I’d love to take you for a walk in spring forest

Virtual walk in a spring forest

I’d really love to take you outdoors for a walk in a sunny spring forest. Imagine birds chirping, warm air, wild flowers opening buds and trees have gotten their new leaves. Spring forest has green color, and green color is the one which brings hope and calm. Walk in a spring forest would be so great taking into account the double-digit minus degrees in Ontario right now. Painting something which isn’t possible is the best part of creation.

Romantic subjects

A few years ago, we were painting numerous nature scenes in art classes. Students didn’t want to paint abstracts, and I didn’t either. Therefore, we painted numerous birches, flower fields, forest paths and rivers. One might think, it’s kind of too naturalistic way of painting, but it does exactly what I mentioned before: it takes you to places where you cannot be or sometimes – where you’ll never be. Such places might exist only in our imagination, too, but that’s ok.

Mellow-yellow or blue

You will notice how huge the difference is assuming you’re using a color-sensitive device for viewing content of this blog. One picture is blurry to a small extent, but it has practically true colors, cold and warm. It’s taken by the old camera. The other picture is done with iPhone 11 Max Pro and it has wrong warm colors all over it, especially, this mellow-yellow main tone. This phone has so many automated features that one shouldn’t ever hope to get a realistic look.

Spring forest with blue flowers

Let’s return to the updated spring forest now because that’s where the joy is. I can certainly tell you about colors and you can believe me or not, but the one true thing is these spring paintings look great when looking at them in reality. I have surrounded myself with spring paintings currently to survive winter easier until we get outdoors again. I think I simply need green color. I’m a gardener also, and nothing makes me happier than seeing the first green spouts in the backyard. Spring forest with blue flowers is quite large, too, 20 x 24 in or 51 x 61 cm.

Color discrepancy

The discrepancy of true colors becomes huge issue when publishing pictures of paintings. There is editing, but editing affects the image globally, so the improvement is none or just somewhat acceptable. Realistic, semi-realistic or imagined realism uses both types of color: warm colors and cold colors to make the image work. Now, my iPhone 11 Max Pro doesn’t understand that. I do adjust exposure and switch between lenses, I change the backgrounds and settings, but the outcome is the same. None of my pictures show my paintings as they are.

Acrylic painting, spring forest
The central part of Spring forest with bluebells

Visual content

My blog is mainly visual as it should be. After all, I’m a visual artist creating paintings and dealing with images. Painting is ok, but ever since I delegated picture taking to iPhone and the big camera became outdated, I was in trouble. Apart from absurd perspectives, automatic zoom, too strong contrast and deviations from reality, the worst is color deviation. All my painting images have mostly yellow-purple gloom on them, or they look very blue. I later understood that the automated settings can capture only warm colors or only cold colors which is not what art has.

Spring forest, acrylic painting
This is a cropped image, always expecting a miracle

Lost likes and outdated pictures

I am trying to take new pictures and update images on old posts. Pictures from 9 years ago look blurry. I started this website on May 29, 2011. At that time, it was a blog, WordPress dotcom. Moving my extensive blog to a website in 2017 was quite an event. I lost half of images, everything was more or less misplaced. If you go through posts, you will notice how posts before 2017 have many comments, but no likes. Well, you cannot transfer likes. Many followers disappear also. I had to literary rework every single post, and I also deleted many. I’d love to maybe install a new theme, but when I think about images not lining up again and some things looking awkward, I put it off. Too much work.

Nature paintings, spring paintings
This is an image I took using the old camera. Never mind the blur, but look at the beautiful colors! That’s how the painting is.

So, definitely, take a virtual walk and enjoy!

Art prints:

30 Replies to “I’d love to take you for a walk in spring forest”

  1. Gorgeous painting, my dear Inese! Working on our sites really is hard work, especially with visual arts. I also had this experience of switching from blog to site and it took me about 4-5 months to get it …almost right. So I know exactly what you mean! 😉 Happy creating.

    1. Thanks Marina!
      I agree that was probably the worst thing one can do. When I started out it wasn’t like now when you can get all kinds of hosting and numerous places offering to create a website. I thought I did the right thing, but it is what you’re saying, it’s immense work. For me it took actually longer than a year to more or less straighten out what I have on my website. Believe or not, I still need to do editing on old posts. Sometimes to change pictures, sometimes to update or the layout it totally off.
      Like I mentioned, creating is fine, but putting creations out is associated with trouble.
      Stay safe!

