This post about painting blooming grasses and trees has been waiting to be published for more than a month. I love painting, taking it slowly, going over layers. I definitely love it when I see something emerging from the blocked in color spots and fairly abstract shapes. It’s interesting to see where the painting takes me. I have little motivation for posting my art and showing it off on the internet.
The painting process is beautiful, it’s so rewarding, calming and uplifting. It’s also therapeutic and soothing, very beneficial to our brain flexibility and memory. Why do I believe that painting attractive landscapes, floral and still life paintings can cure us from daily troubles and upset moods? I have seen that happening thousands of times. AI painting can get you many likes, but the only type of art which benefits our brain is the one we create from scratch.
This particular painting was started in March 2024. I took it to some stage of completeness, but it wasn’t finished for the most part. The previous year was a bad one, therefore, I hardly did anything apart from reading in bed. I picked it up this February from where I had left it. There is actually nothing wrong with letting a painting or drawing rest. The only risk is we might not ne interested in it after a year.
Since I believed it had potential, I kept working. A beautiful landscape emerged, and it was sparkling with light. I doubt I’ve gotten this all on photos. I can get the picture yellow, blue or green, but not what the actual painting is. It still looks great. The size of this painting is 24 x 18” or 61 x 46 cm. The composition works well for this size and trees shadow the juicy front grasses.
Enjoy the mood of this painting while it’s still grey outside!
Art prints in numerous sizes and with huge selection of frames and surfaces
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.
As you probably know, it isn’t easy to restart anything after a long absence. My health took a big blow, so I am just starting out again. This time, I decided to make my return with a flower painting on Arches cotton paper. As always, it’s quite large since I completely dislike painting tiny art. I have still some issues, therefore, I am limiting my painting activities to 2-3 hours a day. The flower painting took me about 6 days.
12 years in making
There’s no doubt, cotton paper is the easiest paper to paint on, yet, it has become extremely expensive. Many of my watercolor paintings are drawing-based. I don’t aim for copying the reality, but I want my subject to be recognizable and having some emotional impact. I had begun this particular painting with a drawing which I did some 12 years ago. The paper is good and why to waste it? While I had no other reference, but only the drawing, I still tried to figure out how to proceed progressing slowly and cautiously.
Painting in layers
I usually paint in layers, especially when it comes to complex subject with many parts. Since I don’t have a photo or the actual flowers, the first layers help me understand what and where to place and what colors to use. I make my drawing very light in order the graphite pencil wouldn’t shine through too much. Every subsequent layer will add more vibrance and increase the value intensity wherever necessary.
Color temperature and values
Not only flower painting in watercolor, but also any other complex subject we paint, benefits from coordination of color temperature and values. I certainly start out light, just because I don’t know exactly where what should be. In this case, I also leaved the background white for a while. The paper I am using isn’t the bright white, but somewhat off-white. Nevertheless, colors shine and make sense.
Choosing warm and cool colors
Beautiful soft colors for attractive flower painting. I used a few red tones and also quite a few yellow shades for the most important areas. The green colors are a combination of blue, Payne’s grey and different shades of yellow and green. I normally allow colors mixing on paper, but sometimes I need strong pure color to add the vibrancy. You probably won’t notice on photos much difference in warm and cold colors, and iPhone doesn’t like light colors making them practically white.
Flower painting that soothes
I intentionally kept everything rather calm and soft. I think the slight shades of background help. I am very satisfied with the finished painting and not that much with the photos of it. When viewing art online, you have to always remember that there are numerous devices and apps involved. Also, large painting online looks exactly like the small ones, but in reality, that makes all the difference. I hope this flower painting will make you feel good and calm just like it helped me to overcome pain and health issues.
Watercolor is a medium we can use in hundreds of different ways. What we create and how it looks depends largely on technique we apply. While many of my watercolors look carefully worked out, I often start painting with just randomly washing some paint onto watercolor paper. I posted my spring palette colors in the previous article. For spring paintings, I am using a limited palette:
Payne’s grey
French ultramarine
Brilliant yellow
Burnt sienna
Burnt umber
Gold ochre
Leaf green
It’s possible, however, to create numerous color tones using these paints. They work well together and with decent application of water, there’s no mud. I will work on floral spontaneous watercolors next, and I am adding magenta and carmine for these.
Allowing paint and water to work
While the paint application is extremely loose, I still have some idea. Washes look great when painting treescapes and paintings with abstract water. This is a technique which perfectionists might not like. We simply allow colors to mix and flow as they please. It’s a myth that watercolor painting cannot be adjusted or changed. One just needs to know how to do that.
Lifting paint
I think many watercolor artists use too less of paint lifting technique. For paint lifting, large brush with pointy tip is very useful. My main brush is Luke number 14, round. Along with simple lifting, I implement one more step: lifting with very liquid other color. It’s a fantastic, but unpredictable process. It’s also fun, and I love this technique because it allows me adding definition to subject. Lifting paint is an essential technique for spontaneous watercolor my-style.
