To praise the divine, to overcome the dullness of routine

Roses, watercolor paintings by Inese Poga

Stagnation and routine, and divine inspiration

Routine and stagnation go hand in hand. I also believe that talk solves nothing. I am deeply convinced that too many “everything is fine” statements can actually cause harm. When our intentions remain only as to-do-lists, there is no result. There is huge gap between the real action and intent. Therefore, we need the divine inspiration to interrupt our routine.

Life is fair, humans – not always

We often hear that life is not fair. Well, life as such is fair and fine. It is us, humans, who make things unfair and unfavorable for others. We should know: if we win, somebody else loses. When we are at loss, somebody has won the big prize. Therefore, I wish there was much less pretending that everything is fine and much more doing in order it was like that. While total equality isn’t possible for very many reasons, we can at least try to measure up to the ones at the top.

Rose for my mom
The dearest rose of all, the rose for my mom

What is the divine in our daily life?

For me, praising the divine does not mean unstoppably talking about it. That means bringing the beauty to people and making them understand how little, in fact, we need to experience the most valuable things on this Earth. There would be much less suffering if one day we had opened our eyes and started calling things their correct names. Becoming realistic is not a bad start. making regular things divine is something we all can do.

Floral art by Inese Poga
Colors and shapes of flowers will blow you away

Losing time due to routine

The daily routine is absorbing plenty of time and taking away lots of energy. People who are not rich have to deal with chores whether they are happy with that or not.  Even though, I could do so many useful and exciting things instead of cleaning up and washing dishes or cooking, that is not going to change. I am efficient, and I have prevention system in place: to avoid general cleaning, I do not allow any dirt or messes to accumulate. I spend 12 hours or more a day quite often on medical writing. That is the job I make my living with. but I hope earning my living with art at some point.

Watercolor painting, divine inspiration
Poppies, simple and divine

Health condition as an energy drainer

Spring art: bird's nest watercolor
Birds with nest, they take care of everything without being afraid of failure

Love to divine within simple things

I have inherited love to the nature and all Gods creations from my great grandparents, grandparents and my parents. I strongly believe that family either makes one creative and resourceful or completely ignores this necessity by not appreciating the great experiences and benefits creativity has to offer, although, this does not always mean any financial benefits. I am genuinely thankful I have all skills and knowledge to dress myself,  design my clothes and outfits, to grow my own garden plants , flowers and vegetables, to cook fantastic meals with little efforts, to decorate my living space and create all necessary items for that and so on and so forth.

Watercolor paintings by Inese Poga
Butterflies and apple blossoms, just the right things for sunny mood

Necessity to be active

This is all because of my family. Somebody might call me workaholic, but I hate simply sitting around and doing nothing. I cannot recall any single episode of my childhood or earlier years when I had to admit I was bored. I was always busy. Trying to make something from nothing. That is a great way to, a great way to live since I am seeing some opportunity just about everywhere.

Floral art by Inese Poga
Rose and apple blossoms, spring is here

Flowers: the divine aspect in daily life

I am sending flowers to my mom every time whenever there is some important day or some celebration because I know she appreciates and loves them. We are far away, the Ocean is between us, but we can talk on Skype. My husband gives me flowers on every occasion, not only when there’s a celebration or birthday, but just for pleasure, as well. I have always fresh flowers around me, many are potted. I believe he does this because he knows how I am talking to plants and how much I enjoy them. They respond with adorable blooms and never-ending beauty.

Apple blossoms, watercolor by Inese Poga
Apple blossoms for spring

Teaching is a duty

I feel that my duty is to teach other people to enjoy things which are not that costly, but rather a true source of happiness, pleasure and satisfaction. It would be tough going through life without art and beauty. The importance of brain fitness is completely ignored, but I am trying to make everybody aware how this can be achieved with simple sketching and drawing on a daily basis. If one can escape the age related dementia and loss of brain functionality just doing some visual art exercises, why don’t they do that? That’s a good question because physical body is always put first and mental and spiritual well-being is supposed to occur automatically which is absolutely and totally wrong.

New greeting card images

I hope I’m doing my part and creating art you enjoy. To me, this means praising the divine every single moment not only in words, but with doing.

Art collections by Inese Poga

Enjoy and possibly purchase!

Is fear preventing you from getting started?

Floral art by Inese Poga

How to start painting?

I’ve noticed that too much preparation can result in never getting started with anything. That is especially true when trying to know everything will prevent one from ever getting started, for instance, with painting.  That will cause insecurity and feeling of always missing something. Many people mention also fear, the fact that they are scared to draw on white paper or paint on blank canvas.

