Mixed Media

Messy Art Journal Style with Colored Pencils

Posted on October 28, 2021Posted in Art Journaling, Artistic Identity, SuppliesTagged Archer & Olive notebook, colored pencils12 Comments

This week, we go deep into the messy art journal style. See how to mimic messy mixed media pages in colored pencils!

I wanted to add some happy freedom to my colored pencil diary. So here are the most recent spreads!

A flowery art journal spread with colored pencils. By Paivi Eerola of Peony and Parakeet.

A messy and loose art journal spread with colored pencils. By Paivi Eerola of Peony and Parakeet.

These spreads have an impression of a messy mixed media look – collage, paints, and all – but they have been made with colored pencils only.

Confessions from a Former Art Journal Book Junkie

Let’s first turn back time over ten years when my best hobby was art journaling. My day job took a lot of time, so buying became a part of self-expression. I bought almost every possible book about art journaling and dreamed about becoming a mixed media artist.

Art journal publications — A few examples of art journaling books from my collection

Now when I look at these books, their examples look clumsy, sometimes even ugly. But I still get attracted by the easiness that made me buy the books: “Messy is ok, you can do it!” And so did I: mixed paints, pens, collage, and all the possible media into one spread. “Mixed media techniques” was the word that I was looking for when browsing a book store or Youtube.

Art Journals Started a Journey

These journals were all the art that I created for a long time. Like the books stated, I assumed that the messy pages would be enough to define me as an artist. In some ways, I was right. A messy art journal style was a ticket to the world of art-making, blogging, even teaching. For example, in Collageland, I use paints, pens, and scissors to create fun and messy pages.

But in 2013, when I was in a local art supply store and proudly presented one of the journals to the owner, his fake smile told me that I hadn’t even started yet. In the traditional side of art-making, that is!

Art journals galore! — Art journals from the past

Nowadays, I think of myself being a traditional artist rather than a mixed media crafter. I prefer to stick with one medium at a time and my main artworks are more on the traditional side. And I wince every time when someone calls me a mixed media artist!

But art journaling has led me to so many happy places that I don’t ever want to get too far from it. Often, I have just replaced images from magazines with my own hand drawings.

So, instead of collecting products, I can be the product. My most popular classes like Animal Inkdom and Magical Inkdom have started on that idea.

Choosing the Shortest Pencils

The best thing that I have learned from art journaling is to not over-think and just start creating. It often feels like my hand knows more than my brain. So, when I want to think further and forward, I say to my shortest pencils: “Let’s create something messy, like in the old times!”. And these little pensioners are always willing to get back to work and do what’s expected.

Using old and much-used pencils also takes off the pressure of pursuing brilliancy right from the beginning. For example, before I started building the class Intuitive Coloring, preliminary pieces were made with the shorties, and then for the actual recordings, I picked longer and more prestigious pencils.

So, when coloring a mess, do it with a small and diverse set of retired pencils that no longer care if you are a true artist or not!

Collage Imitation in Messy Art Journal Style

On the first spread, I mimicked what we used to include in our messy art journals: paper scraps, geometric stencils, scribbling, simple marks like x’s and o’s, flowers, and curves.

Layering colors and motifs with colored pencils.

Just keep layering until the paper is covered, and don’t forget to mimic the glue too! Make the elements go on top of each other, or erase a part of them to make everything look integrated.

Art journal spread with colored pencils.

Look at my little pencils! Aren’t they endearing? I have started to carry them in a pencil case so that they are always with me, ready to be pampered.

Paint Imitation in Messy Art Journal Style

Then let’s change the mindset a bit and move from mimicking products to imitating paints. Start with stripes and small splotches and slowly grow them so that they cover more of the blank page.

Scribbling with colored pencils. Starting an art journal spread.

When we make a mess with paints, the edges are jagged, so color freely and intentionally make errors on the shapes.

My orange rectangles represent a product, a stencil maybe, but most of the elements are more like watercolor, acrylics, or inks.

Imitating watercolor splashes with colored pencils.

Watercolor spots have dark edges that softly fade away. By adding more colors, you can make the spots look translucent.

Acrylic paint has wider shadows, reflections of light (stripes and spots), and less transparency.

Add tiny spots too and make sure that their patterning is irregular.

Faux mixed media by using colored pencils. Imitating paint with colored pencils.

Drawing all kinds of splashes and drops was so much fun that I am now thinking: could I imitate watercolor in oils. Doesn’t this prove that mess-making and traditional fine art are not so far away from each other after all?

I hope this inspired you to pick your pencils and start faux mixed media with them!

Art is a Lemon Tree – How’s Your Lemonade?

Posted on September 24, 2021Posted in Abstracts, Art Journaling, Artistic Identity, Portraits & FacesTagged Archer & Olive notebook, canvas, colored pencils, oil paints32 Comments

This week, I talk about art and lemonade and share some news about the rest of the year!

I was going to make a cheerful spread on my colored pencil diary, celebrating a beginning of a period that I have never experienced so far in my life. But I started the drawing intuitively, and here’s what came up: a murky image with a bittersweet impression!

