Fruity, simple and attractive is still life with apples. Between years 2013 and 2018, I used to spend either August or September in Latvia. They have numerous fruit trees. Apples were in all tones and colors: red, white, green, purple and scarlet. Their round perfect shape was always attractive to me, so, I rarely could resist sketching or painting some apples whether with leaves or other elements.
This particular painting comes from my bright color period. I think it was 2008 when I painted this still life. It is quite large, 15 x 22 inches or 38 x 56 cm. I used to enjoy extra bright colors and St. Petersburg watercolors definitely facilitate that.
This apple still life was painted in Latvia looking at a tree and balancing paper in my lap. The weather wasn’t really cooperating, but I managed to finalize this painting upon my return to Canada.
Similarly, this still life with apples and pears was painted at my daughter’s computer desk. The space was too small to lay out paints and paper in a manner that I could paint without worrying that something falls to the floor. However, I love how it came out. I got some leaves in the garden, and they had a few green pears. I love my color combination in this one.
These are clear white apples which grow in my sister’s garden. They are ripe in August or even sooner, but must be consumed swiftly. They are extremely juicy and sweet, but go bad fast. I haven’t actually seen this sort of apples in Canada. I think this still life came out quite nice, too. I had to add final touches upon my return to Canada.
I have many sketches of apples, some unfinished watercolors and also acrylic still life painting with fruit and apples. It is not possible to remember all paintings which feature apples.
My personal point is that anything makes a good painting. Simple things can be painted and drawn as great as very complex subjects. I do always advise starting with such subjects that are around you and are easily found and replaced. That is a wonderful exercise in composition and color. It is also pleasure for eyes. Such paintings look great on any wall.
Is it even possible to create great art with little effort? Yes, and no. The most important part is probably wasting less time and materials. We need a plan to achieve that. A good plan for creation of a painting means a sketching, drawing or a value sketch. In my personal experience, it is pencil, pen and watercolor sketch which is the best preparation stage for a painting.
Not only result matters
When somebody wants to apply for classes I am usually told this: “I’d really like to paint”. Something like that. Points to some landscape or floral, or still life. Basically, everybody is interested in the result and not that much in the path which led me to it. I spend a lot of time practicing and exploring the subject from different perspectives.
Exploring art supplies
If you are one of those artists-to-be who jumped straight to brushes and did not take your time to explore the elements of an artwork, I can understand you. People usually think watercolor and sketching is for watercolor artists, who mask out white spots or those who get ideal washes just by swinging around the brush with some paint on it. However, there is a missing link between the idea of our art and it’s draft.
Seeing subject artistically
The real life shows that any potential artist and anybody, who does art as hobby, would have gotten much better paintings sooner if they considered sketching as an important step. That refers to painting with any medium: watercolor, pastel, acrylic or oil. The truth is, they all originate in one place: in our brain, through our eyes and senses. Therefore, we should exercise our visual abilities and our visual perception. I’m talking more about importance to learn seeing in my previous posts:
The problem with not well developing painting is not only the technique of applying paint. That usually works fairly well after a few attempts. The problem most often is in our eyes: we do not perceive values, shapes, proportions and potential composition; therefore, we cannot come up with a neat plan to make painting elements work.
This sketch became a large watercolor painting afterwards
Advantage of sketching
Sketch is done much faster than a painting. Sketching out objects or just values, putting them in a draft composition allows making a decision momentarily if that will or won’t work. Sketch isn’t the entire painting, but by doing it one learns much more about their subject. We find out that we need to look at it more carefully, more intensely, more accurately.
Thin and thick black pen and watercolor for creation of perspective sketch, 1-point perspectiveRough black pen and watercolor wash sketch to use as reference for larger acrylic painting
Skills are based on knowledge
I can compare creating art with writing. When people say “I don’t want to sketch and I don’t want to know anything about drawing”, it is like somebody who intends to write a novel would say “I don’t want to know anything about spelling and grammar. I just want to write a novel, so give me the idea and off we go”. The entertaining painting events also do a bad service: not only the entire idea does not allow anybody to really learn anything about creation of art, but the approach is just so wrong and materials are so bad that many people get a wrong idea.