Non-cotton paper has its uses
Lifting automatically takes care of the negative space. When to lift and where to add paint depends on our personal preference and feel. For this technique, cotton paper is not the best option. Non-cotton watercolor paper makes lifting paint an easy step. In fact, it’s way easier to lift paint from some thick non-cotton papers than to add an extra layer. I am using for these paintings Strathmore 400 series paper. It requires flattening afterwards. All non-cotton watercolor papers must be weight-pressed after application of water and paint since they become uneven.
Multi-step process
While people ask when I will have online art classes, I must say, I probably won’t. Things I am writing about most often cannot be shown online. One must see the actual process in order to understand how we create loose, spontaneous watercolor painting and add the touch of reality to it. The process involves drying paper and restarting wet-on-wet, then adding dry paint, then lifting more and so on. It takes about 6-8 hours to paint one artwork. I have spent about 3 days in average on each painting.
Testing paints
Spontaneous watercolor works great for people who just want to explore what their paper and paints can do. Check compatibility of colors before you start painting. Water takes care of lot of things with loose watercolor painting, but there are colors which will destroy the flow and cause unpleasant muddy shades. To avoid that, learn what your paints do. My paints are rich in pigments, all artist grade. I never use white or black colors, as well as, I don’t even have masking fluid. These paintings consist only of watercolor paint on paper.
Give it a try
Want to try this approach? No better time than now. This means absolute freedom, you don’t need any photos to follow, but having an idea is helpful. I love using the earth colors togethers with blue and green. Burnt sienna adds a bit of red tint. Simplicity is beautiful; however, I’ve never been a minimalist in any regard. That goes for any of my paintings. Well, we can stop working whenever it feels right.
On TV, they were talking about winter blues. How this dull and wet January weather makes people feel down and upset. Our mind tells us that spring is far away, and to make everything worse, the sky cries with us. Bright and sunny watercolor art is my personal cure, my response to mood swings and upset mind. I paint the places where I want to be and flowers which will start in April or May.
Uplifting creativity
Not all people are artists, but many have paint sets at their disposal. Brushing bright, sunny colors on paper or canvas makes a big difference. It’s an immersive activity which allows to create our own imagined reality, very distinctive from the current settings. This year has been tough so far, so taking our mind off the painful and upsetting matters is vitally important.
New large-sizewatercolor art
All of these watercolor paintings are the same size – 24 x 18 inches or 61 x 46 cm. Well, to express ourselves, we need space. Tiny paper just won’t do that for you. It’s not cotton paper I used for these paintings. All of our art stores are closed now, and that leaves online shopping which I dislike. Paper is a very important part of watercolor painting, and each paper acts differently. This paper allows lifting paint easily, but it’s very problematic when adding paint layers.
Spring pansies, 24 x 18″ watercolorpainting
Watercolor painting with pansies was started in the winter of 2021. So, it sat in a folder until I decided to add a few layers of paint and finish it up. Photos show way more white space, and I just cannot do anything about it. That’s how phone camera acts when there are white or light areas. Just imagine more purple and pink color on blooms because that’s how they look. Anyway, pansy blooms make a great subject in all regards. Use any color, any number and view of blooms.
Early spring flood, 24 x 18″ watercolorpainting
The Early spring flood is based on views around our place. It’s a painting where you just throw on colors – Payne’s grey, Cobalt blue, Burnt sienna, Green gold, some yellow and Burnt umber. This all mixes itself on paper and then we swipe clean the areas which we would prefer to be white. We outline the trees, add leaves, wash on more color and sprinkle with a little of leaf green.
Watercolor wash and color
It is much easier to create watercolor paint washes on cotton paper, but if you don’t have it, any firm and thick watercolor paper will do. It needs to be thick and heavy since thin paper just rolls off and buckles. It was tricky to get any pictures of this painting since I don’t have good photographing light, and it’s been cloudy and very dark almost every single day. I love the dreamy quality of this painting, although I couldn’t get it on pictures. Colors are balanced – I used warm and cool shades to create the early spring mood.
Sunny spring creek, 24 x 18″ watercolorpainting
I started the Spring creek painting (one more!) for a private art class last spring. It was half-done, just as many of art classes paintings are. It took me a while to get back to it, but I am very satisfied with the play of colors and placement of details. This painting is done with Cobalt and Brilliant blue, Burnt umber, burnt sienna, Lemon and Cadmium yellow, as well as Raw sienna and Sap green and little bit of Payne’s grey. This painting involves quite many layers.
Bright and happy art reality
I’d say these paintings show a very bright and happy place and that’s where I reside when I don’t have to deal with daily chores and other issues. It’s a perfect escape from daily routines, a perfect way to beat the winter blues. I think it’s time to write a new guidance for beginning artists. Trust me, tutorials cannot teach much about painting as such since it’s always something a particular person prefers and does. When we learn paint, we decide on everything – style, colors and subject, but tutorial requires to simply follow and copy.
I hope you’re dealing well with everything which comes your way. Spring will arrive eventually. Thanks for reading!