    2. Very true and I would probably still be doing that if I hadn’t decided to draw the line and leave the oldest posts as they were! Patience, my friend. 😉

    3. I had many broken links, and that itself is a very bad thing because instead of finding you, the search engines can punish. Also, there are still some empty spaces where pictures once were. I had many posts, and some needed to be simply deleted.
      Website consists not only of clearly visible things, but all kinds of elements and these can cause performance issues. I got rid of numerous plugins which I could see did nothing.
      Some artists have extra attractive websites, but since I knew a few of them, I contacted and asked how they created website like that. They told they had used we designers for website, dedicated teams to deal with editing, social media posting, filming and video taping and so on.
      I start noticing that managing everything is becoming a bit too much for a single person. All numerous aspects require attention, and the day is just as long as it is. I’m trying to work out new products, I mean, new type of products and that seems to be rather very time-consuming.
      Thanks for your comments and have a good day!

  2. What a beautiful painting Inese! I am longing for spring as well. My gardens are still sleeping, too. These spring greens, whether too yellow or blue are still a site for winter weary eyes. I’m also working on a series of spring paintings. It really does do our heart good to paint the flowers and greenery now. I hear you on the transfer of websites. What a hassle. I’ve had a blog since 2009 on Blogger to start then I moved to WP. I still don’t have all my photos updated! Tons were uploaded to PhotoBucket and now they don’t offer the free plan so all my old photos are pixelized and has their logo stamped over the entire photo. It’s so time consuming and frustrating. We have to keep plugging on though, don’t we? Your website is pretty, I think. And your paintings are beautiful and happy.

    1. Thank you so much for your nice comment!
      There is something about the color scheme of blue, green and burnt sienna. It has always attracted me, and for a while, I go nuts with splashes of green. I will turn soon to other subjects because I just have too many of these spring paintings. Spring was a favorite art subject for my students, therefore, numerous demo paintings which need to be done. This silent year of pandemic allowed me to do that, I mean work on things which I never had time for.
      Some of internet sites are trouble and cleaning them out is trouble, too.
      I eventually decided to stay with only Fine Art America as print-on=demand site. I tried a few others, lots of work, all they wanted I pay them and who cares what happens later.
      Any website and its updates mean lots of work.
      I am still working on mine, and there’s never time enough. Some updates and edits are very time-consuming. I was working on my store, but since I don’t have postage scale yet (thus, no shipping), I decided I didn’t want later to change all codes again.
      I wish you best of luck with your spring series and I appreciate you stopped by.

    1. Thank you very much Margaret!
      That means paintings match my intention.
      I’m very meticulous about colors, and if I notice very big differences in original and its image, it is upsetting. I do work hard to create custom shades and I layer them on with certain purpose. When the image is flat, all my work becomes useless.
      I will try to either update the big camera, it was lots of money, or maybe get a new one after some time. It’s clear that no iPhone can get colors in a painting.

  3. I love your work, Inese, and thanks for the virtual tour!! I can see the subtle differences your point out and I understand how you must see them much more clearly because you know what the original is and what the piece was supposed to look like to begin with! I also get the work involved in going back into the blog. I recently decided to rework my categories to slim line them and it takes A LOT OF TIME!!!
    I hope you are well and that you continue to create beautiful paintings 🙂 Be safe…stay well! <3

    1. Thank you Lorrie for stopping by!
      From my devices the differences are very visible, and certainly I know what the colors and values should be, so it upsets me when the image isn’t right.
      I went through watercolor images of large paintings from last July, and all of images have purplish-yellowish tone on them. It really changes everything and sometimes the painting just looks off.
      Thanks for asking, we are well and fine, except Canada doesn’t have vaccines yet and who knows when we get vaccinated, it might be sometime in the summer.
      I needed to be in Latvia in July, but that might not happen due to all kinds of international restrictions and requirements.
      I hope you are doing your best and staying trouble-free, as well as healthy. We are hearing horror stories about the US. It’s not that I watch a lot of news.
      Stay safe and healthy! Very nice to hear from you!

    2. Yes, Inese…there certainly has been enough horror here to be disturbing! I, too, limit my exposure to the news. Some of it seems too crazy to be true! But I am doing well. I am not on the list to be able to get the vaccine yet…I guess it is nice to be too young for something 😉 Otherwise, I have had to cancel trips too…I have not seen my son in over a year…the longest I have ever gone! I miss him!! I hope you get to do your traveling…everything is so up in the air it is hard to know how to prepare.
      And…I love your photos…even if you notice they don’t photograph well 🙂 <3

    3. Staying out of watching news is a good thing. Otherwise, they overwhelm and make one feel just wrong.
      It’s great to be younger than advanced age, that’s for sure, and it’s fantastic to feel younger.
      I saw my daughter in March 2019, so it’s going to be 2 years soon.
      Oh, we miss a lot of people and a lot of things. It’s good to know at least that everything is more or less fine.
      We will get to the point when threats and risks are decreased and minimized.
      I got good advice about camera, I might not use any iPhone again for art pictures. I was so tired of always something wrong with pictures.
      We will manage everything!

