This post about painting blooming grasses and trees has been waiting to be published for more than a month. I love painting, taking it slowly, going over layers. I definitely love it when I see something emerging from the blocked in color spots and fairly abstract shapes. It’s interesting to see where the painting takes me. I have little motivation for posting my art and showing it off on the internet.
The painting process is beautiful, it’s so rewarding, calming and uplifting. It’s also therapeutic and soothing, very beneficial to our brain flexibility and memory. Why do I believe that painting attractive landscapes, floral and still life paintings can cure us from daily troubles and upset moods? I have seen that happening thousands of times. AI painting can get you many likes, but the only type of art which benefits our brain is the one we create from scratch.
This particular painting was started in March 2024. I took it to some stage of completeness, but it wasn’t finished for the most part. The previous year was a bad one, therefore, I hardly did anything apart from reading in bed. I picked it up this February from where I had left it. There is actually nothing wrong with letting a painting or drawing rest. The only risk is we might not ne interested in it after a year.
Since I believed it had potential, I kept working. A beautiful landscape emerged, and it was sparkling with light. I doubt I’ve gotten this all on photos. I can get the picture yellow, blue or green, but not what the actual painting is. It still looks great. The size of this painting is 24 x 18” or 61 x 46 cm. The composition works well for this size and trees shadow the juicy front grasses.
Enjoy the mood of this painting while it’s still grey outside!
Art prints in numerous sizes and with huge selection of frames and surfaces
We in Ontario are having all kinds of whether these days – from bitter cold and raging winds to melting snow and weak, but encouraging sunshine. White switches to dirty grey and to bright brilliant blue in the sky. While we are impatiently waiting for spring, more sunshine and green color covering the boring grey, it’s fantastic to engage in painting spring landscape. I do it every year now. I used to paint some snow scenes also, but not any longer. Many reasons for that.
The colors of awakening
As I mentioned in the previous post, green color symbolizes harmony and balance, just as it appears in nature, therefore, increasing inner calm. Spring landscape on the wall makes us feel better while it is still dark and cold outdoors. Everybody who uses colors has experienced the uplifting effect of sunny shades and satisfaction with life. Those, who are not sticklers for the result only, can enjoy the meditative process of using colors in many ways.
Memory and imagination instead of photos
This particular spring landscape was started about a year ago. So, it sat with other unfinished paintings and patiently waited for the final touches and paint layers. The good thing is, we can restart acrylic painting at any time, change things around, adjust colors or repaint the areas which don’t fit. I recently don’t use photos; I rather go for the scenes which are stored in my memory. Over the years, the memory grows and grows, and it is easy to recall anything what I would like to implement in a painting.
Painting trees from observation
I love painting trees and using them in my landscapes. In fact, my huge backyard has numerous trees and I watch them consciously and subconsciously any time when I am outside. I teach painting trees in my art classes also because there are so many bad paintings and wrong landscapes with trees. We have to remember that there are always spaces between tree branches and leaves don’t appear in cloud-like formations and lollipop shapes. The best thing to do is observe and then paint.
Paint quality or lack of it
Since the art store in our area closed down, it was the only art store, I am usually running out of paints and other supplies. I am happy that brushes last quite long time. This spring landscape required using white in different combinations. Unfortunately, Liquitex professional Titanium white paint is bad, it lacks in pigment saturation and, thus, causes problems when mixed with other colors. I find that paint quality has gone down big time since the beginning of this century. Apparently, also in this area, profit comes first.
Positive aspects of painting
I hope you enjoyed looking at my spring landscape. I have 4 more I am working on. Last year was not in count because I spent the biggest part of it recovering from injuries. I have big hopes that this year is going to be much better. Nevertheless, painting is always calming, improving mood, taking away from any problems one might have. Stick with manual painting even though, there will be people who will use the stealing AI to come up as if with their own art. Manual painting does good for you and your brain. What counts is the human mastery, not the AI application.
Go big and be certain
I hope I have inspired you to also paint something in nice colors. Such as spring flowers, spring landscape, creeks, lakesides and awakening of the nature. We have to always remember that the art we create becomes us. There’s no point in copying, tracing and trying to recreate somebody else’s artwork. With every brushstroke our artistic ability grows. With every new painting, our hand-brain cooperation becomes more effective. And, please, go big. The teeny-tiny paintings make no sense, and no way you can learn painting like that.
