Tag: inspiration

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Artistic freedom and risks taking to a higher level of ourselves

Artistic freedom

Making time

How to make time slow down and stop for a moment? I have the answer, but unfortunately, this doesn’t help me getting done everything. We can capture a moment in a painting, and we can capture the scene we are drawing or painting, thus, registering our feelings, emotions and impressions of time. I believe doing our best can be not enough sometimes, but that is the only result we are able to keep.

Well-organized workspace

My classroom just got a face-lift. There are so many flaws with easels which are sold at the art store that I had to finally get to the issue and design my own easels for classroom. They are extremely light and perfectly stable; nothing dances around, falls off or turns over. They allow painting when sitting and when standing. That took a while, and thanks to my husband and his skills, we have these easels working well now. I had to make also some smaller things like cardboard trays to organize the workspace better. Workspace has to be easily approachable and clean.

Art studio

Limited art supplies

We shouldn’t try using the entire art store. I counted last night; we need 10 paint tubes at most. We can paint very well with just 8 or even 5 colors. That means we learn mixing up colors. We normally won’t be using 6 or more brushes during a few hours. Most often, we can perfectly paint acrylic with just one medium size flat brush. Watercolor requires 2 brushes, but not 10 either. I can understand why somebody tries to take everything to the class: it’s called just in case. The negative aspect of too many tools and supplies is that it causes confusion. Especially when somebody is starting out, they won’t even know what each brush does.

Art studio

Practice, practice, practice 

We had a fantastic group painting today. I have 3 hour painting sessions on Saturdays. We start on blank canvas and at the end of these 3 hours we usually have something to show for. I loved that nobody was disappointed because sometimes people imagine they can go within 3 hours from never painted before to mastering painting That does not happen, so, I am very happy with people who have reasonable expectations.

No fear and relaxed state of mind

Creation of art has to be fun and relaxing activity. When I hear people saying I am afraid, I am really wondering how so? I can imagine how one is afraid from a surgery, even dentist, test or a job interview which can change the entire life. What is the worst that can happen when we paint something not as we think we should? With acrylic, nothing at all. We will need a bit more paint and possibly time to start that particular spot from new.  Most likely, that is why people who love taking risks have very good results. Once we get over the barrier we placed in front of ourselves, we are fine. I wouldn’t even call this courage. I’d rather call this: pleasure to experiment, take plunges into unknown and experience freedom.

Artistic freedom

Abstracted painting in acrylic, red flowers

Artistic freedom

Artistic freedom is like no other freedom and it is the most uplifting one. When somebody tells me there are very many rules in art, I’d like to disagree. There is no other person who can see and experience the reality in the same way we do. Why our imagination and creative potential should be then squeezed in some kind of frame of regulations? It shouldn’t. Any other freedom comes paired with duties and obligations. Artistic freedom of creative self-expression is a completely alone standing freedom. There are tips and tricks, and common sense how to get painting done faster, better, more efficiently. Art and creativity allow creating a new world every single time we take the brush or pencil in our hand.

Artistic freedom

Painting poppies, acrylic painting workshop

My popular art classes

I believe, many people like my approach, so my art groups have grown a lot. My space is limited to 12 participants, but I prefer not more than 10 artists for acrylic class. Everybody starting out in art should not take it too seriously, but enjoy and have fun. You’ll find out over time how nicely everything falls in place. The above does not refer to people who make their living with art. That is a hard work, one of the hardest I know.

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Art loaded with uplifting and positive energy

Positive energy art

Just good and positive energy

Positive energy is a big part of my art. We all probably used to have sense of energy and its vibrations, just like animals and birds still do. There are energy-sensitive people, people who do not feel or recognize any energy flow, but experience it subconsciously, and people, who are unable to perceive any energy at all, even though, they are just like everybody else affected by it.

With good thoughts

I paint implementing lots of positive energy in my creations, it’s not only because I cannot make myself draw or paint gruesome, terrifying or evil subjects and scenes, but mainly because that is who I am: a medium for converting the great energy from the impressive nature scenes, flowers, still life subjects into the sensitively perceivable feeling of good vibrations. I doubt this could be felt through the internet images or prints since these are copies of copies. I know that people, who look physically at my paintings in person can experience such strong, good impact.

Red poppies, positive energy

Red as energy carrier

I have painted numerous red flowers as commissions – poppies, wild roses and similar floral paintings on request of people, who can sense energy and are able to recognize it. Some of them have placed my paintings in the entrance hall to prevent bad luck and bad energy from entering their personal living space. I know a couple, who hang a flower painting of mine at the upper staircase overlooking the entire stair, and they told everything became much better and better in their life since that.

Pink magnolias, positive energy

Take it from subject

Some people wanted red flowers for their living rooms and some for bedrooms as an energy carrier for passion and love. I believe any appropriate place is good, and these paintings work well because I have puts lots of positive energy into them. I take it from the beauty of objects to be painted, and these paintings become a shield to stop the flow of disturbing energy.

