You can expect a lot of learning; a lot of practicing and you will definitely find out something which you did not know before if you would like to paint with me. I take a lot of pride in boosting one’s creativity as opposed to mechanical copying and using paint without any knowledge. Along with nature watercolor and acrylic painting, fall art classes will be an ongoing journey into creativity and hopefully result in some students mastering watercolor.
Nature art: a wonderful opportunity
Our eyes best notice what is around us if we focus, pay attention and observe. Fall colors are intense and make any composition look impressive. We have created numerous fall watercolors before, and they always came out nice. Acrylic definitely is a very suitable medium for depicting fall scenes, especially with grey and blue colors of sky.
Democratic nature of art
This season, fall art classes are designed to better suit teens between 10 and 14 years, and the evening group is for any age adults and youth. Teens from 15 years can join it also. Art is very democratic: one works on their own canvas or paper, and nobody cares whether you have experience or not. Art classes are for learning. If you have never painted before, give this skill some time to develop.
Online versus live art classes
When you are sitting on one side of screen, nobody can check or see how exactly you are applying advice or tip. In a live class, the instructor can see right away whether the paint is too wet, too dry, student uses too little of paint or there is way too much of it. The instructor can see right away who understood the technique and who is struggling with it. Full article:
Inese’s Creative Artspace studio moved to South Ajax at the beginning of August. It is a beautiful place with indoor and outdoor painting opportunities. Its location is perfect since it is quite central, but offers fantastic nature all around. I hope you will sign up and enjoy our fall art classes.
Schedule, registration and more info about art classes: Sign up here
It’s probably a good reason for many to participate in World Watercolor Month and share the joy of creating art and using watercolor. Isn’t that great that it has become a tradition already? I read that it started only in 2016, and I believe many people are extra excited about that. I cannot post every day, but I am certainly happy to contribute at least some images and posts.
Manual abilities still matter
While we are swiftly becoming a digital and virtual society which uses devices and apps for everything, there are some things we should not delegate to devices. It’s in our favor to maintain ability to write and draw manually. Manual drawing and painting are extremely rewarding activities which not only make one happy and less stressed , but result in enjoyable art.
My current subjects: summer and nature
Nothing is better than nature, outdoors, gardens, flowers, growing vegetables in the summer. Nature is always genuine and honest. There is no pretense or flirting; that is the most real beauty we can have. I can draw and paint anything, but I have to admit that nature is the richest resource for any goal, any intention, anything in art. Therefore, while teaching and creating art I am teaching people to also love, appreciate and take care of this wonderful resource. Everything is connected. We can only harvest what we have planted.
The dreamy purple of summer pansies
Please, have a look and get inspired by my most recent watercolor project: The dreamy purple of summer pansies. I have posted 3 steps, but the first step is actually to transfer the drawing or draw with very light lines on watercolor paper. I used Saunders-Waterford watercolor paper, but medium to heavy Arches would serve better. The size is quite serious in order to capture flow of lines and shifts of color better.
The dreamy purple of pansies, step 1, painting in first layers on flowers and leaves, identifying the subject and compositionThe dreamy purple of pansies, step 2, painting around the flowers and adding more layers on blossomsThe dreamy purple of pansies, step 3, adding more layers on flowers and defining more the background
Join us, create with watercolor
I know how excellent it is when one can use watercolor or pen and watercolor: it can easily become an obsession. If you were always attracted to watercolor, but are not completely sure what and how to paint, you are very welcome to join our watercolor summer painting sessions. Summer is the time to go out and paint nature. Enjoy the summer, get brushes and paint sets, and let us paint!
Summer and watercolor: that is such an artistic combination! Watercolor sketch, pen and watercolor or purely watercolor are excellent ways to paint summer scenes, summer flowers, summer landscapes and simply enjoy the outdoors and beauty. The easiest way to practice painting with watercolors is using pen and watercolor wash.
That enables us creating great composition and not caring too much about pencil lines and perfect application of watercolor.
I said it once and I would love to repeat it: pen and watercolor wash is a great technique for beginning watercolorists. Some like it so much that they stick to this technique and turn it into their personal style.
Many of watercolor paintings take origin in imagination and do not require a reference.
Save time, paint effortlessly
If you are afraid of drawing with pen, do the initial drawing with pencil. Afterwards, you can draw over with pen and delete everything else. Therefore, we have a beautiful and clean drawing in black ink, and the watercolor paper is not damaged.
The most excited part is adding watercolor washes, as well as more detailed areas with more concentrated paint. We can create a wonderful painting in less time this way because we do not need multi-step drawing transfer onto watercolor paper and it is much easier to know where to use paint because the black outline clearly identifies that.
Real objects make good painting
Summer is definitely a very suitable time for practicing plants, flowers, blooms, vegetables, fruit and all kinds of landscapes and garden scenes.