Harmony and balance – main goal of creation as art therapy
To regain harmony, balance and self-fulfillment, many people are trying to find simple ways to cure their stresses and change the rushed lifestyle in nowadays unforgiving world. The most healing, as well as most accessible path is using creation as art therapy. You don’t have to be an artist to find huge satisfaction, calmness and feeling whole again since creation of art, painting, drawing, sketch is already art therapy. If you never tried, maybe you should do that right now while it’s cold and not that great outdoors.
The healing potential of creation as art therapy
The healing aspect of creation is based on the idea that it involves mind, soul, emotions, feelings, activation of memory pathways, harmonizing movements of hand with brush or pencil, thus, stimulating self-expression, intuition and getting in contact with person’s inner self. All of that gives us a chance to free ourselves from never ending stresses, being in competition with everybody else, and getting rid of emotional blocks. The other aspects of creation of art are ability to focus, improvement of memory and decision making.
Relaxing creativity
Creation as art therapy involves fantastic relaxing potential. Especially, if you prefer using color as the main feature in art. The colors we feel as ours, disclose the subconscious state of our mind and lead to transforming experience. Creation of art involves all of our brain processes, and that manifests as a healing effect and feeling of inner balance. Participation in art classes is one way to facilitate the creativity and learn how to implement it in our life.
Power of colors
Each color possesses unique energy which affects us. Working with colors releases different energies. For painting, we usually go either with color of our subject and reference, or choose it intuitively which is what I do most often. Choice of color can be frequently subconscious – we feel attracted to some colors and avoid using others. The same goes for subjects which we feel are ours.
Blue and green – colors of life and harmony
Blue color calms and facilitates peacefulness decreasing stress and anxiety. Look at the blue sky, which represents endless calm. We surely can paint sky and water as blue as we want. Green color symbolizes the energy of nature, harmony and balance, healing and increasing the feeling of the inner calm. Green color means life and renewal, just like in spring everything comes back to life. Green is dominant in nature during spring and summer, it’s the most healing color, the best art therapy.
Orange and red for passion
Orange color is the color of enthusiasm, living energy and creative intentions, it gives us vitality, helping to open our mind to new ideas. Red color activates our energy, power and passion, especially passion to live and create. Red color also can be a manifestation of subdued emotions and inner restlessness. I have rarely used only red, orange or yellow, but these colors are very essential for fall landscapes where they are represented in abundance.
Yellow for joy, purple for magic
Yellow color is associated with joy, self-awareness, mental clarity, it facilitates positive attitude and perception. Yellow brightens our space and sparkles up feeling of pleasure in our mind. Having different shades of good quality yellow paint is absolutely crucial for any painting. Purple is color of spirituality, intuition and depth of soul. Color of mystery and magic. I have rarely used purple as a dominant color, but it’s useful for softening green. Purple has its place in art therapy.
White and black
White means clarity and purity, new beginnings. White is unavoidable in art. We need to brighten and lighten other colors, and pure white is very important for watercolor and acrylic painting. Black color represents completeness and strongly indicates value, shape and form in art. I don’t use black color in watercolor at all, but as a mixing component in acrylic. Strong indication of values is important in any painting.
Painting, creating and using colors
When we create a painting, we rarely use paint straight from the tube. It’s important our painting has light and dark values and warm and cold colors. Therefore, most often it is a mix of colors and different shades. Yet, the overall impression usually shows a tendency towards some particular color palette, like I love combining all kinds of green with blue, white and yellow. Fresh and uplifting, at the same time, emotionally loaded and peaceful. Fall paintings have numerous red, orange, yellow and mixed shades. Saturated colors, warm, bright and vibrant.
Different preferences
I have written before about my grey and subdued color periods, as well as blue, green and red. Over time, the perception of color becomes very refined. The color choice usually reflects the mood of that time. Grey looks fantastic in art. Sometimes less color makes painting much better. However, there are seasons when I feel I need the brightness, the strong, bold colors. Nobody says we have to stick to something one. In art, we experiment, explore and test. Time spent painting becomes meditation and art therapy.
Our personal preferences change all the time when it comes to colors which surround us. That goes even beyond mood or life situation. I usually prefer the following: the worse I feel, the more brightness, sunny colors and uplifting experiences I require. We all know that sometimes there’s not enough energy for anything, but a good outfit, sun and warmth outdoors and cheerful settings indoors can be very soothing. I’m always implementing this approach also in my art. To lift my own mood, to help others.