Purple pansies, acrylic painting

Let energy flow

When it comes to positive energy, its flow in a room or in any space matters a lot. Color matters and the subject is important also. Therefore, I’d advise to use for personal space only such paintings, art and items that enable the flow of positive energy, not block it.

Positive energy from flower field

There’s nothing which makes a room look more cozy than good art. If you want to take the easy path, certainly you can go with color splash and abstract art or no color at all. However, since I always have many paintings in just one room, I can tell that the colors do not disturb and art which displays recognizable subject looks fantastic. It might take more time to decide what exactly to hang on your walls, but there’s no limitation of choices.

Blue bells and white birch

Art which releases positive energy and good vibes is usually sold. My art sells the best when people can experience its impact in person. Many of paintings which you see in this post are sold. It makes me happy that somebody else find my art so appealing that they wish to have it in their homes.

Acrylic painting, summer painting

Finally, a very large painting from 2014: the Nostalgia gardens. It was sold also. There are definitely more and new paintings to enjoy, to purchase and have the positive energy always with you.

Positive energy art

I hope you enjoyed! I would appreciate a lot if you stopped by at the art studio in downtown Whitby, Ontario to have a look at original paintings and at FFA online site to check out all  art products.

Art collections by Inese Poga

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Please accept these lovely flowers

Spring daffodils, watercolor painting

Flowers are nature’s mysterious beauty that is so easy to reach, to enjoy and to give as a gift.

Where do flowers come from?

From happiness.

How did they get their fragrance?

From love.

How can they be so beautiful?

God allowed them to use any color and any shape to remind us

Beauty is timeless but lasts for a short while.

I hope all moms received plenty of flowers today. They are a thing of extraordinary beauty, and they can say everything without words, just like art.

I also hope you are showing your love to your mom while there is still time enough, and you are not too late with your “I love you mom!”

It is so easy to love a small child; it takes more than superficial attraction to love genuinely very old people. To understand them and to appreciate, and to be grateful they are with us. Moms of people who belong to my generation are getting close to 90.

Thankfully, my mom is still doing lots of good things, sewing and gardening, not to mention small daily stuff like dishwashing, or cleaning. She loves flowers, so I sent her some, although, the Ocean is between us, that cannot stop us from exchanging some words on the phone or over Skype. The distance has the ability to make things clearer and more valuable. Simple words can get a new meaning.

Well, I was not very productive recently, but I have made some watercolors for cards, something unsophisticated, but sincere.

Spring daffodils, watercolor painting
Pen and watercolor, Spring daffodils painting 12 x 12 in or 30.5 x 30.5 cm

Happy Mother’s Day to every mom, grandmother and great grandmother! I hope your kids, grandchildren and great grandchildren are blessings to you.

Watercolor painting, pansies
Smiley purple pansy faces, pen and watercolor wash

 Please accept these lovely flowers as a small thank you for everything you are to my every single day!

Watercolor painting, pink tulips
For soft and gentle flowers, all shades of pink is probably my favorite choice

Beauty never ends, flowers will live as long as we do and they will keep inspiring us. Always.

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Million shades of everything: experiment!

Acrylic painting, nature

Mixing colors: experiment

Did you know that it is possible to mix up quite a few thousands of colors just using ultramarine blue, primary magenta, cadmium yellow medium and titanium white? These color mixes are pretty much unlimited taking into account how slight change in proportion would alter the color. We don’t usually use only premixed colors or paints straight from the tube. Everybody is aware that yellow plus blue allows mixing up greens, and red plus blue creates purple shades.

The power of grey

Acrylic color mixing

Adding yellow to different shades of blue and red causes the graying effect and results in fantastic variations of neutrals. Why do we need grey shades and background neutrals? Well, they make other colors shine. We don’t have to always paint sunsets in order to observe how yellow shines on a grey-blue or purple, but we often need the fairly saturated neutrals to build up some scene or object. They also give all objects more substance.

Acrylic color mixing

Practice!

One can have color charts and theory books and check out all available information on color mixing, yet, not manage it when it comes to painting. How so? We know many things in theory. When it comes to applying the theoretical knowledge in practice, everything is completely different. Theoretical knowledge without decent practicing is worth zero. Therefore, practice!

Importance of experiment

I’m always encouraging students to experiment. Experimenting and exploring is the key to knowledge. There is never only one correct way of painting or drawing something. In fact, there are thousands of ways when we are trying to get similar results. Let’s take for example video tutorials.

Dos and don’ts

How to paint trees? How to paint clouds? How to paint forest? The answer is: whatever way you find it suitable for you because these tutorials will show how to paint trees according to artist X, or clouds as artist Y is seeing and painting them. Artist A might consider such trees incorrect, and B will tell you that nobody should paint clouds like artist Y.

Watching is not doing

While you watch somebody’s demo, it seems to be very easy. However, when you are one on one with brush and paints, things are not the same. The more colors you have, the more confused you might become. Many color mixes yield very close color tones, especially in acrylic when everything becomes much darker as it dries.

Having your own painting supplies

When somebody wants to start painting, they usually are not very excited about spending much money on materials. However, having your own paints, brushes and other tools is very beneficial. We just have to keep art supply list short and buy less.