Children do it right

Children usually are very successful with new things. They don’t try to prepare for everything which might or might not happen. They also don’t try to collect all possible and imaginable tools and references in order to get started. That is an issue I have observed during my very long teaching career. It was the same when I was teaching German language and literature, English or Latvian, design, drawing and art.

Information flood can affect our readiness to get started

We are flooded with huge amounts of information. When we turn on TV, when we are scrolling through computer screen, and when we are checking out our phone, there is huge amount of information. This information can be related or totally unrelated, true or false, meaningless or crucial to whatever we are doing, and we are normally absorbing at least some of it. Should we? To some extent, we obviously should be aware of what’s going on and do research when we are exploring matters that are important for us, However, with so many sources and with such infinite amounts of advice, we most likely will feel rather lost.

We don’t ever know everything

This refers very directly to drawing, painting and any other creative activity. I know people who would not start drawing or painting because they assume they don’t know everything about it. They are trying to get ready for this activity by exploring techniques, mediums, tools, paint characteristics, types of brushes and features of colors and any other related matters. Many of them never get to any drawing or painting because they don’t feel they know enough and they don’t believe they have all necessary art supplies.

Choose smartly

There are millions of different techniques, styles and ways to create art. Since internet has controversial advice and sometimes even misleading suggestions, it is very hard to distinct between true help and silly recommendations. How is it possible to find out whether painting is what you want to do? It is extremely simple: just give it a try. Nobody knows everything about everything. We can follow hundreds of websites, we can watch thousands of “how to” videos and read endless articles or books about painting. There’s plenty of advice out there, and some of that is useful for us, but most of it will not help one starting out in art. Why not? We have to start doing things before we can decide if we like them or not. Only these, who dare to try, can hope to get something done.

Spring daffodils by Inese Poga
Pen and watercolor, Spring daffodils painting 12 x 12 in or 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Jumping on it without any fear

Other good thing about students who don’t have too much knowledge is that they have no fear. They are not afraid to damage paper or canvas, and they fearlessly apply courageous brushstrokes  or put down lines on paper. That results in a good or satisfactory first painting. They do not think it is some kind of superb masterpiece, but realistically evaluate it. Therefore, they can keep improving their abilities when doing the next painting. The knowledge comes through doing, and that is the only way to gain experience.

Experience is an excellent building block of mastery

This is how hands-on activities are contributing to fast development of any skill: you see it happening and you try it immediately. If something went wrong, try it again. Watching other people can give us an idea about how we should proceed, but until we haven’t tried it out for ourselves, we will never know how exactly it is done. We can learn all kinds of compositions and color theories, but when the paint dries out fast and when the brush is moving quickly, there’s no time to recall all of it.

Our personal color theory

The way we can create our own color theory is to mix colors, to use color swatches, to test multiple colors in a mix and to apply paint accordingly to how we feel about it. This might take some time until the brain remembers what hands were doing and how this was suiting our creative intentions. Eventually, we will have our own color and painting theory. That will become the base of your personal style.

Floral watercolors by Inese Poga
Rose and apple blossoms , always in great color combinations

Never stop at the first failure

The first steps are the most difficult. These, who are afraid to get wet, won’t ever learn swimming. It is interesting to compare the first art you ever created with the most recent drawings or paintings. There is always a progress. Improvement is visible immediately. Every piece of art we create allows seeing better where we want to go with our creations and what we eventually want to achieve.

Floral art by Inese Poga
Colors and shapes of flowers will blow you away

Good luck and check out links for inspiration!

Art classes: Art classes

Flower paintings: FAA flower paintings

Poppies pop and red color to lift our moods

Poppies and other paintings

Red color is eye-catching and warm. Poppies is a much-loved subject in art classes, and since November is the month which many people in Canada associate with poppies and Remembrance day, we just couldn’t resist and painted some, too.

Red color must be fantastic for lifting up one’s mood because I cannot remember when else we were joking and laughing so much.

Red color

Flowers and easy flowers, such as poppies, are excellent painting subject for beginners. Also, while red color is supposed to be difficult to scale down and up, it still works very well as contrast. We have painted poppy fields, individual poppies, bunches and arrangements with poppies: every time these paintings come out nice and attractive.

Poppy field, acrylic painting

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 our personal situation can be a set-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.

Red color - Poppies pop
Work in progress adult painting class

Red is an attractive color. More so, if you want to explore all shades of red. Painting flowers is easier if you start on canvas which has already a layer of paint in medium dark color. It also saves time because you have to work on the dark and light colors without worrying white spots between some parts. Secondly, acrylic paint is applied easier also on a previous layer of paint.

