Creation as art therapy

Colors for art therapy

Harmony and balance – main goal of creation as art therapy

To regain harmony, balance and self-fulfillment, many people are trying to find simple ways to cure their stresses and change the rushed lifestyle in nowadays unforgiving world. The most healing, as well as most accessible path is using creation as art therapy. You don’t have to be an artist to find huge satisfaction, calmness and feeling whole again since creation of art, painting, drawing, sketch is already art therapy. If you never tried, maybe you should do that right now while it’s cold and not that great outdoors.

The healing potential of creation as art therapy

The healing aspect of creation is based on the idea that it involves mind, soul, emotions, feelings, activation of memory pathways, harmonizing movements of hand with brush or pencil, thus, stimulating self-expression, intuition and getting in contact with person’s inner self. All of that gives us a chance to free ourselves from never ending stresses, being in competition with everybody else, and getting rid of emotional blocks. The other aspects of creation of art are ability to focus, improvement of memory and decision making.

Relaxing creativity

Creation as art therapy involves fantastic relaxing potential. Especially, if you prefer using color as the main feature in art. The colors we feel as ours, disclose the subconscious state of our mind and lead to transforming experience. Creation of art involves all of our brain processes, and that manifests as a healing effect and feeling of inner balance. Participation in art classes is one way to facilitate the creativity and learn how to implement it in our life.

Power of colors

Each color possesses unique energy which affects us. Working with colors releases different energies. For painting, we usually go either with color of our subject and reference, or choose it intuitively which is what I do most often. Choice of color can be frequently subconscious – we feel attracted to some colors and avoid using others. The same goes for subjects which we feel are ours.

Blue and green – colors of life and harmony

Blue color calms and facilitates peacefulness decreasing stress and anxiety. Look at the blue sky, which represents endless calm. We surely can paint sky and water as blue as we want. Green color symbolizes the energy of nature, harmony and balance, healing and increasing the feeling of the inner calm. Green color means life and renewal, just like in spring everything comes back to life. Green is dominant in nature during spring and summer, it’s the most healing color, the best art therapy.

Orange and red for passion

Orange color is the color of enthusiasm, living energy and creative intentions, it gives us vitality, helping to open our mind to new ideas. Red color activates our energy, power and passion, especially passion to live and create. Red color also can be a manifestation of subdued emotions and inner restlessness. I have rarely used only red, orange or yellow, but these colors are very essential for fall landscapes where they are represented in abundance.

Yellow for joy, purple for magic

Yellow color is associated with joy, self-awareness, mental clarity, it facilitates positive attitude and perception. Yellow brightens our space and sparkles up feeling of pleasure in our mind. Having different shades of good quality yellow paint is absolutely crucial for any painting. Purple is color of spirituality, intuition and depth of soul. Color of mystery and magic. I have rarely used purple as a dominant color, but it’s useful for softening green. Purple has its place in art therapy.

White and black

White means clarity and purity, new beginnings. White is unavoidable in art. We need to brighten and lighten other colors, and pure white is very important for watercolor and acrylic painting. Black color represents completeness and strongly indicates value, shape and form in art. I don’t use black color in watercolor at all, but as a mixing component in acrylic. Strong indication of values is important in any painting.

Painting, creating and using colors

When we create a painting, we rarely use paint straight from the tube. It’s important our painting has light and dark values and warm and cold colors. Therefore, most often it is a mix of colors and different shades. Yet, the overall impression usually shows a tendency towards some particular color palette, like I love combining all kinds of green with blue, white and yellow. Fresh and uplifting, at the same time, emotionally loaded and peaceful. Fall paintings have numerous red, orange, yellow and mixed shades. Saturated colors, warm, bright and vibrant.

Different preferences

I have written before about my grey and subdued color periods, as well as blue, green and red. Over time, the perception of color becomes very refined. The color choice usually reflects the mood of that time. Grey looks fantastic in art. Sometimes less color makes painting much better. However, there are seasons when I feel I need the brightness, the strong, bold colors. Nobody says we have to stick to something one. In art, we experiment, explore and test. Time spent painting becomes meditation and art therapy.

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New painting season and art classes

Fall landscape paintings

New painting season to match changes in nature

As the seasons change and the fall makes us feel its presence, a new painting season starts. I switch from summer projects to abundance of sparkling colors and more autumnal subjects. For students who take the brush in their hands for the first time and for experienced artists, it is a great moment to submerge oneself into this fantastic experience of creation. The nostalgic feel of something going away, the thoughtfulness of nature preparing for sleep, the dance of leaves in the backyard and harvest on the table: this is an never ending inspiration for poets and artists alike.

Wide choice of medium and subject options

The new painting season is going to be rich in colors and painting subjects. All media capture fall colors well. Watercolor does it with bright washes and brilliance of pure color, like the transparent fall sky and the gold and red of leaves. Acrylic allows for numerous layers, thus polishing the painting to a perfect fall art. We can use pastel and pencil also, why not? I hope I and my current students will create something impressive. We already welcomed the new painting season with the first set of acrylic painting classes.