Acrylic painting, nature
Experimenting is very important for any artist. Mix colors, apply layers, see what your paints can do.

Keep discovery for yourself

Do not allow anybody to steal from you the pleasure of discovery! Some people are very insecure initially since they believe they don’t know enough about painting. There are artists who have more experience, but nobody knows everything about everything. The other thing is that we develop our mastery and build experience only when we take creative risks and dare to explore and experiment.

Early spring, acrylic painting by Inese Poga
Early spring was done entirely during art classes and served as a demo painting

Learn through experiment

Therefore, experiment, experiment, experiment! It is good to ask a question when something is not happening the way you expected. However, there is no need to perform major search online just because you are not sure whether to use blue-green or yellow-green on some area. Do it your own way. It might take longer, but all efforts will pay off when you have painted exactly what you were trying to.

Your creation beats prints

It is much better to have your own painting on the wall than print. Print is a print. It will never have the energy of an original, therefore, it makes sense to frame also kids art because it has that special touch. Does our art have to be perfect? We can certainly try to get to that stage, but absolutely flawless and impressive art is extremely rare. It sometimes happens. Just working towards one great picture at a time brings us to the desired result. which will be the best ever.

Spring road, acrylic painting
Behind the ben: acrylic painting of spring road is 20 x 16 in or 51 x 41 cm art on canvas

Some errors which need to be fixed

Beginners try to paint with hardly any paint, or with a tiny droplet of it. In acrylic that means, it dries almost instantly. Use generous amount of paint and clean brush every time you switch color.

Values are important

Beginning artists always pay attention to color and absolutely no attention to value. We can change color very quickly, but we need strong, medium and light values placed accordingly to our plans in any painting. Therefore: experiment! Good luck!

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Art projects for any age: unblocking path to our hidden resources

Art classes and art projects for everybody

When somebody says they attend art classes, other people usually understand that it means practicing and learning to become an artist. That’s pretty much incorrect because as the current research reveals, there is no other activity more beneficial to prevention of brain aging, avoiding loss of memory and related disorders than drawing, painting and sketching. Art projects in art classes are usually suitable for beginners, for hobbyists and for anybody with interest in creation.

Brain exercises

The unique features of creation boost ability of the brain to create new neurons, as well as the existing have longer life span. Do you believe that brain aging is not inevitable? That is not true. Our brain is just as any other part of our body, yet, it contains all the vitally important tools for regulating and managing the other systems. Therefore, it’s crucial we keep exercising our brain every day, every hour and every minute. Anything which is not in use deteriorates and loses flexibility, it degenerates.

How drawing helps the brain flexibility

Drawing connects the brain function with our fine motor functions, and does even more than language. It allows expressing feelings, emotions, states of our mind, mood, our character, hidden thoughts and memories. As we draw, our hand transfers the ideas onto paper. It is a reflection of the most intense mental work, conversion of one type of energy into another. That is why drawing is used in determination of our brain health. It signalizes earlier than any other tests whether everything is still fine, or maybe it’s time to get advice.

strawberry sketch
Still life sketch

Mental fitness

We need to move and exercise all our body parts, but mental exercise increases the rate at which our new brain cells survive and make functional connections to the existing networks of neurons. The more active a particular brain cell is, the more connections it develops with its neighboring neurons. That is where art classes come in. As we learn, we intensively think about each line we are putting down on paper or brushstrokes. This boosts our memory cells, thus, preventing them from cell death. Activities that require using all our senses, breaking our routines and engaging in new experiences are extremely good for brain health.

Age is not of essence

Age does not matter because it is equally important to have good memory in young and even more so in old age. Creative exercises like our Fun and Pleasure acrylic painting afternoons or sketching and watercolor exercises should not be undervalued. It seems like a play or some brushing around with different colors, but, in fact, it is a very strong brain ability booster. Images show my still life sketches, but students did very well, too. I’d like to simply publish only my sketches in this post.

Beautiful still life sketch

My journey

I can share my own experience. I was reading a book a day and painting or drawing every single day for about 1 hour between ages 8 and 16. I was reading systematically through everything library had to offer. That involved history, geography, art, music, science of the corresponding century starting with ancient Egypt. We didn’t have internet back in the 70-s. When I moved on and started to study at the University I was only 17 because I could and I had developed extraordinary visual memory   thanks to reading, drawing and painting,

Best memory booster

I hardly had to study because I was able to remember up to 60 pages of text which I read through within some half an hour using the diagonal approach. I still can remember every single tough term in texts which I was translating 5 years ago. I never have to make any lists and write notes to myself. In my case, drawing and painting showed an enormously positive effect on memory, cognitive function and reasoning so far.

Art is important part of learning

For young children, artistic activities are as important as physical exercising, especially because they are under-using their own cognitive ability due to the overuse of mobile devices. We are always welcoming new participants in our art classes!

Pen line and watercolor wash

Plain and simple: creativity unblocks the pathways in our brain and gives us a chance to use our hidden resources, and there are so many. Therefore, I expect everybody getting involved in new art projects: simple, colorful, uplifting and very rewarding. Thanks for reading!