Tag: nature

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Life as art, creation as lifestyle, part 2

Light corner of art studio

Good life comes from good things

I have drawn and painted numerous flowers so far not only in pen lines and watercolor, transparent watercolor, but also in acrylic, and less known are my pastel paintings just because I don’t have any photos of them. Among them are roses, magnolias, orchids, daffodils, tulips, lilies, calla lilies, daisies, peonies, pansies, poppies, sunflowers, lilac, trillium, wildflowers, forest flowers and flower fields. I probably forgot to mention some. Flowers are convenient for painting since they are always around. Something is always available and that suits me and my personalized realism. Being in the middle of so much beauty, real and painted, feels extremely good.

Garden rose, watercolor painting

My opportunity

As I explained in Part 1, my background is very different from Canada-born artists. I am purely expressing my personal vision about the subject because nothing stands between me and my idea which I am putting on canvas or paper, not even a photo, and no devices are involved. I could say it’s the purest form of creation, going from what you see to what you create. I love most turning white paper and blank canvas into something where you can walk in or are able to almost touch the drawn or painted subject.

Pink geranium, floral watercolor painting

Technique versus idea and emotional aspect

While it’s possible to get carried away by the technical side of painting or drawing, I’d love to remind that there’s also a concept, an idea and a hidden meaning within such art. The concept isn’t the subject itself, it’s what it can tell the viewer and how deep emotional impact it can make. That’s my opportunity to stand out. Drawing for me is pure pleasure because I don’t have to struggle with it, I usually do not need any eraser. Pencil dances on paper, the subject takes shape and it will definitely have more meaning than simply trying to be lifelike.

Summer pansies in purple, watercolor painting for sale

Complexity or simplicity of subject and display on the internet

I wrote in part 1 that the driving force for me is the subject, especially the challenging aspects of it, ability to create more complex and deeper paintings. I love complex paintings more. Also, it isn’t important whether my subject looks exactly like the real thing. I want the viewer to get my message, the idea behind the visible lines and colors. On the internet, you can only see a fairly small image of my art, often, the size does not reflect the actual size. On this blog, all vertical images look much larger than the horizontal ones, except the featured image must be horizontal. On Fine Art America print site,  vertical paintings look much smaller than the horizontal ones and so on. Therefore, display doesn’t make a correct impression.

Still life with apples

Drawing as base for watercolor painting

Realistic watercolor painting most often uses drawing before paint application. We can avoid that and create everything with brush only, and I have done that, too. However, when it comes to complex still life, floral or landscape painting, it’s best to plan values and know where to use what. I transfer such drawing onto watercolor paper using extra light and hardly visible lines. Watercolor paper doesn’t like eraser, and strong pencil lines disturb the image, at least I like only transparency of watercolor paint to be visible. This all refers to watercolor done traditionally: leaving white of paper for white and layering different value colors where they belong.

Red apples, watercolor

Solo shows and juried art shows

I started out very well in 2011 in Ontario with showing my large watercolors and fewer acrylic paintings in a gallery near Toronto Beaches. I couldn’t find this gallery on a map now, it has probably changed hands and has a different name. I also took part in art fairs, juried art shows, gave classes and workshops at my own gallery, everything was working really well. Recently, a few art students from back then shared their memories on Facebook and told how much they had learned in my art classes and how much they appreciated them. It was a different time. Being in a commercially zoned property definitely helped. Then health problems caused me to slow down between 2016 and 2019, plus, we had to move 2 times after 2018.

Moving an art studio

Moving just a house is difficult and stressful, but moving an entire large art studio with all kinds of art supplies, extra furniture, easels and numerous paintings of my own together with house, was a hassle. It’s inevitable that some art gets damaged, I had that happen even when moving art around to shows. It seems everything is packed up safely, but such move normally involves many people and not everyone of them knows how to handle a huge painting, for instance. That’s why I feel reluctant showing very large framed watercolors now. Glass sometimes breaks, it’s not only the high price for museum grade glass that worries me. Painting can get scratches, too, and the entire thing needs re-framing.

Fall landscape, watercolor by artist Inese Poga

My painting method and technique

When I paint in color, I definitely need daylight. Regardless how good the artificial light is, it causes changes in color. Therefore, some parts of painting require extra work, that can be a lot of extra work. With watercolor especially, there might be parts which I cannot undo. Whenever possible, I paint only by daylight. The usable portion of my current place isn’t that big, maybe spacious enough, but I could utilize easily double this size for an art studio. When there’s a lot of heating in winter, it’s very difficult to paint with acrylic paints. They dry on touch. For watercolor, it doesn’t matter because I can always make the paper wet again. Colors or shapes are not affected when re-wetting watercolor paper.

