The Christmas gift you can give anybody

Spruce hills, perfect holiday painting

Brief Christmas gift guide: choose art

Art is democratic and it is also a perfect Christmas gift. It is a gift which goes from very personal to very formal. Some people might not find any value in art, but most of us do. The difficult part is always having too many choices. Print is not the same as original art. Hand painted art carries the uplifting energy of colors, lines and brushstrokes, as well as artist’s thoughts and energy.

Affordable handmade luxury

Hand-drawn and crafted cards, as well as hand-drawn images and hand painted art are becoming more and more exquisite things. Handmade items are considered luxury in quite a few countries already since they are unique and one-of-a-kind. America is more inclined towards digital art. Handmade art deserves its high and exclusive position on the value list of luxury items. It is a luxury which everybody can afford.

Handmade is unique

Handmade art is always unique and pertains to the person who created it. Anybody can create digital files and print them off. It does not require the specific, elevated state of mind which makes an artist flutter above the Earth and feel like the creator of universe once the painting is completed. Each brushstroke is artist’s signature, each line – proof of excellence.

Art can be perfectly matched to the gift receiver

If you know the main values of person receiving the gift, you might be able to choose a perfectly matched piece of art for them. Nature enthusiast or fighter for sustainability on the Earth will love nature related images and scenes. People, who appreciate beauty, will always enjoy it in art, as well. Simplified and strong images will work well for these, who stand firmly on the ground. Art is a good gift when one is not sure what exactly they should choose.

There is never too much art

Many people say they have enough art already which I absolutely do not believe. I have seen million dollar houses with bad quality prints on walls. Most places would also have just one painting on a large wall. Boring. Art will either enhance and give elegant appearance, or make your space look cheap. There is also neutral art which is not too abstract, not too realistic, but has still all quality markers we should look for. Most importantly, art can be always displayed: on shelves, on walls, on desks, bookcases, dressers and even on the floor if its size allows for that.

Direct sales from artist

Buying art from artists directly is always less expensive. They created this art; they can decide what price tag to put on it. Gallery sales involve extra fees since artists showing their art have to pay either for space, provide percentage of sale amount to gallery, or both. Some galleries will take as much as 50% and more off the sales amount, even online galleries. That is included in price. With direct sale from artist, especially at their studio, no middlemen increase the price.

Christmas gift: white winter, acrylic painting

White winter, acrylic, 20 x 16 in or 51 x 41 cm

Christmas gift

 

The very red poinsettia, acrylic, 41 x 51 cm or 16 x 20 in

Christmas gift

Golden trees, moonlight, acrylic painting, 41 x 51 cm or 16 x 20 in

Christmas gift

Spruce hills, acrylic painting 41 x 51 cm or 16 x 20 in

Refreshing my own sales pages for Canada-wide, international and USA shipments

I will try to publish also more frequently my own art-for-sale images. For many years, I focused mostly on teaching. It’s time to make my own art more visible. I spend abnormal time creating it. I will have a few public shows in 2020. I have been accepted in 2 so far; when it comes closer I will publish more about that.

My sales pages are always in progress, but I will start adding more “Buy now” buttons for each painting.

Live in Greater Toronto Area? Stop by

The easiest way to purchase some art for people in Ajax, Ontario, and close by areas, like Whitby, Pickering or Oshawa, is to just stop by at my studio. I will ship all unframed watercolor art and small to medium size unframed acrylic paintings (11 x 14 in or 28 x 36 cm to 20 x 24 in or 51 x 61 cm) to other locations in Canada and the USA. I will only sell and ship my original art, not art products with printed images of my art. I do not process your payments on my site, Paypal does; therefore, you are not putting your credit or debit card info on my site and shouldn’t have any worries about it.

My  art for sale, getting updated: Original paintings

Inspiration: Inspiring gifts

I just added new painting images to my FAA site, as well.

Enjoy!

Floral watercolors: the softness that soothes

Summer petunias, floral watercolor painting for sale

Touch of flowers

Floral watercolors are amazing. It is easy to get carried away by soft colors and gentle shapes of petals. It usually depends on season, weather and what I feel like doing, but I go for the opposites. When it is cold and dark, I love something sunny and full of light. We have been painting soft and lovely floral images also in classroom most often in December and January. These paintings and process of creation provide with the much needed contrast between the upsetting darkness outdoors and the light and brightness of such artworks.

Pink color

Pink color is easy to grade from dark and cold to soft and warm. It doesn’t take much adding some purples or washes of light red and ocher. Mainly, somewhat realistic watercolors are closely associated with quality of drawing. Therefore, I have decided for the remaining classes to offer my drawing templates for use. Sometimes, drawing is more than 50% of watercolor painting. If you do not understand values, you do not know where to apply paint.