Our classes are listed here: Art classes

A few of paintings for sale: Shop art

The perfect gift for Mother’s Day

Floral paintings by Inese Poga

Something different for Mother’s Day

We all know mothers who have brushes, paints and canvas;  however, canvas is not on their easel or painting desk. Art supplies are pushed deep in drawers or hidden in storage boxes for the day “when I have more time”. We know life is hectic; there are so many duties, obligations and tasks to deal with!

There’s more to life

Many years ago when I was in my thirties, an older lady was my friend. I was wondering often how she got everything done and still had time for concerts, trips and visits to friends’ places. She told me this. “You know, dishes, laundry, cleaning: that is something endless, there’s always more of it and there’s never time enough to do it perfectly. I chose to simply take some time off when I need to and nothing too crucial has happened so far neither with our dishes, house, nor clothes.”

Floral paintings by Inese Poga
All the beautiful flowers blossom at once

Good advice

“I realize, my house is not perfectly polished at some moments, but do I want to say at the end of the day all I did was cleaning, washing dishes and doing work around the house? There’s more to life, so I just had to disregard not that urgent stuff and make nice things happen for me.” I followed this advice and ever since I had weekends for doing something more than just routine duties.

Learn how to say “No”

One more thing is that we have to learn saying “No”. I have no time for this, and, no, I am not going to this event, and, no, I’m not watching this. No, my dear family, I will not be cooking tonight since I have my art class. That’s exactly how it works. Once in the studio, you are out of reach of all troubles and nuisances and annoying daily obligations, even phone conversations, bills and other provocative and stressful stuff.

Perfect gift for Mother's day
Painted flowers last longer

Some mothers already have it all, and it is not that easy to find a perfect gift for them. The best gift nowadays is time for oneself or time for doing something peaceful, relaxing and enjoyable. Gift of experience works very well. You can give your busy mom a gift certificate for art classes, and this gift will last for quite a while.

Perfect gift for Mother's Day
Orchards in bloom, acrylic painting, it is on my mom’s wall and she looks at it frequently

Gift certificate for art classes is also a perfect solution for children who cannot spend a fortune for Mother’s Day, but would love to still give a meaningful, valuable gift which does not get eaten up right away and does not wither within two next days.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Art classes: a worthwhile activity

Art classes for adults, still life

Participating in art classes way to express yourself

What is the best way to never feel bored again?

How to give one’s life a new meaning?

How to make long winter nights shorter not wasting time in front of TV?

It is very simple, indeed: by doing something pleasurable and rewarding.

Art classes and painting lessons fit in this type of activities just perfectly. Not everybody feels like dancing or exercising every weeknight. Not everybody has a good company on his/her own. That’s where I come in with my art classes for beginners and people who simply enjoy colors, shapes and images.

Acrylic painting secrets

Art classes can lead to a new career or lovely hobby

Some students will continue painting, some will have art only as a hobby, and some students will enjoy time spent in a nice atmosphere. Whatever way it is done, it is worth it. It is amazing to hear after a class how surprised and satisfied students are that they were able to create something on their own, not to mention the value of art created in these art classes.

Worthiness of participating in art classes
Wednesday acrylic painting group started to work on fall maple images

Just get started, everything will happen

Many of potential students are asking if they need to be good at drawing or painting before enrolling in art classes. The answer is no, they do not. It is enough that somebody has found time, and this is a good way to spend it. You can enjoy art classes whether you are willing to purchase your own supplies (in that case you can keep working at home, as well), or you just want to use the provided art supplies for the moment.

The new art activity resolves problems

People who feel they depend on their mobile devices, phones, laptops and computers should give this some consideration, as well. We are learning how not to use any devices, printouts or digital references. Once you learn live without a device, even though it is just a few hours, you will see that it is possible and you will learn how to take a break from devices.

Art cures

Art is a fantastic cure for any addiction since it takes us away from troublesome thoughts and cravings. Challenging our brain and drawing or painting new subject every time will improve the cognitive function, memory and brain flexibility.

Adult acrylic painting classes for beginners, valuable activity
Thursday acrylic painting class for adults enjoyed drawing, sketching and painting still life. The first part is done, and results look very promising.

Real subject, individualized art

If you use a real subject and do not trace photo, you will get to your personal style much faster. Drawing and painting style is your individual handwriting, and as you improve and develop it, you enjoy a very individualized approach to any part of painting.

Drawing and painting is done observing and re-creating objects on canvas or paper. It may be challenging at first, but this approach is the most natural one and provides with real artistic freedom.

Sign up for art classes: Application for art classes