Beautiful sunflower painting, floral watercolor

Art is my full-time job

It is a huge risk to take on art as one’s entire lifestyle and full-time job. There are only a few fields where competition is as fierce as in art and teaching art. I had strong support when I engaged in art in Canada, but during the pandemic everything went downhill real fast. I don’t teach art as entertainment because my definition of learning is not the same as social drinking and using art as extra feature. I take painting seriously and I teach aspects I have discovered during many decades to those who want to master medium or observational drawing. That requires focus, interest in learning as a process, not only in a quick result. My students, who displayed the most willingness to learn, have become excellent artists.

Still life with nuts and berries

I will share my acrylic painting creation process and my thoughts about teaching observations in Part 3.

Watercolor painting, peppers

Also, please, have a look at my art collections: Art collections by Inese Poga

All online show pieces will be listed soon, currently acrylic art page is still getting done:

Special art offers

Original watercolor paintings for sale

More acrylic paintings will be added: Shop original acrylic paintings

Thanks for reading!

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Landscapes which live in my memory

Spring painting, spring creek

Places where I have spent most part of my life, do not stand out with spectacular landscapes. I don’t usually paint mountains, oceans, seaside or waves. I’ve seen them, but I have hard times recalling such views in detail which is necessary for creation of painting from memory. Many of these paintings were also started a long time ago just as a demo for my live art classes. That means, I’ve spent very limited time painting them during the class. My main focus was what students learned from each process and less an attempt to create a masterpiece.

Therefore, I had to change some parts, add finishing touches, increase strong values, add strong highlights, refine some details and mask out some other parts. These landscapes are views from my memory and imagination, they might or might not exist, but I usually want the subject to be recognizable without long explanations. I suppose, I’ve said it quite a few times that I’m not thrilled about small size, like 16 x 20 in or 41 x 51 cm paintings of complex views and detailed subject. For me personally, the most comfortable size for acrylic is approximately 30 x 24 in or 76 x 61 cm and for watercolor: full sheet which is most often 30 x 22 in or 76 x 56 cm. Such size allows implementing aspects which are very important in painting: decent values, decent size subject, powerful color switches and a few outstanding details.

Acrylic painting, country barn with daffodils
Country barn with daffodils is an acrylic painting on 20 x 16 or 51 x 41 cm canvas

The current trend of displaying paintings in clusters is a great one. Even when painting is large, it takes a lot of design skill to make it rather become a part of space than dominate it or disappear in it. Clusters of paintings suit any taste and allow using paintings of small and medium size, too. They do change the mood in room, they can take you to any season or make feel happier in your space. I am not allowed to hang much on walls in my rented space. We tried strips and some of bigger paintings fell down. I didn’t even attempt hanging the huge and large watercolor paintings that way.

Spring creek, acrylic painting
Spring at creek, acrylic painting on 20 x 16 in or 51 x 41 cm canvas

The history and story behind these paintings is the same, but some are pretty much painted from new. You can do that in acrylic, no problem. In fact, I think acrylic looks better with numerous layers, – the more, the better. Colors become intense and also change in different light settings, the most dramatic parts become textured and that looks really adorable. These paintings have taken weeks to accomplish letting dry between layers. I know how little of that is visible in an online image, but the presence is still there.

Acrylic painting, spring creek
Along the spring creek is a multilayer acrylic painting on 20 x 16 in or 51 x 41 cm canvas
Painting spring in acrylic
I use fairly limited number of paints, black, white, burnt umber, warm and cold yellow and blue

Since I spent 46 years in Latvia and it’s not even twenty in Canada yet, the subject of my painted landscapes is associated most often with Latvian countryside, Latvian country roads, gardens and plants, as well as with nature in Latvia. The area around Ajax where I live now is similar, but I would never paint the local box-like boring buildings which really offend one’s esthetic principles. That’s why we have imagination and can travel back in memories to any season, any place and any emotion that provoked.

Acrylic painting techniques, creating a book
The image contains painting detail and some color reference for along the spring creek painting

Other than that, I’m finally working on compiling a book of acrylic painting techniques for landscapes, still life and floral art. It is a slow process, and it probably will take numerous hours for creating more pictures, describing tools and efficient process steps, as well as basic principles of painting in any medium since most of them are the same. Creating art should never be struggle, that’s why I will also keep teaching live art classes when we reopen. That might be in July, or August, or September.