New season of painting classes

Painting classes have always been popular. I used to have participants who attended my painting classes every week, month after month, and so for quite a few years. That was before the online classes and tutorials started to take over the internet space. The advantage of art class as opposed to tutorial or paint night is very significant: art classes teach you to use tools, explore surfaces, many techniques, as well as painting and drawing subjects. The goal of art classes is to teach you to become independent and to be able to paint or draw anything afterwards.

The story told by trees

During this new painting season, we will allow trees to tell their story, allow the brush to dance on canvas. We will use sponge and fan brush because that’s a very fantastic way to capture fall nature. One just needs to know how to go about that and what colors and in what sequence to use. I love watercolor, I love acrylic painting, and there’s nothing wrong with color sketch or simple ink or pencil drawing. However, the new painting season will be devoted to new type of art which will shine not only through composition, color choices, but also new approaches and techniques.

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Spring color palette

Spring color palette private art classes

Spring color palette with grey

I am impatiently waiting for spring, and while it is still cold, windy and cold with snow covering most of the soil outdoors, I paint spring. I paint spring using my spring color palette which is pretty much always the same. My spring color palette includes different grey tones, as well, but camera cannot keep up with my soft color transitions and frequently sees grey as blue. I hope, the spring color palette can be perceived as you look at my paintings on your device. As we well know, any device has its own settings, thus, impacting heavily what one sees.

Color palette also changes

I have had many favorite color stretches over many decades while painting. I have had totally grey phases, and very blue, very green and bright multicolor painting periods also. As an artist, I never stay the same because everything changes and our hate-love relationship with colors changes, as well. I love balanced color palette and use it whenever possible. Phone camera wasn’t designed to get things look real, but rather enhance everything. It also destroys correct perspective regardless of how you adjust it.

Imagination at work

Spring color palette is vivid and rebirth-affirming. I’m very sure if you live in different climates, your color palette is quite distinctive from mine. I don’t paint mountains or oceans, just because I don’t see them here. I also don’t rely on photos, but rather on imagination and visual memory. That makes things easier for me. Simplicity which excites is a good term to describe these paintings.

Saturated colors

The old house was painted in 2018. Apparently, watercolor works much better on thick Arches watercolor paper. Layering colors is easier and the entire painting has more saturated values. Pictures which I took with iPhone back then, are rather dark and some look even blurry. I should get new pictures of all paintings which I still have, but that’s too much of work and too much of re-posting and editing. I did, however, take new pictures of the old rural house.

Old house watercolor painting in spring colors, 20 x 16 in or 51 x 41 cm

Still grey and Road into distance paintings

Still grey with birch tree and the Road into distance are new watercolor paintings. They are created using the same color palette, but I couldn’t get a good image of the large one, the Road into distance painting, It’s a fantastic, large size watercolor with beautiful color transitions. I would say, it has gentle and soft spring colors and all values are simply perfect. If you ever happen to be in Ajax, Ontario, you could stop by and see with your own eyes how no picture can ever match the original painting.

Road into distance, 24 x 18 in or 61 x 46 cm watercolor painting

If you just started painting with watercolor

If you just started using watercolor, always test your colors. Nowadays, the color name alone doesn’t mean much. I have 3 Payne’s grey paints from different manufacturers, and they range from rather blue to very black color. The same goes for Sap green and Green gold. Burnt sienna and Raw sienna are very different colors from different manufacturers. All blue colors can be anything. Yellow is usually quite weak color from the student grade sets.

Still gre, spring landscape painting with birch, watercolor

What you can do on your watercolor paper

You should also test watercolor paper. It’s not advisable using anything lighter than 140 lb for watercolor painting. Non-cotton paper generally buckles, warps and doesn’t absorb neither water, nor pigment. Therefore, you cannot expect watercolor wash to be perfect, adjust it with paper towel. If there’s too much water on such paper, it settles down at the lowest point due to gravity and you see the “blooms” which look good in abstract art, but wrong in improper area. It’s very easy to lift paint from non-cotton paper. It’s easier for beginners because you can correct many aspects of your painting.

Don’t expect the same outcome

Cotton paper, like Arches allows achieving fantastic washes. It absorbs paint and pigment, therefore, one needs to plan painting. You can stretch and soak it before painting or use water on it before you start painting. I didn’t use Arches this time, but Strathmore 400 series paper. Getting paint on it is more difficult than lifting it. The number of layers is limited. If you use Arches (at least 140 lb. paper), number of layers is quite unlimited. Arches 300 lb. paper doesn’t buckle at all. It’s like wood, thick, firm and allows using and creating great effects. It’s very expensive at the moment, though.

Thanks, talk to you later in spring again! This post is different, thanks for reading!

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Painting without restrictions, spring landscape

Painting in progress, Highland creek landscape

Being in spring landscape

What to do during the dull and dark February days? Probably, just keep painting. Acrylic painting is a bit more difficult with heating on, but it is also very rewarding. I pick myself up and place in the middle of spring. We used to go for walks along the Highland creek which offers attractive views and many varieties of trees, wild plants, chance to watch animals, jump over rocks and rushing water. Creek is wide in the middle part and water stays quite still in some spots. This is like mental transition in time and to another place. Thus, spring landscape is born.

