Art classes Archives - Page 4 of 14

April 25, 2022April 5, 2025

Playing with green color

Green spring landscape, painting in progress

Green is a color which we feel extremely attracted to in spring. I do feel that way, and maybe you do, as well, if you’ve had many months of grey and white view out of your window. I celebrate the return of green color since it uplifts my mood and promises nicer days ahead.

There are numerous concepts and assumptions about using green in art. Many artists avoid it almost completely not be accused mixing their colors properly. Just like with everything else, it’s better to have our own take on that and experiment.

For acrylic painting, there’ s practically no need to buy green paint. Why? Depending on your personal preference, it’s possible to mix up any green shade from other colors, including three primary colors. I don’t like aqua and phthalo too much, and although, they are strong and good for cooler areas, I prefer using the quieter tones.

After 5 layers are applied on the textured background

I love black plus yellow plus touch of blue, or blue plus burnt sienna and touch of yellow. Here and there simple blue plus yellow work well. The thing is we can have cold and warm yellow and very cold and warmer blue and that changes the green we are having. Every one of colors we get has some good potential for applying it. Where? It always depends on the project, intention and technique.

After 7 layers of paint or so

It is advisable to break up the green spaces with calming tones of purple, red or cool/warm brown. My most favorite set of basic colors for spring is blue, green, grey and some warm brown, burnt sienna or white. It is a calming combination and surely conveys the concept of an artwork well.

After adding light color to selected areas

I had a 24 x 20 in or 61 x 51 cm canvas from 2015. Everything is expensive right now, and that is an extremely high-quality canvas. I cannot recall what exactly my idea back then in 2015 was, but I decided to reuse it. This canvas had quite visible textures underneath of a few layers of grey/green/blue colors. I couldn’t change the tree shapes or location dramatically, the same goes for the water patch. Therefore, I adjusted the textured image and after a few layers it started to come to life.

Spring creek landscape painting — Closer view of top and middle parts of painting

Green spring creek — Closer view of top and middle parts of painting

It’s interesting how many starting-out artists believe they’ve got to finish their painting in one sitting. That is the damaging impact of paint nights which are not art classes, but entertainment, and tutorials which use rather tiny canvas or paper. If the size of painting is quite large, it is physically impossible. Every single spot need attention and work. Acrylic paint requires timing the paint application. That means, we cover some areas very quickly and for some – we wait until the previous layers are dry. That way we get our colors to shine and shapes to work well. That translates as painting in small segments and retuning to them layer after layer.

I called this painting “The moment before”. That includes everything that happens before the nature explodes in brilliance of blooms and abundance of green in leaves and grasses. The photos are taken with iPhone and the camera of 13 Pro Max is quite disappointing. The actual painting has no real yellow in it, and the green is well-coordinated in cool and warm areas. You might not see it that way, but anyway, that’s how it is.

The moment before, 24 x 20 in or 61 x 51 cm. Enjoy!

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March 31, 2022October 17, 2024

Inese’s Art Studio reopens in Pickering Village

It’s been an excruciating and exhausting stretch of time. These tough 5 weeks also seemed to last forever. I posted the previous article when I had started to pack, that was more than a month ago. My art studio wasn’t doing anything for quite a while. Now, after about 40 days of packing, moving, unpacking and sorting, I can say my art studio has started getting in shape, and I mean by that – in a great shape. Well, not everything has found its place yet, that is certainly a task for a few more months. The positive aspect of all these immense efforts is being able to set up my living and painting space finally.

I didn’t have internet for quite a while and my work station wasn’t set up either. Just yesterday, I got to my most important art supplies. They are lined up now and ready to use. It is painful not to paint for a long time. It really is. I hope picking up my brushes over the weekend already. That brings me to the issue of selling more art, or rather selling any art. I pretty much know where any particular painting is, therefore I will edit the sale pages.

Art classes are about to resume at full pace at my art studio, as well. I would like to keep the ages between 13 and any age adults. The type of instruction I provide with requires some life experience and some knowledge of basic matters. I intend to focus on three main directions in teaching.

The observational and realistic drawing I teach is suitable only for private classes. I’ve written many times how one can learn drawing, and that’s not done by copying or tracing a photo or mimicking a tutorial. Drawing is a very individual skill and it can be developed properly only in individual settings. Private classes can start as soon as April 6.

Private art lessons

Acrylic painting can be taught in groups and individually, but it is always best when the potential student has practiced brushing techniques. That’s the most important thing with any painting, but especially acrylic since it dries fast. Small group acrylic painting classes will start I believe on April 20. Initially all classes will be daytime.