Thanks for reading, enjoy!

My art store is not coming along swiftly as I hoped, so for prints, please, go to Fine Art America:

Art collections by Inese Poga

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New fall art, online art show and sale

Inese Poga's art studio, fall art show

Finding the right conditions to work

I’m very pleased I can finally publish my newest fall art. If you read my posts, you probably know, we have to go through a live-in renovation. It hasn’t been easy, in fact, I had to take a break from anything I was doing for a while because it just wasn’t possible. I can only work in silence and when there’s no direct presence of anybody. I normally do not answer phone and also do not talk while painting. I’m all consumed and taken away by the creative process. I paint in silence without any music, but I open the patio doors and listen to birds and other sounds of nature if the weather is good.

Strict preventive measures prevent public access

My show should have been on from October 1st. After visiting the exhibition site, we decided not to go ahead with the real show. We have new restrictions in Ontario, and it basically comes to this: if hardly anybody is attending the exhibition site and they have to go through a strict procedure to be allowed on the premises, there’s no point in putting up a show. It is time-and effort-consuming process, and I just don’t see any value in exhibiting my art at this time.

Show and sale move online

The show will be all online. People, who reside in Ontario and can make an appointment to come to the studio, one person at a time, would be another option. I have numerous Thanksgiving pieces of art: from ecological prints to handmade unique cards, boxes and more. The ecological prints are created using nature materials like flowers and leaves and arranging them on thick watercolor paper. The process involves boiling and drying and then framing this art or using it in mixed media pieces.

Time-consuming creation process

My large paintings usually take up to month to finish, some – even longer, like 2-3 months. For medium size art, it’s approximately 2-3 weeks of work. I have never painted anything just in 1 sitting in acrylic. That is because of acrylic paint properties. Acrylic paint dries darker, much darker with some colors, therefore, I am glazing and adding new layers as I go. I want my art to be something impressive and something where one can literary feel like they are walking into the painting. I also take about 200 pictures of each painting, download, cut, resize them, then watermark and chose the most appropriate. That’s why I usually cannot post sooner than every 2 weeks at the best.

The birch valley

Fall art for sale

The birch valley is a large painting, its size is 81 x 66 cm or 32 x 28 inches. Here it is on the easel. On the monitor screen, a picture of another fall painting is visible.

Fall art by Inese Poga

Birch valley, textured, large acrylic painting. As always, I have painted around the edges and painting is ready to hang on the wall.

Fall in the hills

Fall in the hills, acrylic painting by Inese Poga

Fall in the hills is 61 x 51 cm or 24 x 20 inches in size. It is one of the most tranquil paintings I’ve ever created.

I suppose it would look great on any wall. It depicts excellent mood and I think my color choice supports that. The first layers on this canvas were put down in 2015. It’s amazing how long it took me to add the final touches and turn this art into something I wanted to.

Fall in the hills, fall art by Inese Poga

Fall in the hills, beautiful soft colors and good composition

New red barn

And finally, the “New red barn’ which we started painting during art classes exactly a year ago. Just recently, I decided to finish it up so that one more painting is completed. Students were rushing, but I decided to work out this painting properly by adding enough layers and some detail.

Online art sale

The new red barn, acrylic painting on canvas, 20 x 16 in or 50.5 x 40.5 cm

Beauty has no price

I assume, my paintings when sold from the studio are not expensive. I don’t think you know anybody who’d work for $25-$40 a day and add even materials. Compared to all abstract and animated, as well as very amateurish art out there, my paintings are very recognizable on this background since I use certain colors, paint certain subjects and have a distinctive personal style. The truth is that fewer and fewer people can draw or create somewhat realistic looking art nowadays, and that works for me and lets me stand out.

Updating website and tackling shipping

I will work towards making my sales pages better in the upcoming weeks. They need update big time; I just didn’t get to that yet. Unfortunately, shipping is always what Canada Post charges me. They give great deals to huge customers so that their clients get free shipping, but a single person business pays way above the global average and also about 40-50% more than in the US.

Only original art

I am only selling originals for now. The new fall art looks amazing. For prints, I can order them myself and then resell, but that’s a risky process. I trust sites which specialize in creating and framing prints, such as Fine Art America, for instance. They do good job and nobody could ever compete with options for frames, as well as prints on numerous materials including wood and metal.

