BUY ART and TAKE ART CLASSES from ARTIST INESE POGA
Author: Inesepaints
Artist, art instructor: fine art, watercolor, acrylic, drawing; medical writer and researcher, specializing in life sciences, brain function, memory and psychology
I have accepted the inevitable. It took my entire strength. 4 days without my mom. 4 days, so full of pain and feeling of irreplaceable loss.
I have certainly been everywhere in my thoughts. I have visited every spot where we used to live, where we used to go, where we used to be happy.
My mom always adored all of my art; she adored the idea of creating beauty because she was a person who made admiration of beauty a big part of her life. She loved nature, and especially flowers and plants. She had seeded, planted and grown so many of them.
I had a chance to still show her the most recent pink flower collection and my mom was very delighted by it, but I have published it in all 3 previous posts.
I am posting the mom’s most favorite paintings this time. Some of them she kept very close to her.
Roses for my mom, will she them? In the heaven?
The spring orchard painting was always in mom’s room. Love stays with us forever.
This painting forever belongs to my mom.
The path we take, it ends at some point. Sometimes unexpedly so.
Blue spring anemones which my mom won’t see this spring, never again.
This rose was painted for my mom a few years ago. She loved it and I sent a card with this painting, too.
This sad time will pass, as well.
Please, no more sorry messages and condolences. I know it feels the right thing to do, but when I will look at this post and at the post in lifeschool blog, I hope I will be in the future already. I am very thankful for numerous support messages on my Facebook profile. I appreciate them a lot. Thank you all!
I want to take with me to the future only the good memories and memories about the pleasant things we once had.
I will be traveling to Europe for quite many hours and then there will be the really important last things to do, and I hope I can check out the responses sometime later.
This was a moment when I still hoped my mom would recover. I was so full of hope. The miracle did not happen. Yet, this small poem will always remind me that we hope even in hopeless moments and we keep going even when it feels impossible.
Roses that last for years and lifetime are the painted ones.
I sometimes feel sorry that things can exist longer than we.
Nothing says better what I feel than my art. I am glad that time heals all wounds.
Draw and paint your reality and keep memory in good shape
Why should you start drawing and painting if you are not and do not intend to be an artist? Why should your kid draw instead of scrolling through screens?
The worst part of nowadays trends is trying to achieve a wonderful result without any efforts, experience and work. When it comes to art classes, that takes away from any benefits drawing and painting provides you with.
I have listed benefits of participating in art class many times before. Some:
It is not that important actually what you draw or paint, but how you use the medium of your choice or art supplies you have. It is also very important for people who are not and do not intend to be artists, to pick up a pencil and start drawing. Do it for fun, for pleasure, do it without regard to results and just to keep your brain flexible, young and memory strong.
Realistic painting of Bell peppers on white background
How to turn simple things into awesome subject of painting
While trying to become familiar with drawing or painting, you will progress faster and create more impressive drawings and paintings if you use real things, not photos. When artists have experience and know what they are doing and what they are trying to achieve, they can use also photos because they will understand how to handle them.
Draw what you see
We can draw and paint anything. It does not have to be an extraordinary setup of extraordinary things. Anything you have on the table or in fridge is fine. Anything you see through the window is fine. Anything visible in the backyard is fine, too. Try to create abstract outlines at first and then refine every area more. Don’t worry about the result; allow yourself the freedom to be a creator. Who cares what you have drawn? The main thing is engaging our brain, eyes, mind and hand.
Photo versus reality
If your initial learning subject is already flat and two-dimensional, you will have hard times to ever adjust to drawing or painting from reality. It is even worse to trace outlines from a photo because you are missing the most crucial part of drawing and painting process which is to understand why you place things where you place them and why you use the specific artistic tools such as contrasts, shadows, overlapping, specific colors, sizes and shapes on certain areas.
Brain loves drawing and painting
Art is a very logical thing; and decisions we make are the result of communication between many brain areas which are activated while we perform some specific task. Unlike any other cognition and memory related activity, drawing process involves many areas of the brain because drawing is a multi-sensory activity and in order to create we use many brain regions:
to see and understand our painting subject;
to process its shape, outline, size and spatial relationship with anything else;
to send the signal to our hand with brush or pencil;
to recreate visual images with line, color, form, value, contrast and shadow on a paper or canvas;
to give our subject multi-dimensional look and volume on a flat paper or canvas;
to distinct between abstracted areas and definite details;
to make certain focal points stand out or point out the main area of interest.