Small group watercolor painting classes will start on April 19. Currently, only daytime also. I intend to stick to large size practice paintings, like 18 x 24 in. Using watercolor is amazing. Every wash creates art on its own, however, size really matters. The larger the watercolor application space, the better results can be achieved painting traditionally: leaving white of paper for white and using practically no masking medium. I personally dislike using it and prefer pure watercolor.

Group art classes

If you ever wanted to purchase a painting of mine or art print, now is the right time. As we all know moving is a costly, and the time spent on moving doesn’t involve any business activities or even website updates. Unfortunately, shipping is what Canada Post charges me. Art on paper and 12 x 12 in paintings are not heavy, therefore, the shipping is mostly for size.

I still have lots to do, numerous adjustments and figuring out the best was of making every aspect of art studio easily accessible. Art studio has specific requirements when it comes to space. Thankfully, natural light is very good here, that’s a huge plus, luxury even. My art studio is overloaded with plants at the moment, but many of them go outdoors for spring, summer and fall, and by the next winter, I will know better where and how I can accommodate my plants.

I am so satisfied; the move is over and the worst is past me. Such a relief.

Original watercolor paintings for sale

Shop original acrylic paintings

Art collections by Inese Poga

I hope seeing some of you in my art classes, and I also hope there might be somebody who purchases at least an art print. I’m sorry, I was absent from blogging, but that is changing now. Thanks for reading! Enjoy pics of my not-yet-completely-set-up art studio. You are seeing just one end of it because it’s the mostly organized. Have a blessed spring!

December 7, 2021October 16, 2024

A little bit of nostalgic beauty: snow and winter paintings

Snow and winter paintings are a great way to start painting since we can interpret the landscape or view in many ways. We can apply warm or cool glow to the snow and winter paintings, we can use shadows, different colors for sky and use distance or abstract background. We can stick to a photo or do what I’m doing: implement some visual ideas from memory or just look through the window and paint what is there. Out of my studio window, there’s plenty: all kinds of trees, buildings and so forth, including spruce, firs, pine and there’s a big sky, too. Quite enough for my snow and winter paintings.

Ontario weather takes care of the rest. Here and there, snow will be deep and bright white, capping every single branch and putting a warming snow scarf on every surface. It will have shadows in clear weather and it will show the branch shapes which puncture the clouds and sky. Altogether: it’s almost a finished landscape view, choose whatever angle suits better. Therefore, and because many of snow and winter paintings take origin as demos, I didn’t need or use any photos. The interpretation of these views is somewhat abstract. I will let the art speak more this time. It only has so many chances.

Snow landscape, country village — Enjoy the snow and winter paintings, they make such great mood for Christmas!

The collection of snow and winter paintings has grown quite big over years. It’s also a good selling feature before holidays. To be honest, winter and snow paintings usually sell only around this time and very rarely during other seasons. It’s a brief moment, and I believe I don’t really need more of snow and winter paintings at the moment. Until Christmas, we love snow and white wonderland landscapes. When it gets to February and March, oh my! We are totally tired of grey and white with spots of green which is also not the lively spring green. That certainly depends on the area where one lives. Ontario winter can be long.

I hope you’d love to make my Christmas and maybe purchase some art. There’s way more than I can publish just in one post. Enjoy!

Shop original acrylic paintings

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Art collections by Inese Poga

Thanks for visiting and reading!

October 24, 2021April 5, 2025

Fall art projects for art classes

Art projects for art classes and paintings for a show: they are very different by nature, subject and size. Time is of essence since one can attend only that many art classes usually (I always hope they’d come back for more!) and an art class needs to be of certain length. After holding extremely many of them, I’ve stayed with roughly two academic hours or 1.5 hours. There is a reason for that. The attention span can stretch only that long, and to create something good, we absolutely need to be attentive, focused and alert.

For show art projects, I’d definitely choose a much larger canvas size, as well as maybe more tricky, more complex and more intriguing subject which my students who can be almost or practically beginners would not be able to paint. The painting process itself is not the same also: I work on the entire painting and not with a few colors or on a few areas. My attention goes to any spot which requires it and I obviously do not follow special steps, but rather my idea and its implementation. All attached images are 20 x 116 in or 51 x 41 cm in size.

Over time, one learns how to apply paint automatically, how to clean brush automatically and very frequently, as well as how not to skip the messy stage of acrylic painting which can look quite horrible at times. Brushstroke is one of the most important parts of the painting process. When somebody starts out, they just don’t have it yet. If you still remember how you learned to write manually, you know that the hand cannot follow what the brain tells it to. The other sensitive issue is that if you have experience, you never start acrylic painting with the final color and layer. You build color, build your subject, all shapes and color transitions starting with dark and moving up. Our art projects allow practicing all of that.

