Acrylic painting Archives - Page 6 of 16

October 28, 2020October 17, 2024

No-rush life mode and energetic value of art

Distractions

These days, there are many distractions which do not allow working peacefully and devotedly on whatever we’d like to accomplish. I never give up painting, unless it’s so that I cannot get physically to my easel or painting desk. That is rare. I am working on additional paintings which will be included in the fall/winter sale event. It was supposed to take place in reality, but it’s safer to do this event remotely in the current situation.

Things which depend on me

I get done efficiently everything which directly depends on me. I wish everything depended directly on my own abilities and decisions! Just as always, iPhone gives me hard times. Especially when painting is large, it seems impossible to just snap a realistically looking picture of it. iPhone tries to enhance everything and I just don’t need that: contrast in excess, all blue or all yellow image, too light or too dark parts. These pictures look good on the phone screen, and that’s about it. Once I upload them on computer, it feels like disaster. It feels like that’s not the same painting.

Energetic value of original art

I post only original art on my website. That means I have created every single drawing and painting from scratch. There is no other one exactly like the ones I have painted. Original art is unique, one-of-a-kind and it displays features which are not visible or not present on a print or digitally multiplied image. Original painting has energy, and this energy vibrates in the space and captures the viewer.

Original art feels alive

Original painting upon completion starts living on its own. It’s a new energetic entity, and it has become a part of the universal energetic exchange. Art prints are copies, and they carry only the energy of materials and machines applied in the printing process, there’s nothing alive about a print. Yet, it is a good solution for decorating some certain spaces.

Texture plus multilayer paint

Many of my paintings have texture under multiple layers of paint. Textured spots enhance the image and usually look very attractive. It is more difficult to paint on a textured surface than on a smooth one. However, when used correctly, texture adds to volume and interestingness of art. I always use many layers of paint allowing them to dry between painting sessions. That also adds color play to painting and works towards an impressive impact. Photo cannot react to every tiniest nuance on canvas, and therefore, it goes almost unnoticed online.

Display and photo features

To be honest, if you haven’t seen art in person and with your own eyes, you pretty much haven’t seen it. Online is ok, and it can be anything: much better or much worse in real settings. If this pandemic had happened 50 years ago, we couldn’t even dream about connecting online and being present where we cannot be physically. Just keep in mind that no image can be like the original from which picture was taken. Every device, every screen will change it.

No-rush life mode

I’m living in a no-rush mode and moving ahead at my own pace. That also means putting no extra pressure on myself. Days are getting shorter swiftly, and I can do only what’s possible. That doesn’t involve lowering my personal standards, however. Every single one of my paintings involves a lot of work, many hours, numerous tubes of paint, countless decisions and millions of brushstrokes. It shows in the finished product. I actually wouldn’t change a thing when it comes to my art. It deserves attention and it deserves love. Slowly, but surely: art sales will take place.

As always, for art prints you go to FAA:

Art collections by Inese Poga

September 30, 2020October 17, 2024

New fall art, online art show and sale

Finding the right conditions to work

I’m very pleased I can finally publish my newest fall art. If you read my posts, you probably know, we have to go through a live-in renovation. It hasn’t been easy, in fact, I had to take a break from anything I was doing for a while because it just wasn’t possible. I can only work in silence and when there’s no direct presence of anybody. I normally do not answer phone and also do not talk while painting. I’m all consumed and taken away by the creative process. I paint in silence without any music, but I open the patio doors and listen to birds and other sounds of nature if the weather is good.

Strict preventive measures prevent public access

My show should have been on from October 1^st. After visiting the exhibition site, we decided not to go ahead with the real show. We have new restrictions in Ontario, and it basically comes to this: if hardly anybody is attending the exhibition site and they have to go through a strict procedure to be allowed on the premises, there’s no point in putting up a show. It is time-and effort-consuming process, and I just don’t see any value in exhibiting my art at this time.

Show and sale move online

The show will be all online. People, who reside in Ontario and can make an appointment to come to the studio, one person at a time, would be another option. I have numerous Thanksgiving pieces of art: from ecological prints to handmade unique cards, boxes and more. The ecological prints are created using nature materials like flowers and leaves and arranging them on thick watercolor paper. The process involves boiling and drying and then framing this art or using it in mixed media pieces.

Time-consuming creation process

My large paintings usually take up to month to finish, some – even longer, like 2-3 months. For medium size art, it’s approximately 2-3 weeks of work. I have never painted anything just in 1 sitting in acrylic. That is because of acrylic paint properties. Acrylic paint dries darker, much darker with some colors, therefore, I am glazing and adding new layers as I go. I want my art to be something impressive and something where one can literary feel like they are walking into the painting. I also take about 200 pictures of each painting, download, cut, resize them, then watermark and chose the most appropriate. That’s why I usually cannot post sooner than every 2 weeks at the best.

The birch valley

The birch valley is a large painting, its size is 81 x 66 cm or 32 x 28 inches. Here it is on the easel. On the monitor screen, a picture of another fall painting is visible.

Birch valley, textured, large acrylic painting. As always, I have painted around the edges and painting is ready to hang on the wall.