I find that implementing fence or corner of a building adds additional impact. White or grey fence looks great with flowers and leaves.
What to do with the background?
There are no strict rules about backgrounds and additional details. Very frequently, less is more. Whenever we can, we should simplify our scene and subject. Whether to include a detail of our subject or leave it out usually depends on our style, intention and skill level. Minimalist paintings look as great as maximum realistic paintings; there is no such a thing as mandatory inclusion of detail in a painting. Many beginning artists wonder: what should they do with the background: leave it as is, white, make it dark or add background shapes and colors? That, too, will depend on how you have captured the subject.
Summer poppies, 12 x 16 in or 30.5 x 40.5 cm
Less can be more
My personal point always is: let the painting or drawing tell you what else to do. It usually does when you look at it carefully and from some distance. Realistically, you should always look at your creation from some distance since being too close to it all the time makes us not notice flaws and strange areas which require improvement. Certainly, step back and have a look. If it is all flat and lacks any dark spots, add some.
Don’t be afraid of darks spots in painting
I find that beginning artists are afraid of dark colors. Even when painting with acrylic where there is no threat of painting something too dark because you can always paint over the first layers and make it noticeably lighter, new artists use no dark color. Having absolutely no dark spots reduces our ability to add volume, impact and impression.
Patience and practice
We all want our art to be great and impressive. However, if you are new to some medium or absolutely new to drawing and painting, you have to bear in mind: nothing happens right away and with the first brush stroke. I have had absolute beginners who were somewhat disappointed that their first piece of art wasn’t a masterpiece. Every skill takes time, efforts and work. However, not being satisfied with the first few drawings and sketches, is no reason to give up painting or drawing. You might be surprised how much better one becomes after a while.
Focus on potential
Focusing on perfection right away will cause you to be disappointed. Any artist will tell you that they have damaged, and thrown out lots and lots of initial sketches, painted over initial scenes, changed the layout and composition completely, switched to a different color or tools: they have done many things before they have gotten to one good painting. Not every drawing or painting is or should be a masterwork. It should be a stepping stone on our way to better us, to better art which we have created. We use our errors as a way of discovering how to achieve what we want and have intended.
If you love it, go for it
It doesn’t matter what somebody says about your drawing or painting. They might not be the best critics or they might also praise it too much. Practice is practice, we have to spend time learning until we get where we want to be. Regardless of how somebody looks at your creation, regardless of how much they praise or criticize it, you have to be realistic and admit what is wrong and what is great to yourself. That will help keeping things that come out great and avoiding or getting rid of things that do not work. Do what you are good at. I hear frequently: I am very bad with whatever, I need to do that. Leave that for later when you have more experience. We should do everything we like and love, at least in art.
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. That includes no pinning policy.
Perspective in art is much easier to implement than perspective in life. In fact, there is nothing much to it as far as we are aware of how it works and what it does for a painting or drawing. Linear perspective creates depth and dimension in any drawing and painting which deals with suitable subject. Traditional linear perspective uses size, overlap of objects and their placement in composition, as well as convergence of lines.
Black pen drawing of simplified 2-point perspective building
Where to use it
If you love landscape, street scenes, rural scenes with farms and barns, simple roads, streams or rivers and so forth, you will need to implement linear and atmospheric perspective because they both contribute to dimension and volume of your painting. You will also use color values accordingly to perspective principles. If you are drawing and painting outdoors, you are most likely applying some perspective already.
Old countryside house in pen and watercolor, 18 x 12 in or 46 x 30.5 cm
Vanishing points and front view
Some people are confused: how many vanishing points to use: 1, 2 or even more? The answer is that will depend on the placement of your shapes and forms on different planes. 1-point perspective uses 1 vanishing point on the horizon or reference line. Horizon line can be called eye-level, but I like to call it reference line. You have to remember that vertical lines are parallel to the sides of your paper (if it’s straight) to make look building stand up correctly. Horizontal line creates 90 degree angle with the vertical line in front view. Horizontal lines of front view are parallel to the bottom and top of your paper. Therefore, in 1-point perspective, the straight lines at the bottom of your building and corresponding lines higher up will always create a 90 degree angle with the vertical line.
1-point perspective in landscape
Most often, we use 1-point perspective with roads, streams, tree and fence lines and buildings on both or one side of a road, that is, with views where something disappears in the distance. That creates an easy perceivable and visually attractive composition which is a breeze to create. In 1-point perspective, all lines which lead into distance, meet in the vanishing point. The front angles of the building on the respective plane are 90 degree angles. It sounds more complicated than it is when you draw it. Start with closest end of the building, drawing a rectangle. Connect the points on one vertical line (in my case the left side where I mark height of any element) to the vanishing point.