White birches, recent class demo, 20 x 24 inches, painting is sold
Art is more than moving paint around canvas
When somebody is just moving paint around the canvas in hopes that it miraculously will take the right shape and become the right color, I must say, it won’t. Painting is a summary of things we put in it. It is also the energy we put in it. Therefore, the sooner one learns about values, relationship between light and dark areas, values, softness or roughness of edges, proportion and compositional layout, the faster their paintings take shape and have volume. The missing link between our idea and its incorporation into artwork is the value sketch. Creating value sketch and color sketch is not a waste of time and paint.
When somebody says they attend art classes, other people usually understand that it means practicing and learning to become an artist. That’s pretty much incorrect because as the current research reveals, there is no other activity more beneficial to prevention of brain aging, avoiding loss of memory and related disorders than drawing, painting and sketching. Art projects in art classes are usually suitable for beginners, for hobbyists and for anybody with interest in creation.
Brain exercises
The unique features of creation boost ability of the brain to create new neurons, as well as the existing have longer life span. Do you believe that brain aging is not inevitable? That is not true. Our brain is just as any other part of our body, yet, it contains all the vitally important tools for regulating and managing the other systems. Therefore, it’s crucial we keep exercising our brain every day, every hour and every minute. Anything which is not in use deteriorates and loses flexibility, it degenerates.
How drawing helps the brain flexibility
Drawing connects the brain function with our fine motor functions, and does even more than language. It allows expressing feelings, emotions, states of our mind, mood, our character, hidden thoughts and memories. As we draw, our hand transfers the ideas onto paper. It is a reflection of the most intense mental work, conversion of one type of energy into another. That is why drawing is used in determination of our brain health. It signalizes earlier than any other tests whether everything is still fine, or maybe it’s time to get advice.
Mental fitness
We need to move and exercise all our body parts, but mental exercise increases the rate at which our new brain cells survive and make functional connections to the existing networks of neurons. The more active a particular brain cell is, the more connections it develops with its neighboring neurons. That is where art classes come in. As we learn, we intensively think about each line we are putting down on paper or brushstrokes. This boosts our memory cells, thus, preventing them from cell death. Activities that require using all our senses, breaking our routines and engaging in new experiences are extremely good for brain health.
Age is not of essence
Age does not matter because it is equally important to have good memory in young and even more so in old age. Creative exercises like our Fun and Pleasure acrylic painting afternoons or sketching and watercolor exercises should not be undervalued. It seems like a play or some brushing around with different colors, but, in fact, it is a very strong brain ability booster. Images show my still life sketches, but students did very well, too. I’d like to simply publish only my sketches in this post.
My journey
I can share my own experience. I was reading a book a day and painting or drawing every single day for about 1 hour between ages 8 and 16. I was reading systematically through everything library had to offer. That involved history, geography, art, music, science of the corresponding century starting with ancient Egypt. We didn’t have internet back in the 70-s. When I moved on and started to study at the University I was only 17 because I could and I had developed extraordinary visual memory thanks to reading, drawing and painting,
Best memory booster
I hardly had to study because I was able to remember up to 60 pages of text which I read through within some half an hour using the diagonal approach. I still can remember every single tough term in texts which I was translating 5 years ago. I never have to make any lists and write notes to myself. In my case, drawing and painting showed an enormously positive effect on memory, cognitive function and reasoning so far.
Art is important part of learning
For young children, artistic activities are as important as physical exercising, especially because they are under-using their own cognitive ability due to the overuse of mobile devices. We are always welcoming new participants in our art classes!
Plain and simple: creativity unblocks the pathways in our brain and gives us a chance to use our hidden resources, and there are so many. Therefore, I expect everybody getting involved in new art projects: simple, colorful, uplifting and very rewarding. Thanks for reading!