Fall in the hills

Fall in the hills is 61 x 51 cm or 24 x 20 inches in size. It is one of the most tranquil paintings I’ve ever created.

I suppose it would look great on any wall. It depicts excellent mood and I think my color choice supports that. The first layers on this canvas were put down in 2015. It’s amazing how long it took me to add the final touches and turn this art into something I wanted to.

Fall in the hills, fall art by Inese Poga

Fall in the hills, beautiful soft colors and good composition

New red barn

And finally, the “New red barn’ which we started painting during art classes exactly a year ago. Just recently, I decided to finish it up so that one more painting is completed. Students were rushing, but I decided to work out this painting properly by adding enough layers and some detail.

The new red barn, acrylic painting on canvas, 20 x 16 in or 50.5 x 40.5 cm

Beauty has no price

I assume, my paintings when sold from the studio are not expensive. I don’t think you know anybody who’d work for $25-$40 a day and add even materials. Compared to all abstract and animated, as well as very amateurish art out there, my paintings are very recognizable on this background since I use certain colors, paint certain subjects and have a distinctive personal style. The truth is that fewer and fewer people can draw or create somewhat realistic looking art nowadays, and that works for me and lets me stand out.

Updating website and tackling shipping

I will work towards making my sales pages better in the upcoming weeks. They need update big time; I just didn’t get to that yet. Unfortunately, shipping is always what Canada Post charges me. They give great deals to huge customers so that their clients get free shipping, but a single person business pays way above the global average and also about 40-50% more than in the US.

Only original art

I am only selling originals for now. The new fall art looks amazing. For prints, I can order them myself and then resell, but that’s a risky process. I trust sites which specialize in creating and framing prints, such as Fine Art America, for instance. They do good job and nobody could ever compete with options for frames, as well as prints on numerous materials including wood and metal.

Art prints and other artistic products:

Art collections by Inese Poga

August 20, 2020October 15, 2024

Find inspiration on the birch path

Birch path painting: no reference required

Birch path paintings did not have any reference. I’ve done many paintings without any references, just having some imagined concept and adding to it as I paint. Paintings with birches inspire many established artists and beginners, and birch path in early or late fall is such an inviting landscape since the viewer can walk into it. As you may know, I come originally from Latvia, and birch path and birch grove is a very characteristic view over there.

Simple composition

The composition is usually simple and leads to the focal point which might not always be very accentuated. However, some other of my paintings are just plainly depictions of colorful abstract leaves. My students always asked for birch path and birch tree paintings; therefore, I have many of them. I always paint along with students. After a while, when acrylic paint has reached its complete drying and settling moment, I’d evaluate the painting and add or remove some parts of it as required.

Original landscape paintings by Inese Poga

Stepwise approach

My process is usually simple, too. I start with application of texture by randomly creating leaf and grass patterns. After that, I prime and paint canvas. I don’t use any special acrylic primers any longer. I find that using acrylic paint which can be just leftover paint is much more beneficial to the final colors and impact. I use sometimes fairly dark grey, lighter grey, mix of burnt umber, burnt sienna and yellow ocher or cardboard color. These underpainting colors work the best with my art.

Original paintings by Inese Poga, birch paintings

Defining the landscape

The next step is pretty much blocking in large areas on which I follow up with sponge and fan brush. When the background is set, I paint in main tree trunks. Using fan brush, I apply more layers. Any of my paintings has numerous layers, as well as switches from cool to warm colors. Camera cannot capture that, and it is painful seeing that photo can never show the fine-tuned colors I’ve used. Camera tends adding too much blue, too much yellow or green while sometimes omitting red completely. These particular paintings contain no blue color, but it might look as if they do on photos.

Birch path 1, it has the most detail, 16 x 20 in or 41 x 51 cm, acrylic on canvas

Just as always, all edges are painted and painting continues beyond the front part, Birch path 2, 16 x 20 in or 41 x 51 cm

Achieving balance with finishing touches

My painting is finished when the flow of colors and lines is balanced and I am satisfied with the most part of a painting. Balance in my art means quite a lot, and I’m aiming for it intentionally. The birch path originals are certainly very impressive and abstract parts compliment the detailed areas. It’s such a pleasure to look at these paintings when they’re next to each other. They are similar, but also have distinctive features.

Birch forest landscape, acrylic painting

Steps of autumn, 16 x 20 in or 41 x 51 cm, acrylic painting on canvas. This has the strongest colors, at least in pictures and on my screen

Plenty of inspiration on birch path

I found my inspiration on the birch path and colors came to life. One can paint realistically imaginative landscape, or abstract trees from reality – it doesn’t matter what approach we use – to me personally, painting becomes art when it tells us something. I mean, it tells something without lengthy description. I hope you can feel the leaves under your feet, as well as more trees in the distance. Enjoy! Prints are available from Fine Art America site.

Art collections by Inese Poga

August 12, 2020October 16, 2024

The golden view of early fall

August is here, and it’s about time to create some fall landscape and treescape. The colors are not here yet, but they’ll be everywhere before we know. Just as I wrote before, I get tired of green and I need something completely different. This post shows my most recent acrylic painting ” Golden view of early fall” on lots of textures in the background, or underneath the multiple layers of paint.