Life Gave Me Lemons - a spread in a visual journal by Paivi Eerola

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” they say.

I have never been fond of that kind of forced optimism, but I guess there’s also a seed of truth. In art, you have to make most of what you have.

What Kinds of Lemons Does the Tree Produce?

In 2014, when I became a full-time artist, I thought about growing my skills and how that would naturally lead to something good. But nowadays, my leap has felt more like changing a long CV in technology and service design to a very short, almost non-existent, CV in art.

Art is like a lemon tree. You can nurture it, but you can’t change its variety. Over the years, I have learned not only to teach but also to illustrate, make surface designs, and even draw ornaments and logos. But my heart has always been in fine art, and especially in intuitive abstracts.

"All In" - abstract art - an oil painting by Paivi Eerola — “All In” – oil painting on canvas, 92 x 65 cm

In my opinion, fine art makes the best lemons. But the weather is harsh, and the harvest becomes too small to be enough for the lemonade. So my passion for teaching has often been the lemonade maker, not the actual paintings.

Paivi Eerola in her studio with her puppy Saima. — Saima and I after the last recording of the new class Intuitive Coloring.

But now, things change for a few months. I have got a grant from The Arts Promotion Centre Finland to create a series of paintings and write about the process. I will publish the art and most of the writings here in my blog, so you will also get to drink this lemonade!

The project has a set theme that also includes a background study. I will also continue the colored pencil diary and document a part of the process in colored pencils. Later posts will reveal more.

I hope that my project will also inspire you to create – grow more lemons and make your kind of lemonade!

A colored pencil diary by Paivi Eerola. Art journaling in colored pencils.

P.S. You can still sign up for Intuitive Coloring! You will get the published lessons immediately after signing up, and can start having fun right away. >> Sign Up Now!

Colored Pencils Revisited – A Story Behind Intuitive Coloring

Posted on September 16, 2021Posted in Doodling, Processing IdeasTagged colored pencils

This week, I have a personal story about my newest online art class Intuitive Coloring.

Artist Paivi Eerola and a jar of colored pencils.

In 2014, I made a business plan to quit my day job. My goal was to teach online art classes, and I listed titles that sound funny now, like “Colored Pencils Revisited.”

I presented the plan to a local business advisor. Even if she didn’t know much about teaching internationally, she felt that I should do it.

“If you fail, you won’t fall from high,” she said,
referring to my modest list of investments and expenses.

Starting small is a beautiful thing. To gather what you have and mix it with something new. To revisit what mattered once and find a new intuitive way to do it again.

Art journaling with colored pencils. — *Colorings from 2014.*

Revisiting – What Mattered and Still Does

As a child, I ran a craft shop in the attic. I remember the excitement when I heard my sisters on the steps and the satisfaction when my sister held a simple crochet chain and said: “Oh, Paivi, this is so long that it should be priced higher,” laying much more coins on my hand than expected.

I also remember the joy when my mother had just sharpened colored pencils. They were in a small open plastic box and ready to be picked. Many of them were too short to go to the sharpener, so my mother had used a knife. She did that weekly because the pencils got used all the time.

I guess Intuitive Coloring could also be called Colored Pencils Revisited.

Colored pencil art from the class Intuitive Coloring.

With the pencils, we will revisit the inner attic and connect with what matters.

It’s a small risk and a small investment, but still, something that can start small and grow bigger.

Intuitive Coloring will begin on Monday, Sept 20. Sign up now!

Online art class Intuitive Coloring. A class for colored pencils.

Pick your pencils and come to color with us!

>> Sign Up Now!

Life in a Colored Pencil Diary

Posted on September 2, 2021Posted in Animals, Art Journaling, Fantasy, Portraits & FacesTagged Archer & Olive notebook, colored pencils4 Comments

Recently, my life has not been a life of a middle-aged woman, but of a female tiger. With a new puppy, we have tried to find a balance in the family, and it has felt like a fight sometimes.

A tiger and a peacock. A spread for a colored pencil diary. Art journaling without words. A fantasy illustration.

At some point in every evening, I become exhausted and demand my herd to calm down. It’s usually 21:34 exactly, so it seems that we run an accurate schedule.

But there’s not much else accurate in our life, because the puppy requires us – like my husband kindly puts it – to go with the flow. We are not talking about a flow state here, but a flow of random things that keep the puppy either awake or asleep.

I feel that the puppy is like a peacock which my husband, I, and our older beagle Stella stare at – the central character of our zoo who makes us happy or miserable, and often both at the same time.

Making of a colored pencil diary. Drawing a face with colored pencils.

We have had stress. Stella got ill and my oldest budgie Bonneville died, both sudden events.

But when Stella got back from the hospital, I began to think that we will survive. That the peacock sometimes looks like a dove, and that the rest of us can just admire its flight through the youth.

But that would be another page for my colored pencil diary!

Colored pencil diary by Paivi Eerola of Peony and Parakeet. Archer & Olive's blank notebook as a visual diary.

P.S. For more colored pencil inspiration, remember to sign up for Intuitive Coloring!