Central part of Highland creek flood water painting

Imaginated reality

As you know, art has no restrictions. That includes the painting subject, colors we use, parts we paint and parts we don’t. I’m usually not that worried about how realistic something looks when painted. There must be some joy and fun put into every brushstroke. I usually paint as I see something in my head. When I look at empty canvas, I can easily visualize what is going to be there, in this spring landscape for instance. Similar to when we have a piece of fabric and we can imagine how the ready outfit will look. Imagination has no borders, too.

Top part of Highland creek flood water painting

Spring landscape as painting subject

This Highland creek flood water painting was done for the private art classes. I thought spring landscape was very fitting since we can paint much less of it or add much more to any part. We can leave the distant part completely abstract. Well, my student was impatient and here and there jumped over the gradual steps which processing an acrylic painting requires. My demo steps got jumpy, too, but, nevertheless, this painting was brought to completion just a few days ago. What you are seeing, however, is not the painting, but images of it. I straggled getting all parts of it onto pictures.

See painting steps above

Getting correct colors in acrylic painting

What’s most important for me personally, is whether the mood in an artwork can move us, inspire us, make us want to be there, in that place which doesn’t actually exist in the real world. I am trying to also teach my students patience and correct use of acrylic paints. While any wet acrylic painting might look perfectly right, it will definitely dry darker. The weaker the paint we use, the darker our painting might become. I regret noticing how Liquitex heavy body professional grade paints have lost some of their quality over years. That refers to Titanium white and yellow shades.

Close-up of front part

The usual acrylic painting principles

Regardless of our artistic intention, we always work from dark to light in acrylic, always from underneath upwards, always from back to front. With heating on, acrylic paint can dry immediately, therefore, we glaze separate parts and work in small segments. The lore layers acrylic painting has, the better it will look. That especially refers to the moment when somebody sees the actual painting in person. I sometimes go over even the final layers if the paint has become too dull in some spots.

Highland creek flood water, acrylic painting 24 x 18″ or 61 x 46 cm

Place yourself in this spring landscape

I hope you love this spring landscape and its mood. I believe you’d hear birds singing and water rushing over wet rocks and grasses if you are able to forget the surroundings for a moment and be immersed in this painting. It’s in great size, not too huge, not too tiny, 24 x 18″ or 61 x 46 cm. The steep vertical format adds a good quality to this spring landscape and pushes compositionally important elements close to the viewer.

Just like always, thanks if you read my post! I intend to catch up with likes and comments.

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Art studio highlights of 2022

Inese's Art Studio

My art studio experienced numerous changes in 2022. First of all: the move which started with packing already in February. By the middle of March, I started adapting and adjusting the available space for art studio needs. By any means, it wasn’t easy. It’s needless to say that neither painting, nor art classes couldn’t start until May, I believe. If you have ever packed up and then unpacked a large art studio with numerous artworks and countless tools, brushes, paint tubes and paint sets, papers of all kinds and so forth, you probably know that it is a very complex undertaking.

I paint spring during winter months, and 2022 was no exception. It is very inspiring and self-explanatory for me to go with the change of seasons, except, I am trying to be always ahead. The adjusted and new spring paintings were published in February. Trillium blooms are fantastic subject, and white color on its own makes painting alive.

Art studio, spring creek

The first painting I painted in the new studio was a fairly large early spring landscape (above) with lots of trees. I do love trees, I watch them, observe and to me they feel like live beings. I frequently use textures on canvas for more impact and strong statement. The horizontal Apple tree landscape was also finished soon.

I moved to garden and abstracted landscape paintings afterwards. That was done because of art classes and since every class needs a demo, I bring to finished stage some of them. That is how Colors of garden and Colors of summer came to life.

Summer flew by swiftly, working in the garden and giving numerous private classes in drawing. Teaching drawing isn’t easy also since regardless of what I explain and how much I show, it is the student who moves their hand with pencil. I haven’t taken photos of all drawings and sketches, but there were numerous, and we do large drawings in order to reveal all important aspects.

I took new photos of previous paintings, and some have never been published before. I find that only featured image on WordPress is sharp and correct while the images contained within the post look somewhat off. Anyway, numerous pictures were taken and lots of hours spent on making them look like the real painting.

Then came preparations for my 5-week long solo art show at Ajax Community Centre. Any show means work and feeling not good sort of interfered with that. Anyway, some art required touch-up and more layers of protective medium and some art was painted specifically for the fall show. Two times this year, my step-by-step demonstrations ran in the magazine which is devoted to art in the Greater Toronto Area. My art studio is doing fine, but not enough.

This year was complicated in many regards. It’s impossible to say whether good or bad. I still need to do better next year. While I have created many new paintings in acrylic watercolor, ink and graphite, I will try to incorporate myself more into the local community, gain more attention and be more present on the art scene. My art studio is set up now, and everything has found its place. Well, all it takes is more work, more motivation and simply – more luck and opportunity.

Wishing everybody a successful and pleasant New Year! I hope it won’t disappoint.