  4. Hi Inese – the walk was wonderful
    and I also have some blog maintenance to do – and website stuff to get edited – whew – it is hard work but pays off in the end
    hope your month of February is going nice

    1. It’s great you liked the spring walk.
      I have 2 blogs and 1 website, and I start thinking it’s too much because I don’t get things done fast enough.
      It would be nice, ha, ha, if my input paid off. I’m paying for quite many features, some are absolutely mandatory, there’s no way out. On my website, I’m about minus $450 for the last year. This year might be better, but time will show. I would need somebody helping with video materials and video editing since my eyesight really is problematic with such things. I’m not on Instagram since I usually don’t do much or hardly anything on the phone, for the same reason. Now, one can use now desktop, too, for Instagram currently, but I just don’t know with all posts I’m late with already.
      Lifeschool blog is not high cost, just a few features.
      I know you mean that people visit your blog, etc. Responding and liking back takes a lot of time. many artists now have simply sale website and that’s it, practically one blog post in a quarter or so. Well, I like the interaction on blogs, but, as I swiftly add more years, I’m extremely conscious about time not spent efficiently.
      Have a good week! Canada has Family day, so everything is closed, even places that were allowed to stay open.

    2. Hi = I hope Canada day was nice for those who had time off.

      and I agree with you that it is so wise to “spend time efficiently” and find ways to work smarter not harder
      ***
      and ouch – $450 loss sounds steep – but I am not sure how all of that works

      OKay – hope you have a great week and be back in touch soon

    3. Minus $450 is just for website and apps. This year it will be higher since I’m paying for one more app, $13 a month unless I can start with real art shows and real art classes sometimes in the summer. I didn’t add money which I returned for classes which had to be cancelled, etc. Financially, it’s been very challenging. I keep things very quiet, I’m not buying anything at all which is not absolutely necessary.
      The sad part is that acrylic paints have gotten even worse than they were. I just tried using a few artist grade tubes, and they felt like colored toothpaste. That is annoying. Must be something related to production, maybe old paints, who knows.
      I am working regardless when I’m ok health-wise. February is tough.
      Thanks, I hope you didn’t have too bad of a snowstorm. We just had it last night, I’d need to shovel some, but it’s too cold at the moment.

    4. Thanks!
      I actually told my husband yesterday that the weather has been good so far this winter, but business is not good due to all COVID-related factors. Ontario is partially in red zone now, but we were in a complete lockdown for a very long time. That creates issues like one cannot purchase things they need because store supply experiences shortage. I cannot paint without paints and stores are empty, literally. Online orders traveled for almost 2 months and they messed the order up anyway. They, too, are short of supplies. Financially, we are about the level of 2008 crisis. The key is husband’s business survives, and maybe it will.
      To other matters, I have inherited from my grandmother lots of good things. I am especially good with treatments using herbs, tree material, grasses, flowers, etc. What doesn’t help is literally knowing and seeing what other people think. Like in a class, it is somewhat disturbing, but I’m trying to usually channel it out.
      The biggest problem for me personally is that I’m not very well suited for unnatural and artificial environments, and social media, for instance, is such. I am close to retirement, could start getting pension already, but then it would be much lower, so it probably makes sense to wait a little bit.
      Everything is fine, it’s just the feeling of not reaching what I potentially could.
      Have a good day and the rest of the week!

    5. My pleasure.
      We’re all busy, there’s not always time to leave a comment. I appreciate your input.
      Stay safe!

    1. Thanks!
      I normally do not share other content on my art blog, it’s because of my personal style and I’d love to stay recognizable and keep this particular website only my art related. I mean, I do not want to dilute this content. While it might look like a blog, it is a website to allow access to my art.
      I have another blog where I share lifestyle matters, medical and other observations. However, one needs to allow the blog to collect followers naturally, I believe.
      There are blogs which will share content if it’s suitable for them, lots of blogs, just search. Also, there are blogs which use prompts and then share some content.

    1. Thank you!
      Silence is good, at least for some time because it removes the pollution of mind and keeps one focused. We should be more often in places, physical and virtual, where noise doesn’t attack us and should listen to the silence. Everybody would benefit from that.
      Every single moment is a choice.
      Have a good afternoon!

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