2020 sets of art classes

It is hard to say when everything about art classes and painting lessons shifted towards only end result. The most important part is actually the process of creation and the journey of getting to the completed painting. We are recently facing the following: people want everything right away and immediately. That is a very limiting approach for those who start from zero skills and want to learn. That simply cannot happen. Nobody paints like a master in a few hours. Therefore, the next sets of art classes will start with basics of drawing and painting and progress toward more accomplished skills.

Roses on fence, 24 x 18″ or 61 x 46 cm watercolor

Pink floral watercolor, petunias

Watercolor painting of amaryllis

Enjoy the gallery, purchase art

I took new photos recently, and I hope these images will look better and more balanced. I am working on a new reference booklet which will facilitate start-ups in watercolor painting. It will be available for download everywhere. I’d love to invite the art lovers and art collectors from Greater Toronto Area, Pickering, Ajax, Whitby and Oshawa to simply stop by at my November 23 and December 14 art shows. I am selling original art at my studio. Prints are available from Fine Art America site.

We will be painting orchids and roses, large size. Link to floral painting class:

Art lessons and painting classes

Copyright notice: Copyrights of displayed paintings, drawings, images of work in progress and images of finished paintings belong to artist Inese Poga.

Fine Art America, my art prints and artistic products with my painting images:

Art collections by Inese Poga

New fall paintings and art in progress

Art show, fall painting

New art, new fall paintings, new vision

I have painted recently and completed quite many new paintings, especially fall art and three-dimensional textured paintings. Colors are so bright and uplifting outdoors, and it is difficult to resist not capturing one or another landscape. I have to still work more on making my art visible on the internet. It is not enough to be present on  Facebook and a few print sites, like Fine Art America and ArtPal. Just as I am writing this, somebody ordered a print from Fine Art America, my bright pine cones under snow.

Managing single person business

Realistically, I get to paint a lot, and I create new art and paintings almost every second day. It’s completely different story with putting this art out there and letting somebody know it is available for purchase. I am only one person doing everything. Sites like Facebook don’t get that. They tell me that Walmart started to use Workplace app and their sales grew big time. Well, just think about that. How does one single person’s tiny business compare with insanely huge company, such as Walmart? It doesn’t. I have no employees; therefore, I cannot connect them to my workplace. I find that funny how they apply to everything one-size-fits-all.

Your interest would be greatly appreciated

Regardless of anything, I keep painting. I certainly would love to sell something before Christmas, so that I also can enjoy the fruit of my difficult, time-consuming and labor-intensive work. I usually sell at least 1 painting around this time. I should sell 100  times more paintings this season to make a space for new art, that would be terrific. I sell quite a lot of prints on different sites, but the profit from print and art product sale is like $1-$5. It is very little, yet, it means somebody loved my work so much that they were willing to spend some money on it.

New art and paintings in progress

I have brought to completion two very textured paintings: the “Rocky stream” which is more abstracted and impressionistic, and “Birch light” which was totally done during art classes. I had placed the textures using modeling paste before, since it takes quite a few hours to dry.

Birch light, acrylic painting 20 x 16 inches

Birch light, acrylic painting, 20 x 16 inches

Rocky stream, acrylic on textured background

Rocky stream on heavily textured background, 20 x 16 inches; in fact, all recent paintings are created on textured background. It looks excellent in reality, and texture is still visible on a photo, too.

Fall path,  20 x 24 inches acrylic painting on highly textured background

Some work will be still done on the “Fall path”. Yellow color is tricky with acrylic, and it takes numerous glazes. I think the color combination works extremely well, and it will fit very nicely the late fall mood.

My next art show will be on November 23. I hope local people will attend. I have many pieces of art in different sizes and done with different mediums. There is so much to choose from!

All art products, including many kinds of art prints can be purchased from FAA:

Art collections by Inese Poga

Ajax, Ontario, art classes and winter workshops

As the weather gets cooler and less pleasant, it is great to be part of our student groups. It can be your “me-time”, it can be your stress relief, it can be the best event in the entire week as my students told me. We have created numerous paintings during my art lessons. Some are more finished, some are less done. That always depends on group. Whatever you learn, stays with you forever. Whatever you draw or paint, will always delight your eyes.

Link to art classes and masterclass: Sign up for art lessons

Getting ready for a cozy fall and Thanksgiving

Fall still life with pumpkin and fruit, realistic still life painting

Giving thanks: Canadian Thanksgiving

I have Thanksgiving on my mind this year. It’s not that we always celebrate it, but I believe there are many things to be thankful for this year, especially, overcoming all the difficulties and sadness in February and March. Canadian Thanksgiving is much earlier than the American, therefore, I hope my gift sales page will be set up and published soon. I can currently invite everybody to check out my Fine Art America products: there are so many: from garments and outfits to notebooks, mugs and totes, not to mention many kinds of prints, both framed and unframed on different surfaces and in many sizes. Link is at the bottom of page.

