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December 30, 2022April 5, 2025

Art studio highlights of 2022

My art studio experienced numerous changes in 2022. First of all: the move which started with packing already in February. By the middle of March, I started adapting and adjusting the available space for art studio needs. By any means, it wasn’t easy. It’s needless to say that neither painting, nor art classes couldn’t start until May, I believe. If you have ever packed up and then unpacked a large art studio with numerous artworks and countless tools, brushes, paint tubes and paint sets, papers of all kinds and so forth, you probably know that it is a very complex undertaking.

Art studio, spring painting by artist Inese Poga

I paint spring during winter months, and 2022 was no exception. It is very inspiring and self-explanatory for me to go with the change of seasons, except, I am trying to be always ahead. The adjusted and new spring paintings were published in February. Trillium blooms are fantastic subject, and white color on its own makes painting alive.

The first painting I painted in the new studio was a fairly large early spring landscape (above) with lots of trees. I do love trees, I watch them, observe and to me they feel like live beings. I frequently use textures on canvas for more impact and strong statement. The horizontal Apple tree landscape was also finished soon.

I moved to garden and abstracted landscape paintings afterwards. That was done because of art classes and since every class needs a demo, I bring to finished stage some of them. That is how Colors of garden and Colors of summer came to life.

Summer flew by swiftly, working in the garden and giving numerous private classes in drawing. Teaching drawing isn’t easy also since regardless of what I explain and how much I show, it is the student who moves their hand with pencil. I haven’t taken photos of all drawings and sketches, but there were numerous, and we do large drawings in order to reveal all important aspects.

I took new photos of previous paintings, and some have never been published before. I find that only featured image on WordPress is sharp and correct while the images contained within the post look somewhat off. Anyway, numerous pictures were taken and lots of hours spent on making them look like the real painting.

Then came preparations for my 5-week long solo art show at Ajax Community Centre. Any show means work and feeling not good sort of interfered with that. Anyway, some art required touch-up and more layers of protective medium and some art was painted specifically for the fall show. Two times this year, my step-by-step demonstrations ran in the magazine which is devoted to art in the Greater Toronto Area. My art studio is doing fine, but not enough.

This year was complicated in many regards. It’s impossible to say whether good or bad. I still need to do better next year. While I have created many new paintings in acrylic watercolor, ink and graphite, I will try to incorporate myself more into the local community, gain more attention and be more present on the art scene. My art studio is set up now, and everything has found its place. Well, all it takes is more work, more motivation and simply – more luck and opportunity.

Wishing everybody a successful and pleasant New Year! I hope it won’t disappoint.

November 30, 2022October 18, 2024

Bright and passionate colors of poinsettia

Bright colors of red poinsettia painting

Bright colors for dark days

When days turn grey and light diminishes to almost none, we turn to warmth and strong colors which brighten up not only our walls, but also mood. I’ve always loved strong and clean colors. I want color sometimes to be the main statement. It is infrequently that color is all one will notice, but there’s so much more in a vibrant flower painting.

Poinsettia, favorite winter bloom

Poinsettias are not only my favorite for this dreary and dark period which includes end of November and almost all of December. I grow a few of them, and poinsettias survive quite well even the heat of July. My model plants are still alive. Some years they have more blooms, some – less.

Composition and flow of lines

I try to keep my lines flowing and, thus, recreate the flawless perfection of the natural plant. It is easy to draw poinsettias, not always that easy to capture the balance between the shape of leaves and petals and the vibrant color. Color transitions are soft, yet, difficult to photograph. It always surprises me how impossible it is to take photos of red on painting. In my opinion, red is the most difficult color to capture on a photo.

Recurrent theme

Poinsettias are one of flowers I have painted numerous times. Sometimes, that’s due to art classes since almost everybody would love to have such painting. Sometimes, when the poinsettia plant is around, I simply cannot resist painting it. The most recent painting is done with watercolor on Saunders-Waterford archival grade cotton paper. It isn’t my most favorite paper since it’s greyish and rather too absorbing, but I had started this painting a year ago, and so I just added to it and I assume it’s done.

Red poinsettia painting in watercolor, art for sale

Time to restart promotions

Or rather, it is too late already. I don’t take anything too close to my heart. Therefore, I get through bad times and through good times unscathed. Better or worse, but somehow. The main motivation for me is the personal challenge. That means, to envision something in my own way and see how I can put it on a blank sheet of paper or white canvas. I hope you noticed not only color, but also everything else which makes art – art. This poinsettia painting will be soon available as an art print also.

I hope the next post won’t take that long. Meanwhile, all the best to you and enjoy!

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Art collections by Inese Poga

November 11, 2022April 14, 2025

My large sketchbook and ink drawings

Sketchbook as collection of ink and pencil drawings

My sketchbook is large 24 x 18 inches or 61 x 46 cm. It actually feels big and heavy. The tiny pocket-size sketchbooks don’t work for me. Why? If I get a good sketch and it has potential to be turned into watercolor or acrylic painting, I just trace the outline onto the respective surface. The initial sketch serves as a fantastic reference with all shadows, perspective lines and mood, as well. Much better reference than photo. As you might know, color is secondary, and values are primary when it comes to painting. Therefore, my huge sketchbook becomes a great collection of potential large size art. Some of this art is practically a finished artwork.

Advantage of ink and pencil drawing

Drawing is relaxing and it doesn’t require proper timing which is absolutely necessary for watercolor or acrylic painting because correct timing directly affects the result. For example, you squeezed out a lot of paint in order to paint for a few hours. Something happens, and the painting session is cut short. Paint dries and cannot be rescued and you will need to paint over a few areas, but sometimes – the entire surface. With ink or pencil drawing in our sketchbook, nothing dries out, nothing needs doing over, so you just pick up where you left it before. I consider this a big advantage.

