The golden flow of fall season watercolor

Fall season watercolor, golden lake view

Many of my watercolor paintings are created as demonstrations, spontaneously, without much planning. It’s difficult to know what each group or student wants, so I have to switch swiftly from one subject to another, from one color palette to the next. Fall season watercolor paintings shine through the light and numerous shades of red, burnt sienna, golden ocher, warm, deep or cool yellow shades, orange, grey, purple an so forth. Fall season watercolor paintings allow using many approaches and techniques.

Fall season watercolor, creek and trees
Autumn creek, fall season watercolor

I am sticking this time to fall season watercolor, but we have done also many new acrylic artworks. It is a good time to be indoors and immerse oneself in bright colors. I paint in layers which means I create a map of a painting with weaker tones at first and then gradually bring it to the necessary value and color temperature. None of that is visible on my photos which look mostly yellow. There’s a reason I dislike Apple and their iPhone. No chance to get true colors. I’ve tried everything, but it’s too automated to recognize all colors at once.

Fall season watercolor, creek painting

Nevertheless, the actual paintings are large (24 x 18” or 61 x 46 cm) and look quite impressive, just as required for display of the fall season watercolor versatility. I’d love to let images speak for themselves, even though photos are all wrong.

Fall season watercolor painting
Fall season watercolor painting for sale

The attendance at classes is fairly good and I have to repeat some observations. If you intend to learn painting, you have to go big. Postcard size images don’t allow to implement many things. I haven’t seen any student yet who learned painting using video tutorials and online courses. Quite the opposite – nobody knows anything about brushes, paper, how to use whatever they have and so on. There’s no knowledge of direction of light or values. We usually start from scratch. First purely basic techniques and then more complex matters.

Birch forest path painting
Birch forest path painting in watercolor, large

This time is a fantastic for observing nature. Many people try painting trees, structures and buildings, but the first step is to look at them as they are in nature or in reality and try to remember what exactly a tree looks like. There are numerous sorts of them, but none here has wider and fatter branches than the trunk. The branches thin out rewards the top. Natural things have randomness to them and it’s important to remember that nothing in nature grows equal distance apart. Basically, your subjects are everywhere and you just have to look at them.

Fall season watercolor, golden lake view
Fall landscape, watercolor painting

It’s a great season to start painting. The most gains and successes come from practice and observation. We make errors to learn from them. We learn from doing, not exactly watching. Watching gives an idea, but doing is superior to watching. Or talking, or thinking about it. Doing makes one master of the trade, so, the next step – take your brush, paints and paper and on to painting the colors of fall season!

Group art classes

Original watercolor paintings for sale

Art collections by Inese Poga

White and pink flowers – enjoy spring

White orchids, acrylic painting, orchid 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 only our personal 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.

Acrylic painting, spring magnolia
Pink spring magnolia blossoms is an acrylic painting on 20 x 16 in or 51 x 41 cm canvas, Spring mood, light colors and feeling.

I meet sometimes 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.

Acrylic painting, white magnolia
White magnolia flower is an acrylic painting on 20 x 16 in or 51 x 41 cm canvas. Bright, soft and gentle.

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.

Studio view: these paintings look amazing! Artist Inese Poga
Studio view: these paintings look amazing!

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.

Acrylic painting, Spring tulips
Pink spring tulips is an acrylic painting on 24 x 20 in or 61 x 51 cm.

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.

White orchids, acrylic painting
White orchids is an acrylic painting on 24 x 20 in or 61 x 51 cm canvas.

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.

Thanks for reading!

Accept the fall gratefully

accept fall

The fall is here

Just like birds, I will take off tomorrow. I won’t go south; however, I will go east, to Latvia. Whether we like it or not, September is soon over, and October will come with its gold to soothe and comfort our aching souls because, oh well, we are heading towards the winter. Eventually, snow silver will cover the rusty golden sparkles, and our feet will be walking the icy and cold sidewalks of freezing town and city roads. I love the colors of autumn, just like we all do! It is such an injustice that this beauty disappears so fast. Nevertheless, it is a great time to capture and enjoy the fantastic colors. Regardless of personal preferences, nature’s cycles are inevitable.

Fall art projects

I kept working on some projects and I also tried to bring to finish the class project: the distant blue background and the lonely tree. Pumpkins are going to be uploaded to Fine Art America; maybe somebody will like them as greeting cards or other products: there are so many now that I cannot even list them all.

Looking forward to my time in Latvia

I will try to report about my adventures in Latvia since I have a new laptop. Laptop is fine, I would not say I’m very excited about Windows 10, it came with so much abusive stuff which I never intend to use that it takes me hours and hours to adjust my settings for my personal needs.

Alone, acrylic painting by Inese Poga
Alone: lonely tree; 20 x 24 in acrylic painting, it was sold to Brenda. Thanks, Brenda!

Pumpkin for Thanksgiving, 20 x 24, in acrylic painting, art by Inese Poga
Pumpkin for Thanksgiving, 20 x 24, in acrylic painting

High above,  acrylic painting, 20 x 24 in by Inese Poga, sold
High above, acrylic painting, 20 x 24 in by Inese Poga, sold

Under the autumn sky: 30 x 42 in acrylic painting by Inese Poga
Under the autumn sky: 30 x 42 in acrylic painting

Painting tip for students

If you would like to paint some fall scenery, put the color you want to use exactly on a spot where you want it. Do not keep brushing the paint around for so long that everything becomes the same color. This is easy using a feather-like, light brushstroke. It is like running on a spot: you just use the flat and wide side of the brush with light motion, so that it mostly is parallel to canvas surface.

Enjoy the sunny fall days and survive patiently the dullness of rains and chills of winds!

The new http://inesepogalifeschool.com/ post is about trusting  oneself and relying on ourselves:

http://inesepogalifeschool.com/2015/09/21/seasons-change-why-not-to-change-something-in-our-life-as-well/