Inese’s Art Studio creates

Inese’s Art Studio is booming with ideas, plans for projects and hands-on activities. I am working on a few new artworks, as well as finalizing some that were started 3 to 5 years ago. Having one-person run art school, creating my own art and crafts, sometimes sewing things, gardening and performing all daily chores takes a lot of time and work. I simply want to have lots and lots of gifts and smaller size art, as well as cards and Thank-you sheets to offer this year. The good thing is: art never goes bad, so, it can be used and re-used after a while again.

Fall still life with pumpkin and fruit, 20 x 24 in

What’s not to love about fall?

As much as I enjoy spring and summer, I also love the color parade and all shades of gold showing up in nature and tree foliage when the fall arrives. It is a feast for eyes, and it is a great inspiration for anybody who picks up a brush. I finished the fall still life which we started in my art classes 5 years ago. I think it came out great with warm colors and very attractive fall fruit. I struggled with photos, just as always. Some had glare on them, some came out too dark, some were to light and some had wrong colors. I chose the best, yet, I must say, the actual painting is still better. Its size is 24 x 18 inches or 61 x 46 cm.

Sunset boat, acrylic painting on canvas, 20 x 24 in

Moonlit path, acrylic, 20 x 20 in

Under fall sky, 20 x 16 in

Red poppies, bright red, acrylic 24 x 20 in acrylic on canvas

Painting fall is always rewarding and pleasure

We have done it numerous times and every year during art lessons. Even absolute beginners can get nice art done if using sponge and fan brush because it loosens one up and allows going easy about blending and color matching. Any warm colors will do, and if you pair them with cool grey or soft grey-blue, the result speaks for itself. I am sharing a few paintings which I haven’t sold yet, although, fall landscapes usually sell fast. I suppose it is because they make any wall and room cozy and warm. Fall is the time we want our comfort foods, candle lights and warm blankets on the sofa.

Enjoy and let me know if you’d be interested in purchasing some art.

Link to art lessons and workshops: Group art classes

Shop for art prints on Fine Art America:

Art collections by Inese Poga

Personalized creativity

Watercolor painting of tulips in soft colors, creativity

Personalized creativity eventually becomes our style. Creating is learning, and learning means living more intense and enjoying something new every day, our personal way.

We create us

Any creation involves saying something about us. That’s how we are telling others what our point of view is. True creativity is never copying and reproducing, but taking an idea which lives in our imagination or was just born in our mind and bringing it to life.

Reproducing versus creating

I regret seeing how plenty of art instruction is meant to teach not principles, techniques and understanding, but to reproduce a popular concept or successful image which everybody is painting or drawing. We have numerous back-lit landscapes, starry nights, tree projections in the sky, human eyes and lips. A painting subject which is already so much worn down.

Personalized creativity

Creativity is great not because we can do things that other artists have done, but because we can create everything exactly as we want, as we have intended and imagined, and it becomes our personalized creativity.

If you can draw, you can draw anything.

We can use any subject and make it our own.

If you can paint, you can paint anything.

We can use any color and make it the most important color for us or the viewer.

We have endless opportunities to express ourselves.

Learning is an ongoing activity, and it’s erroneous to assume somebody knows everything about everything. Experiment is the best teacher of all: how do we know if we never try?

The helpful mistakes

Mistakes and errors are an essential part of the learning process. It’s silly to be afraid of mistakes and do nothing. Perfectionism most likely lives inside many minds, however, but that doesn’t mean anything less than perfect has no value.

The circle of knowledge

Imagine that everything you know is within a circle. As you grow older and become smarter, the circle grows and widens, too. However, the interesting thing is that the more we know, the longer becomes the line that borders the unknown space which surrounds the circle which contains our knowledge. That’s why we just keep finding out things that we were not aware of. That is also the reason for asking more questions and finding more answers.

Creative exploration

Exploration with pencil, brush and color goes a long way. There is no end to it. The more we have learnt, the more we become aware of things we still have no idea about. It makes sense to make your style very personal from the very beginning. You do not want to be the second if you can be the first one. Therefore, copying art is not a good practice. You would not copy somebody else’s poem or song? Would you? The same is true about art.

Some of my recent watercolor paintings:

Art blog articles versus photo blogs

I have been on and off from blogging due to personal matters, but, hopefully, I will manage to post something more during the upcoming months. Painting takes much longer than to write an article, a short poem or to snap a photo. I sometimes spend months on a single painting. I could post progress images, but when I have the momentum, I do not want to interrupt it. Sketches and drawings might take just a few hours. However, such photos need to be edited and adjusted to be visible.

Slow spring

Spring is slow in Southern Ontario, but the first blooms are already in buds. and I saw a few crocuses showing their lovely colors outside. Their colors were bright and intense. Spring rewards us with intense colors and fresh air. There is always 1 hour or a bit more to spend with beauty and colors. It isn’t even that hard to find that hour.

Part of my art for sale:  Available paintings

My artistic products on Fine Art America, and you can view them in 3 D, rotate and turn upside down, etc.:

Art collections by Inese Poga

Decorate with beautiful art for spring season!