Not only colors and style
There’s one group of people who will only notice colors, but not the compositional excellence, quality of paint application and brushstroke. Well, when viewing something online, colors can be deceiving. Any image editing aps and cameras aim for unnatural look so that more attention is drawn to contrast, brightness and saturation of any image. The most difficult thing is to make something look as it is. I am really trying, but not often successfully.
Filling all walls with art
Different cultures prefer different things on their walls. In Latvia which is my native country, people usually do not display photos, unless it’s something extra artistic and rather art than photography. At least that was when I resided there. We keep family photos in albums, on our devices and so forth. Therefore, more paintings are displayed. My home is my studio also, and paintings are everywhere, on walls, leaning against the walls, on shelves and so forth. One might think that it feels overwhelming, but, in fact, it absolutely doesn’t.
Enjoy the autumn in art
I am allowing art of different seasons and subjects fill any room. It feels great thanks to the good energy flow from my original art. Every painting has its history, process of creation and associated emotions attached to it. I know from experience that my visitors can view a painting for quite a while. This post has attached a few original watercolors which I started painting for art classes as a demo. In this case, these were private art classes. They all have brightness, uplifting colors and style.
Specific features of attached watercolor paintings
All attached images are of large watercolor paintings – 24 x 18” or 61 x 46 cm. I use Strathmore 400 series watercolor paper in art classes. It is heavy, firm, cold press paper with some texture and allows for easy paint lifting. That’s important for me since I do not use any masking fluid. I don’t use masking fluid even on cotton paper, that’s just to see how well I can master paint application. I paint large which I advise anybody who wants to ever properly use not only watercolor, but any paint.
My own preferences and students’ choices
Would I have chosen the same subjects, colors and style if I had done these paintings on my own? Probably not. For art classes, I have to take into account the ease of paint application and mixing properties of paints. Also, I have to go with student’s choice, especially if it is a private class. Still, I think these paintings are worth to display and potentially sell because they are worked out quite nicely. Just one more thing: many people believe that one cannot correct watercolor painting. That’s wrong. You can, you just need to know how to do that.
As you probably know, it isn’t easy to restart anything after a long absence. My health took a big blow, so I am just starting out again. This time, I decided to make my return with a flower painting on Arches cotton paper. As always, it’s quite large since I completely dislike painting tiny art. I have still some issues, therefore, I am limiting my painting activities to 2-3 hours a day. The flower painting took me about 6 days.
12 years in making
There’s no doubt, cotton paper is the easiest paper to paint on, yet, it has become extremely expensive. Many of my watercolor paintings are drawing-based. I don’t aim for copying the reality, but I want my subject to be recognizable and having some emotional impact. I had begun this particular painting with a drawing which I did some 12 years ago. The paper is good and why to waste it? While I had no other reference, but only the drawing, I still tried to figure out how to proceed progressing slowly and cautiously.
Painting in layers
I usually paint in layers, especially when it comes to complex subject with many parts. Since I don’t have a photo or the actual flowers, the first layers help me understand what and where to place and what colors to use. I make my drawing very light in order the graphite pencil wouldn’t shine through too much. Every subsequent layer will add more vibrance and increase the value intensity wherever necessary.
Color temperature and values
Not only flower painting in watercolor, but also any other complex subject we paint, benefits from coordination of color temperature and values. I certainly start out light, just because I don’t know exactly where what should be. In this case, I also leaved the background white for a while. The paper I am using isn’t the bright white, but somewhat off-white. Nevertheless, colors shine and make sense.
Choosing warm and cool colors
Beautiful soft colors for attractive flower painting. I used a few red tones and also quite a few yellow shades for the most important areas. The green colors are a combination of blue, Payne’s grey and different shades of yellow and green. I normally allow colors mixing on paper, but sometimes I need strong pure color to add the vibrancy. You probably won’t notice on photos much difference in warm and cold colors, and iPhone doesn’t like light colors making them practically white.
Flower painting that soothes
I intentionally kept everything rather calm and soft. I think the slight shades of background help. I am very satisfied with the finished painting and not that much with the photos of it. When viewing art online, you have to always remember that there are numerous devices and apps involved. Also, large painting online looks exactly like the small ones, but in reality, that makes all the difference. I hope this flower painting will make you feel good and calm just like it helped me to overcome pain and health issues.