Decision-making and personal know-how
That is a lot of decision-making! Therefore, using our brain to its full capacity more and more often, we become successful with capturing our idea or visually perceived subject and turning work on it into personal artistic experience, into our personal know-how.
Composition and values
Composition and values, as well as shapes and shadows are things we should figure out while we are creating a sketch or value drawing for a painting. That is why reality is more helpful than we think. Photo has limitations, and you will have to pretty much stick with it while reality allows for endless interpretation and adjustment.
Creation takes origin in us and our own brain
That is also my biggest argument against the idea of believing that watching how somebody else paints results in better drawing or painting for you. You simply do not know all the things the artist who demonstrates painting or drawing is considering. Artists, who demonstrate their creative process, have made countless decisions before they started to apply paint. They keep making new decisions every split second, and most often, they have also practiced on this particular piece many times.
Draw and paint and become more efficient with any mental task
If you already do not spend some calming, soothing and relaxing time with pencil or brush, please, consider it. You do not need to be an artist to start drawing or painting. However, most people need either mental or physical healing, and we definitely need to maintain our memory in a good shape. These are benefits we can count on along with creating something beautiful.
P.S. I had already written this post by Friday morning, and my mom had a stroke on Friday afternoon. See lifeschool blog for more info on that: Bad news comes always at wrong time
My mom was better today. She recognized me and was able to recall my name.
Luckily, we have natural antidepressants. Soft and soothing colors in our space and in our mind’s space are some of these spirit-uplifting things. Color matters, and especially at places, where we spend much time.
Winter is nice some days, but, when storms last for weeks and sun don’t come out frequently, we are reminded that we need cheering up to do.
Do not allow weather affect you
I have a long history of experiencing how bad Seasonal Affective Disorder can become. It is abbreviated SAD. It is sad, indeed. We sometimes miss the fact that life passes by and we just have to skip so many pleasures of it when we are feeling depressed or upset. The bad weather can do that to you. To resist, we paint. At least, I do.
Cure yourself with color and art
I can tell from my personal experience that drawing and painting always helps overcome depression when it is about to set in. When I feel winter blahs are about to take over, I immediately put myself at the desk and start drawing and painting. It isn’t sometimes anything in particular; however, I have noticed that drawing and painting flowers in lovely, soothing and nice colors is an extra beneficial step.
The lovely subject: flowers
We have been drawing and painting flowers and landscapes with flowers in my studio in winter and early spring months since 2012. My students noticed and acknowledged that, too: soft, lovely colors and beautiful shapes of flowers made them feel like meditating with color. Time flew by, and they never even once remembered about their health issues, problems, aches, pains and mental disorders. The truth is that many people come to paint to lift their mood and to feel better.
Cure winter blahs with learning new things
There are serious reasons we feel more sleepy, inactive and unwilling to do anything during times when daylight is short and outdoors is not welcoming. The melatonin production is increased and that can make us sleepier than we would like. Is pushing oneself a little bit the answer? It most likely is because it will take some effort to get up from couch and stop eating the comfort foods or to get out and start doing something.
Learning something new
Learning something new is also an extremely worthwhile thing because it will make you feel more excited, more energized and more engaged. Drawing and painting is a very special activity because it takes your entire mind and all your senses to create art on white paper or canvas. Drawing and painting is very rewarding, too, because we see results soon.
Adding soft pink and coral colors
For additional effect, we can create art in lovely pink and coral colors and use it in our space. The best thing is to paint such art yourself. If you think you cannot draw or paint, you are wrong. Anybody who has some interest in art can learn drawing and painting.
My newest watercolor paintings
My newly finished paintings are all in lovely colors and they are mostly still life and floral art. I enjoyed every single minute while drawing and painting these watercolor paintings, and I would say this process literally lifted my mood every time I picked up the brush.
Some art products look so fantastic, that I sometimes buy them for my own use also.
Watercolor on Arches, roses, soft background, beautiful colors
3 orchid blooms, watercolor painting on 24 x 18″ paper
I hope you will get inspired and do some painting also. This is the right time to get started. This is the right time to start creating something beautiful in order to avoid winter blahs this year.
More info and registration for art classes: apply here
Copyright notice: Copyrights of displayed paintings, drawings, images of work in progress and images of finished paintings belong to artist Inese Poga. The use of painting and drawing images is prohibited if I have not issued a written permission.
