Beauty is the most universal, self-expressing phenomenon that does not require words or language knowledge. It is present in all walks of life, but it becomes something extremely perceivable due to art.
As we rush our daily schedules and spend most of the time running, we might not notice the moment when a bud opens. The magic moment when the fragile petals unfold and when the sun and rain pour life into it. It becomes a mediator of beauty. Every smallest vein and line, every nuance of color is so unique. Beauty which breathes and is alive.
The biggest advantage of being able to create, draw and paint is the feeling of being a creator. We can do anything with the sheet of white paper in front of us. It’s our choice what goes on it. I choose the never-ending, personality enriching and mood uplifting divine features of the nature. It is a cheerful activity on its own. It is more than meditation, it is much more than immersion in oneself, it is the imperative life-continuing reveal of the underlying essence of life, and the essence of life is beauty.
Enjoy! Happy Mother’s Day! I know my mom will love these paintings.
The best way to start painting with watercolor is using pen and watercolor wash. 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 brushstroke. I have had absolute beginners who were somewhat disappointed that their first piece of art wasn’t exhibition quality. Well, that is normal.
Patience
Every skill takes time, efforts and work. Creation of drawing or painting involves lots and lots of information. Some people are courageous by nature and love to experiment, and that is very beneficial. Some people are perfectionists and they believe everything they do must be either perfect or they are ready to give it up: don’t use this approach.
Focus on potential
My personal attitude towards something new in painting: different subject, medium, tools or technique never focuses on perfection. I focus on potential. Something might work out and something might not. There will be easy parts and probably difficult parts. That way. I call this attitude: let us see what happens. Progress is usually gradual. That is why we start with simple things and move to more complicated things.
Pen and watercolor
Pen and watercolor wash is a great technique for beginning watercolor artists. Some like it so much that they stick to this technique and turn it into their personal style. If you are insecure about drawing lines with pen, sketch them using pencil. You can draw over with pen and delete everything else. We have now clean drawing in black ink, and the white paper is not damaged.
Any subject will do
Anything can serve as a subject: from your morning coffee cup to flowers in a vase or at the fence, from a bird at your window to sprouting vegetables in a garden. Any scene with some object is good, but flowers look extremely nice when done in pen and watercolor.
Everybody can draw
When somebody says they cannot draw, I don’t believe that. Most often that means they tried 1 or 2 drawings and these drawings were not splendid. So, they conclude that they cannot draw. Talk to me after 100 drawings. That is a decent start. It is also much easier to point out what else one should do in order to create better art when they have engaged in more than just a few attempts.
Pen and watercolor flowers and spring scenes
Pen and watercolor, Spring daffodils painting 12 x 12 in or 30.5 x 30.5 cmStylish and simple spring rose, all done with black pen lines and watercolor washApple blooms in pen and watercolor: great starting subjectPen and watercolor apple blossoms, the finished paintingSmiley purple pansy faces, pen and watercolor washSpring mood with apple blossoms, butterflies and beautiful colors
Pen and watercolor wash is easy
Why to start with pen and watercolor? It is forgiving, it is easy and fast, and it allows learning watercolor application more effortlessly. The pen lines provide additional support. It is a flattering technique since practically any painting or drawing looks good regardless of how sufficient one is with watercolor. I have done numerous pen and watercolor paintings over years, just because it is fun, it is easy and looks fantastic.
Copyright notice: Copyright 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 given a written permission. That includes no pinning on Pinterest.
The best part of being able to create art is depending 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 attitude or 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. In this post: white and pink flowers in acrylic.
I sometimes meet 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Rose is a wonderful subject for an acrylic painting. Especially, pink rose.
I always prefer and I always advice others to use real objects, real scenes and live models for their paintings. It’s not only because camera does not see things as a human eye does, but also because of immediate presence.
When somebody aims only for technically great achievements in arts, they certainly stick with photos because we quite cannot distinguish between tiny details when looking at something with just our eyes. I’m not painting or drawing anything I cannot see or which is too small to see. I prefer to go bolder and not to use any magnifying glass.
It can be tough painting flowers sometimes, especially in winter, and real flowers generally do not last as long as painting takes. Anyway, whenever possible using real things has its advantages. They have emotional impact, cause admiration, attraction. This is also something we are trying to implement in our paintings. Technical ability is great, but technically perfect and emotionally cold art isn’t speaking to me. I’m not saying that I always keep working until I have achieved absolutely everything. There is something great about unfinished paintings, too. For instance, a chance to add imaginative characteristics or continue with one’s thoughts. When painting is small, 16 x 20 inches (40.5 cm x 51 cm) inches or so, it doesn’t feel right to spend a year painting it. I sometimes return to a painting after 2-3 years.
Bright red rose, it was so beautiful that I sold it right after finishing this painting, 20 x 16 in
Therefore, it feels great becoming a rose. As we paint any petal, we build it and grow it to our liking. Although, it’s just a rose, it has it all: some hidden attraction, some mystery and some color combinations that do not always find reflection in a photo of the painting, but they do become visible when looking at the artwork in person.
