Last-minute gifts: one of a kind and personalized
Celebrate in style: art that suits any taste, first featured painting
Celebrate in style
Celebrate in style includes my creations which I will post as frequently as I can taking into account that every painting takes between 6-8 hours a day. I also create decorations for display at store front. Plenty of very attractive three-dimensional paintings and gift paintings are available every holiday season from my art studio.
Winter trees under snow: great subject
Such art can be a great gift or a fantastic decoration. Winter trees are so adorable, and when the first snow is falling getting into the holiday and Christmas spirit is easy. Having this simple, yet beautiful tree on a wall is also a pleasure. I finished painting this tree image set and I could not stop enjoying and looking at it.
Idea and its implementation
The idea comes from the internet. I saw somebody had painted simple outlines and text on the wood, and I really liked the idea of creating such beautiful look. I just had to figure out how to achieve this without wood. I simply did not have any, especially suitable pieces. Well, I usually create what I do not have. The wood textures are painted on a regular canvas panel. This painting has touchable and visible texture, it even feels like wood.
December painting workshops
We will have workshop on December 9th. If you are not that far and reside in Durham region, Ontario, you certainly could take part and paint something similar for your own pleasure. Please apply here: Art classes
Rustic and cozy style
This time, I am featuring a rustic Christmas tree painting that goes well with rustic style. This painting is acrylic and texture medium on 20 x 16 in canvas (or 51 x 41 cm). The background imitates wood, and it is also painted around the edges, so it does not need any frame. Extra textured tree with beautiful snowflakes, I hope you love it!
Let us celebrate in style this year! It is nice to have something original on the wall. It is absolutely ok to create something when we cannot buy it. Enjoy and let me know if I can ship this wonderful rustic tree painting to you!
How to choose art classes
Many benefits of art classes
Many people who feel attracted to art, sign up for art and painting classes in the fall. Certainly, days are getting shorter and the weather gradually changes from very pleasant to quite nasty, rainy and chilly. I will not list all advantages of joining an art class or painting group this time because I’ve been mentioning them multiple times, and there are so many: from building your confidence and self-esteem and finding a great thing to fill up the long nights to effects similar to meditation which allow one floating away from daily troubles and problems, to mental fitness and rejuvenation of brain cells. The created art becomes just another gain along the way.
Choosing an art class that suits your preferences
When choosing an art class, you should first check out what art instructor does. What are his or her favorite subjects, style, colors, approach? If you generally do not like such art as instructor is doing, you most likely will not enjoy it. For instance, if instructor is insisting on copying photos, you most likely will not be learning how to paint abstracts; or if she or he never do portrait painting, it is unlikely the class will provide with portrait painting skills.
Size matters
Make sure the size of group somewhat works with you. I hear people complaining that they signed up for an art class and never got any attention, therefore, never learned anything. Well, if a weekly art class is 2 hours long and there are 20 or even more students in the classroom, how would you get a lot of attention? You can count on about 5 minutes of individual instruction in the best case because no instructor can run around the class while they are demonstrating technique. It is obvious that you have to choose a small art class if you require much advice or want very individual approach.
Level class is designed for
Find out what level this art class is for. If class is intended for advanced painters, , but you are just starting out, you will not be able to catch up with others. Beginner is somebody, who hasn’t done at least 200 small size paintings or 150 larger paintings.
Realistic expectations
Next thing is: be realistic in expectations. That is probably the most overlooked aspect of any art class or studies of creative things. Learning how to use tools takes time. Although, everybody has seen a painting brush and quite frequently people have tried using it, it does not mean that you know what correct brushstroke is. Any brush (they come in very many sizes, shapes and are made from all kinds of materials) can be used for very specific things and also for very general approaches. That depends also on your personal preferences, medium and subject.
Art supplies
Materials are an extremely important thing for an art class, so, the best results will definitely be achieved using good quality materials straight from the beginning. I have heard this often: I’m just learning, so I will use the cheapest materials for now. Well, that might not work at all because using bad materials can easily become a torture and nuisance. Sometimes students struggle with bad watercolor paper and they think they are doing something wrong, but, in fact, it is the paper which prevents from getting acceptable results.
Your own art supplies
Equally important is also having your own materials. It might seem: what’s the difference? The answer is: there is a huge difference between paints, brushes, canvas, papers, pencils and even erasers, not to mention that is one of the most important aspects of learning. Tools matter, surface matters, paints and brands matter. There is no other way to become familiar with some materials in particular as using them.
Be motivated
The most important part is to sign up for something that you feel interested in. One should also be prepared to learn, practice and memorize things, be spontaneous, courageous, daring and fearless, as well as have enough personal time for not feeling rushed.
Fall nature and still life
I always work harder on pictures than actual paintings.
Colors in context images are much more like in reality.
I loved them, I hope it becomes a source of pleasure for you, too.
This is the updated painting
Clear white apples, available
Art classes, schedule and registration
Enjoy!
How does it feel to become a rose?
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
Learn drawing and painting: Group art classes
How to create better art with less effort
Everything requires effort
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:
Attraction of drawing and Overcoming painting issues
Lack of values, proportions and contrast
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.
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.
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.
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.