Best subjects for drawing

I’ve always loved drawing buildings. And still life. Flowers are fine, as well. My huge sketchbook has numerous drawings of these subjects. For me, it’s important that I don’t need a photo. I rather construct the subject and add whatever needs adding as I go. I call that artistic freedom. I have a complete control over what I want to be on my paper. That is why my subjects often involve only things which I see around and have in the garden or house. Simple, easy and very manageable. Buildings, still life items, landscapes, flowers: they all can be made multidimensional on a flat paper.

We can do well without devices

Since technological advance has been immense, people do manual drawing rarely. They don’t have to manually write either, so the ability to re-create our idea, vision, imagination and reality is declining. The correlation between devices and use of camera is very clear when it comes to manual drawing. The more devices somebody uses to create their art, the less of observational drawing ability they have. I suppose, our brain dismisses everything we don’t engage. Why to stress out if you don’t have to?

Maybe try it

I can make these conclusions because I’ve watched how people go about manual drawing for many decades. What are their strengths and failures, how they tackle dimension, values and shapes. Devices have advanced a lot, but humans? Humans not that much. We delegate anything we cannot do well to devices since there’s a wide choice of them. However, manual observational drawing is an extremely rewarding experience. Large drawings in a big sketchbook can become the best artistic experience.

Large size makes all the difference

It’s the most fantastic feeling. We have the blank sheet of paper. I prefer large one for many reasons. We just play around and implement whatever we feel like. Using soft lines, then moving to stronger values and lines. All of a sudden, the image emerges. Just some shades of black and grey and the white of paper. That’s all it takes. Sometimes it becomes a fantastic drawing where one can literary participate in the scene. If you want to learn drawing, trust me – go big. Use the 24 x 18-inch sketchbook. Want to advance faster, draw large images. I also used Micron archival ink pen.

I hope you enjoyed this article!

May 11, 2022May 15, 2025

Not sure how to start painting? I have some tips

How to start drawing, drawing by Inese Poga

When it comes to painting, I wish all potential students had: the ability to create value sketches and drawings of whatever subject they intend to paint. That doesn’t apply very directly to abstract artists, yet, even they would benefit from knowing what value, color temperature, contrast, negative space, etc. is. More or less realistic painting features even more components, including direction of light, shadows, aerial or atmospheric perspective, linear perspective, elements of composition and so forth. When creating art, we cannot forget about the quality of materials, artist’s ability to apply them, and there’s also a spiritual and mental factor to creation of art. Confidence, inspiration, focus, being able to observe and memorize visual information are all important aspects of creation when you start painting.

Start drawing, still life drawing from real items

We were using real items for our still life drawing, its size is 24 x 18 in or 61 x 46 cm

When everything comes together: theoretical and practical skills, experience, perfect mood and great materials, we can speak of excellent artwork. Beginners will normally focus on the technical side of creation, and using brush or pencil with confidence and skill, is a huge part of success. However, if we want to see progress, we have to build a base. Value sketch or drawing are the best possible base building blocks which help you start painting. Controlling graphite pencil is much easier than swiftly flowing paint, therefore, one can learn very gradually. Pencil drawing includes all aspects of painting, plus pressure control, minus colors.

Why is it important to know how the shadows are formed? Why is it important to create negative space and apply different values? Because that’s how our drawing gets dimension, depth and interestingness. If you are very familiar with these aspects, you will paint easier and the result will be more satisfying. Painting uses exactly the same visual components. If you are like me who has excellent visual memory, you will create art without thinking about these aspects. If you are just starting out, you will have to learn how everyone of these aspects contributes to successful painting and brings your idea to life.

Still life drawing by artist Inese Poga — For this still life, we used real items again, size 24 x 18 in or 61 x 46 cm

Drawing still life — For this still life, we used real items again, size 24 x 18 in or 61 x 46 cm

To be honest, it’s by far not enough to trace the outline and then apply color to create a painting. Painting works when you know why something is there and why it is like that and no other way. Pencil drawing teaches all of the above and provides with good hand movement memory. It doesn’t matter actually what medium we use: if we master the principles and components, only the physical application of medium is different. As we know: the stronger the base, the better we can build upon it. Not sure where to start? Start with drawing.

Start drawing landscape — For this spring creek drawing, we used photo which we modified as necessary, size 24 x 18 in or 61 x 46 cm

Landscape sketching — For this spring creek drawing, we used photo which we modified as necessary, size 24 x 18 in or 61 x 46 cm

Drawing big and huge is even better than simply drawing. The aspects and components of painting I mentioned before need space to make them visible. We use most often large size paper: 24 x 18 in or 61 x 46 cm for classes. I use the same size for my value sketches. We don’t have to finish the drawing as finalized artwork, but we can do that, as well. I bring most of my value sketches to condition when they can serve as a reference for watercolor or acrylic painting. Setting up real items or viewing real trees, grasses and plants and anything else allows creating easier. I teach drawing only in private classes because it requires very individual approach. The attached images are created from real things and photos. The weather is great in spring and summer, so start drawing outdoors and turn your sketches into completed artworks.

Good luck! Thanks for reading!

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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?

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Category: art classes for adults

Art studio highlights of 2022

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Bright and passionate colors of poinsettia

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My large sketchbook and ink drawings

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Not sure how to start painting? I have some tips

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Fall art projects for art classes

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