Pen and watercolor wash of barn, 16 x 12 in or 41 x 30.5 cm
Plein-air drawing, 2-point perspective. Photo does not show all lines correctly since camera draws the front edge closer. To draw it correctly, vanishing points on reference line are placed outside the drawing. That we do always when the subject is large. I usually draw intuitively since I know where approximately these lines meet and where the vanishing points are. Starting out? Mark up vanishing points on each side and connect with respective points on vertical lines. I teach this all in my private classes because it is simply not easy to describe.
Pen and watercolor 2-point perspective sketch, it was mostly done outdoors, since this building is next to my studio entrance.
Many buildings in a landscape or street scene
When drawing close-ups of buildings or placing many scattered buildings in composition, we use rather 2-point (angular) perspective. We use drawing separate buildings most often 2 vanishing points. We adjust the eye level or reference line placement as needed. It can be higher or lower depending on your view. We can move it up or down, and we should use this feature in our favor. That will allow achieving plenty of depth and dimension.
3 vanishing points in one-point or two-point perspective
When some buildings are close, some distant or scattered all around, you could use 3 vanishing points. It does not mean that your drawing becomes extremely complex. It means that you will have freedom to place things in your composition wherever you want them.
Where to place rooftop?
Often, demo drawings that involve 2-point perspective do not explain that the rooftop line runs through one vanishing point. That was also the most confusing part for students since they had a problem placing the roofline where it belongs. Please enjoy the recent paintings and sketches which involve perspective. I will prepare online materials for understanding better how to create linear perspective in drawing or painting.
Perpendicular and parallel lines
The most important aspect is to understand what lines are perpendicular, what parallel, what is obtuse angle, right angle and acute angle. Remembering basics of geometry is really helpful because perspective in drawing is simply achieved once you know how to create it. I am posting some of my recent works that involve creating perspective to illustrate the concept.
Uphill, rural house, size of this painting is 21.5 x 16.5 in or 54.5 x 42 cm
Outdoor painting
Many drawings, sketches and watercolor paintings are done outdoors or plein-air. Perspective is an important part of any painting, sketch or drawing which displays buildings, street views, roads, fences, bridges and similar subjects. Learning how to create perspective is not difficult or overwhelming. You really need to master perspective if you ever do a realistic painting or drawing with buildings and man-made structures.
The best part of being able to create is probably that we only depend on our intentions and goals. There are no limitations in subjects or ways to create something. It is almost an absolute freedom, and pretty much nothing but only our personal situation can set us back.
Freedom in creation means doing what one wants and prefers. If it is technique that doesn’t work for you yet, you will just have to practice more.
Pink spring magnolia blossoms is an acrylic painting on 20 x 16 in or 51 x 41 cm canvas, Spring mood, light colors and feeling.
I meet sometimes people who think creating a painting is extremely easy. Most likely, instructions that say: paint like a master in one hour or time-lapse demos where a few hours of work are squeezed in just 1 minute make one believe that a decent size art takes only a few minutes. Well, try to paint just a wall or better start with smaller surfaces like a door. Even that takes time, not to mention creating art layer upon layer with targeted and fine-tuned brushstroke.
Creation takes time and efforts. When somebody looks at painting they sometimes doubt how that can possibly take 2 or 3 weeks working every day for about 6 hours. It depends on medium, definitely. Acrylic is much slower medium than watercolor. Whenever some part is dry, it is almost as if starting everything from new. Acrylic is much slower than oils also. That is why it takes a lot of layers and building up color and value.
White magnolia flower is an acrylic painting on 20 x 16 in or 51 x 41 cm canvas. Bright, soft and gentle.
When somebody tries painting on their own, they can feel how everything takes work. Some believe that the messy first layers are a sign of a hopeless art. That is simply wrong. I sometimes demonstrate how we layer, change and improve any painting by just adding dark colors and highlights, or modifying perspective and number of details or elements. In that regard, acrylic is very forgiving and very user-friendly. The only limitation is time we spend on painting and time we are willing to spend on it. Our personal attitude and preferences change over time, as well. It’s no surprise that we might not like subject we adored a while ago or we like colors we hated before.
That is normal. That is progress or another direction.
Studio view: these paintings look amazing!
Having flower paintings all around makes one feel fantastic. Even when my health is giving glitches, it’s a pleasure to be in the gallery and enjoy the elegant lines and uplifting colors.
Pink spring tulips is an acrylic painting on 24 x 20 in or 61 x 51 cm.
If you never tried to create any art, it is a wonderful time to start. The sketching season will be on soon, and that is just a pure pleasure being outdoors and literally absorbing the surrounding life, nature and beauty.
White orchids is an acrylic painting on 24 x 20 in or 61 x 51 cm canvas.
I hope to get some followers back since I lost of all of them while migrating the blog. I don’t think I have set up even all buttons yet, so, everything will come, just give it some time.