I started creating very textured paintings many years ago. Before modeling paste was available, I used plaster and plaster cloth, then cured it and, thus, got amazing textures. It’s hard to say which one is easier to use. Plaster takes more layers of primer before paint application, but modeling paste sometimes dries too quick. Nowadays, textured art is common, but it wasn’t when I started creating it some 15 years ago.

I asked my husband to take a few pictures with me working on this painting in order to present the size of it. Everything I post just as a cropped image of painting alone doesn’t allow seeing it in space and with dimensions. For a textured art and in order textures were more or less visible on a photo, it is important to get some angled views.

Artist Inese Poga painting The Golden view of realy fall

Just adding more layers to Golden eternity painting. The perspective of iPhone is quite terrible, but one can see the size at least

Golden eternity painting on the easel. It took me about 3 weeks to get it painted going over layer by layer and so for many times.

Textures and color, close-up and I hope you can see how textures push through the paint layers

Autumn trees and creek, large acrylic painting of autumn trees on textured background

The “Golden eternity” is 81 x 66 cm or 32 x 28 inches in size.

Textured paintings are very special, especially when you can see them in person. Colors slightly change with different light conditions. I usually have to ask not to touch such paintings. Well, they draw attention of a viewer and it’s hard to resist not to trace the visible lines of textured trees and leaves.

Have a great August and fun enjoying nature! Nature is an endless source of the best things on our Earth.

Shop original acrylic paintings

Purchase art prints here:

Art collections by Inese Poga

June 10, 2020March 20, 2025

Living with flowers, painting flowers, staying stress-free

Living among flowers

Somebody commented on my Facebook page that I live among flowers, grow flowers and paint them also. It’s a very floral life, indeed. While I do paint many other subjects also, flowers were always big part of live art classes and some solo exhibitions, as well. This post has very many pictures, enjoy!

Variety and choice

There is extreme variety of any kind of flowers, and they are available as a model all year round. They come in all possible colors and shades and shapes. They are of different sizes and allow for creating any type of art: from completely abstract, modern, to traditional, classic, botanical and photorealistic. The choice is endless. I’m always enjoying this subject and have drawn and painted many hundreds of flowers. I would not know the exact number, there are so many of such paintings.

Trying to be relaxed

I’m using this time period of COVID-19 pandemic as a vacation from many duties which I otherwise would have. It can feel sometimes lonely or not right, and I won’t have my annual trip to Europe to meet my closest family this year. However, I take things the easy and relaxed way: there is no point in rushing out and catching some virus-related problems or going mad about things which we didn’t ask for.

Paint flowers, stay stress-free, acrylic flower paintings of tulips, magnolia, rose and poppies

Upcoming changes

I am working on online materials, and I will definitely update the sale pages. For me personally, the toughest issue is to choose some plugin or sale app which suits me best. I have spent a few weeks already doing just that. I definitely don’t want to turn my website in a store, and I don’t want people to feel that the only way to enjoy art is by purchasing it. On the other hand, it’s been months since the last art sale and the last live art class which ensured a tiny, but nice income.

Beauty of floral paintings, sunflower, magnolia, rose, poppy painting

5 floral paintings

This post includes many flowers: I finished the sunflower, poppy and tulip paintings. The rose and magnolia were done a while ago, in March, I believe. iPhone 11 Max Pro is the best so far which I have had from smartphones. Still, the contrast is very strong, and it tends to turn any image bluer. For every post, like this one, I take about 100 to 300 pictures. Then I resize, straighten and crop them, add watermark the most suitable ones, and that takes me about 3 days in average. I would like to post more often, but I also don’t want the pictures and articles to be sloppy and esthetically unacceptable. I’m old school in that regard. I hate half-done unconvincing things and that goes for art also.

Conceptual no-skill art

By nowadays standards, everybody can be and is an artist. In fact, the newest contemporary art means, the best of it is created without any skill, without knowing anything about technique, drawing, painting or medium. One can use anything. Your kid or even your dog could create it, and it would possibly sell at more than $1,000 if you know how to market it. It can be 2 spots of some paint or even 2 pen lines, or a few words that are scribbled on some surface, anything goes as long as you can attach a concept for which it is best to be familiar with writing to invent the concept. Don’t believe me? Check out Artsy.

Enjoy the art

3 of these flower paintings are semi-realistic: poppies, sunflower and rose, and traditionally realistic: magnolia and tulips. I grouped them together because of their size and canvas shape which is square for 4 paintings. Only sunflower painting is vertical, but one dimension is the same: 12 inches or 30.5 cm. For North American population, that means the size is a square foot. I always paint around edge because that way the sides become continuation of painting, and it looks great without a frame.

New floral art by Inese Poga, poppy painting

I’d be happy to sell some of floral paintings, you’ll find them soon on art sale pages. It will take more work, however, and I haven’t uploaded them even onto print sale sites yet. They are coming soon.

Category: Acrylic painting

No-rush life mode and energetic value of art

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New fall art, online art show and sale

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Find inspiration on the birch path

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The golden view of early fall

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Living with flowers, painting flowers, staying stress-free

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