To cheat the visual perception easier, as well as to have at least one good base layer on what to build the rest on, I do ask my students using pre-painted canvas only. Yet, still people are so afraid of dark colors that the pre-painted canvas is way too light. Without strong base, there is nothing much of a painting. We can all move paint around, even to the point when it becomes muddy brown-grey, but to get on that canvas some impression and some mood, takes much more than that.

Since everybody paints abstracts and there’s no clear understanding what’s a good abstract and what’s just a colored canvas, I stick to my personalized realism. It definitely allows implementing my own features and apply something which others do not. Therefore, my art projects include some of realistic features. While having texture layer on canvas attracts lots of attention let’s say at a show, it can look not good on photos because the high spots catch more light which doesn’t always correspond to light areas on the painting.

The attached images were initially painted between 10-5 years ago. The subject of these art projects is what we liked back then: barns, roads, fall colors, something not too complex, but bright and vivid. The current acrylic class deals with slightly more sophisticated acrylic art projects. We’ve just had one class by now and the start looks promising. The group is tiny as in COVID era, so no problem treating everyone very individually. They are still very good paintings, the ones which took the first brushstroke long time ago, and I will hang them in the studio room where I can put art on the wall because I cannot do that everywhere. Well, I rent, and that comes with requirements.

Enjoy! What better time to immerse oneself in color than now?

Private art lessons

Shop original acrylic paintings

Art collections by Inese Poga

October 12, 2021October 21, 2024

Lifting morning fog, birches, classic landscape

The lifting morning fog is the most recent addition to my art collection. Birch trees have always been a favorite for autumn paintings, especially, when I have a few students who want to learn painting fall colors. The classic involves an artwork which we started in 2018, and it got not finished until now. Half-done paintings sort of nag and urge me to not be lazy and just add a few layers of paint.

Every day is only worth what its accomplishments are. I believe every day is good when I can show something for it. Therefore, time I devote to each artwork feels as a well-spent day. While everything else is rather slow and inconclusive in our life at the moment, one aspect of it is always unchanging: the creative aspect and pleasure of creation.

Acrylic paints dry darker, that’s why we need to learn what color combination is suitable for background, middle and foreground. I’ve talked a lot before that applying color is not the same as building it up. Building up color creates volume and color shifts, as well as allows implementing color temperature.

Textured birch trees on bright forest ground takes its origin probably in 2015 if I am recalling this correctly. I apply textures on canvas which is painted in the base color, grey or brown usually. I cannot judge yet whether it will become a good painting or not, therefore, many layers of paint are required to make it work.

Textured paintings are more problematic to photograph because the textures are raised and reflect more light. Color play is important part of textured paintings, but it comes to full expression seeing the art in person.

Here is the Rusty gold of autumn birch: it’s the same painting, compare with the image below; but pictures show completely different background colors. Unfortunately, neither one is absolutely true. The actual painting isn’t yellow, and the background isn’t bright blue, but the options are either to publish or not, and I would most often choose to publish. Rusty gold of autumn birch painting is 24 x 20 in or 61 x 51 cm.

I started to paint the lifting morning fog at the beginning of August. I had a very diligent student who attended private classes, and she was interested in fine detail of acrylic painting, layering colors and achieving a certain grade of realism. Nobody without experience can just jump in such art right away with the first brushstrokes. We managed, but such art takes much longer than a few hours. In my case, it’s rather a few weeks.

The lifting morning fog painting is created on my favorite size canvas: 24 x 18 in or 61 x 46 cm. I love this size for both, watercolor and acrylic.

Pictures were taken with iPhone, and that sometimes adds way too much contrast and changes the color temperature. Colors usually on pictures are either stronger or weaker, but not my actual colors. My experience is that grey becomes strong blue and that disturbs color balance of my artwork. I’m using a grey-bluish shade which is carefully crafted, unfortunately, it looks very blue on the images.

I hope you like the new additions to my art collection, and some will also be put up for sale soon. Currently, there are quite a lot of acrylic paintings, and I update the sale pages quite frequently. Stay in touch and all the best enjoying the October colors!

Shop original acrylic paintings

Art collections by Inese Poga

Group art classes

Category: Art classes

Playing with green color

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Inese’s Art Studio reopens in Pickering Village

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A little bit of nostalgic beauty: snow and winter paintings

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Fall art projects for art classes

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Lifting morning fog, birches, classic landscape

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