you will stop comparing your work with others. You will have your unique thing going on. The truth is that somewhere under the surface is your own style, your own creativity, your own spirit.

Just a while ago I read an article about visual culture now and after 25 years. An expert was interviewed. He said that it will be proven that all the images are equal. It hit me: even if there are great masters in art, great talents, in the end all the images are equal in the general perspective. And even more important: in the personal perspective the most important images are created by ourselves. Only our creative mind can reveal all the wonderful things that are hidden behind the no’s and dont’s.

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Art Journaling Doilies

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Art journaling doilies

I haven’t ever been brilliant with watercolors but I have grown to like them very much. Recently I have used them more and more in art journaling. On this page I have used just watercolors, color pencils and markers.

Art journaling doilies

This page tells a story and that’s something I want to increase too: add more text and content to my pages. Here I write about how as a small child I wanted to learn how to crochet. I thought it is a part of good parenting to teach the child to crochet as young as possible! As soon as I learned it I was crocheting like crazy: doll clothes, doilies, clothes, valence curtains … I was the crocheting queen until I started dating and my boyfriend took me to see his family’s summer cottage.

All the textiles in that log cabin were crocheted! Full-sized curtains, bed covers, cushions, table cloths, you name it! His grandmother had done all that. I was speachless. When I met her she told me that a doctor had told her not to crochet anymore as her hands hurt. But as she wanted to do something she had started to learn printing fabric.

The relationship with the boy did not last and the grandmother must have been passed away already but now I know that you do not need to hold the hook to crochet. You can use your pen!

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