Bright wild roses, sold This painting inspired to paint another one in lighter colors
There are lots and lots of objects which can be painted not even leaving our room. People sometimes say: I don’t want to paint still life, it’s boring. That’s totally wrong. That is the best exercise in painting there can be found. People who can paint or draw can paint anything and draw anything from apple to face. Still life is the shortest way to explore values, edges, color transitions and the ways we can create them. It’s the best tool to learn underpainting, sketching and blocking in the main shapes. It’s also the easiest way to learn about lines and their relationships, as well as all kinds of shadows. Therefore, we should never underestimate still life as subject, genre or way of expression.
Pink rose, acrylic painting 20 x 16 in. The background colors work very well
Mental health is as important as physical fitness, but having flexible, fast acting and flawlessly performing brain is more important than anything else. Drawing and painting are some of the best things we can do in order to increase the brain activity, improve our memory and become more confident, self-aware and efficient with making decisions. It is needless to say that drawing and painting are calming, relaxing and rewarding.
Boosting brain performance and creating more
Every line and brushstroke we put down on paper or canvas comes from the brain impulses and activity of neurons in certain parts of the brain. Your hand doesn’t move on its own, it’s guided by your perception and the ability to transform visually and sensually perceived information into individualized personal experience. This experience is reflected on paper or canvas as you draw or paint. It is a very complex process, and we tend to think there are mysterious powers involved. I sort of want to remove the magic aspect from creativity, just to keep things simple. Inspiration will add the magic, but we have to start from the basics.
Seeing and being able to recreate what you see
Most people do not see the surrounding world as an artist does. So, the first task is learning to recognize all the multiple aspects of transforming a simple visual image into art that exhibits the artistically applicable features of this image. How do we do that? What do we need to see and notice in order to paint and draw?
Echo of image in the brain
Anything we draw or paint must find some echo in the storage space of our imagination. Such space of stored images is present within any memory and it is based on associative knowledge and acquired knowledge. Anything we create always relates to our fundamental knowledge of this world. Yet, the drawing or painting we are doing has specific subject, specific theme and atmosphere. It is a scene like no other because it always presents individual features. No two apples are exactly the same, no flower copies the other one exactly line by line, not to mention faces, landscapes or complex views.
Personal experience and personal decisions
Since most people, who learn painting or drawing, believe that getting all information from the outside and simply following somebody without making their own decision will do the job, the first artworks usually do not come out that great. While we are sketching or blocking in the basic shapes or lines, we should already try to decide why everything is where it is, and why composition evolves as it does. The reason we place the objects on our paper or canvas as we do, should be based on a decision. We should also decide early and plan for effects which we create later.
Decision making is as important as application of art tools
Adding paint or other elements is always based on decision-making. We decide about values, shapes, edges, washes, and we need to apply color if it is a color painting. Our brain has to make these decisions fast. Most mediums require using relevant timing. If we hesitate too much with watercolor layering, it simply will be too late to achieve flow of watercolor that makes such painting outstanding. If we are too slow, the acrylic layer we worked on, will be already dry or tacky and we will have to return to it later.
What is blocking our ability to paint?
There are two main things which are blocking our ability to proceed with painting or drawing when somebody attends or watches a class. We believe that instructor has made all decisions for us and our task is to blindly follow and to repeat what we see; and we are trying to do everything without any knowledge of why. There is no reasoning, no decisions which arise in our own brain.
Do you know what you do?
For instance, when I ask what a particular student is doing with some particular part of the painting, a very frequent answer is: “I don’t know”. How come? You have to know why you want one part dark and how to achieve that. You have to decide whether your subject is small or large, whether it has lost edges or sharp edges. Basically, we have to decide what exactly and why exactly we want to do.
No brushstroke without goal
The biggest issue is aimless brushing around, moving paint all over the canvas or paper until any distinction is lost and everything has become the same color. That is the result of not making a decision. When we decide that clouds are large and grey, we use paint to achieve this and so on. It’s obvious that only acting based on decision can contribute to implementation of our intentions.
Art instructor is not a magician
The art instructor or art teacher isn’t a magician; they cannot affect directly and immediately the way your brain works. They hope you pay attention to what they say and demonstrate and you will make your own decisions based on this advice. However, if you do not know the answer to why, what, when and how, the progress is noticeably delayed. Therefore, I also advice doing value sketches. This does not slow down, but helps tremendously with planning and deciding on what, where and how we paint.
Decision making for other areas of life
Eventually, the decision making we learn in the classroom allows us becoming more efficient with decisions in other areas of life. Everything we do should be based on decision, not impulse and lack of thinking. We should not have to admit: I don’t know why I am doing this. Unfortunately, nobody can provide you with a dose of understanding perspective, values, shapes, contrasts, layouts and other elements as a capsule or tablet to simply swallow and apply.