Art prints and other artistic products:

Art collections by Inese Poga

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Sketching and drawing for ageless brain and memory

Pen and watercolor nature paintings by Inese Poga

Sketching and drawing boosts brain flexibility

If you draw manually, you don’t need to purchase any brain flexibility and memory boosting supplements and medications. Manual drawing as an activity is far more superior to writing, reading, solving crosswords or simply memorizing words. Lots of research has been done in this area to date, and it’s important to point people in this direction, but I didn’t need any research to be sure about how much manual drawing increases memory, focus, decision making and any type of activity where engagement of the brain is required.

Just get started

From the first days at school, I couldn’t help but notice how easy it was for me to recall and remember things without any effort. I had only excellent and the best grades in all school subjects from elementary school, to high school to University, especially in math, chemistry, history, biology, geography and foreign languages (Russian and German), although I spent very little time studying. I lived in a very different environment back then. We had no nursery schools, kindergartens or similar available in early 1960 in Soviet Latvia. Both parents worked, my grandmother was always busy, I was practically on my own. I started to draw very early. I was drawing anything which was around and since I didn’t have a special drawing paper I was using wrapping paper or any paper which had space for my potential drawing.

Practice is the mother of skill

During all school years, including high school, I drew every single day and read a book a day. We didn’t have internet, computers or even TV back then. Photos were taken on exceptional occasions, like wedding or big anniversary. My drawing was always based on my own visual perception and ability to recreate what I saw. Nobody ever taught me or explained how to draw, but I experienced almost daily discoveries in recreating volume, dimension, getting good shadows and so forth. I studied available books going systematically through art history from ancient Egyptians to French impressionists, to Russian and West European classic art and Latvian artists. I illustrated every single book I read. I drew death masks of Egyptian princesses, Nefertiti’s head, Roman citizens, renaissance buildings, book characters. Nobody paints in my family  and never did, so, it was a complete self-development.

I was right

After I started teaching, I noticed very quickly that my German language groups which also did drawing course with me, succeeded much faster than the others in languages also. Later in life, I paid special attention to how well somebody’s memory was depending on whether they loved drawing or not. When internet became available, I could see that my guess was 100% correct. Other people had also noticed the mental and memory advantages which were apparent in people who loved drawing just about anything.

Research backs me up

Research has proven the superiority of manual drawing over other similar activities. You can check out Canadian University of Waterloo research pages which show why manual drawing works so well in boosting memory. Nowadays, people do not have to write or draw a lot because devices can do all of that. It works best when you do not focus on the result, but on the drawing process. Research also finds that improvement of brain activity and brain cell longevity does not depend on quality of drawing. It’s the process and the way we handle the image mentally and recreate it using vision and manual drawing. Even when you’d describe the drawing as bad or poor, it still has done so much good for the brain. Result matters if you are entering an art competition, but it doesn’t if you are doing exercises for the brain and your memory.

No need for perfection

People also want everything to be perfect nowadays, and to get that result immediately, therefore, they’d trace or project photos, print off outlines or the entire image and so forth. Well, that is the part of drawing which won’t give the necessary boost to the brain because, like I mentioned before, the key is the image processing and active recreation of it. You will still learn new things, and that is always advantageous, but to a lesser level.

Engage in manual drawing, develop a habit

I had to write this because I’m seeing how many ads ask you to purchase all kinds of supplements, medications and use treatments to improve memory and brain flexibility. Why not to enjoy a wonderful meditation-like state of mind and achieve a great memory naturally? Drawing also doesn’t require many art supplies, just decent paper and sharp pencil. Try using no eraser and that will allow you advancing much faster. Once somebody has gotten started with drawing, they’ll soon feel that it turns into habit, as you might know developing a habit takes approximately 90 days. You will get blocks of drawing paper, possibly a sketchbook and carry them around wherever you go because it is simply fantastic.

My new art classes

Please, enjoy the beautiful watercolor wash and black pen line art. I decided to share the overview since pen and watercolor art will be the subject of my first online downloadable art instruction classes.

Sketching and drawing for ageless brain and memory
Sketching and drawing for ageless brain and memory
Watercolor and pen drawings by Inese Poga
Pen and watercolor nature paintings by Inese Poga
Pen and watercolor nature paintings by Inese Poga
Sketching and drawing for ageless brain and memory
Pen and watercolor paintings by Inese Poga

Drawing and sketching with pen and watercolor wash is an excellent way to familiarize with painting techniques, color mixing, composition and watercolor as such.

For my art prints, please check out FAA:

Art collections by Inese Poga

Have a wonderful weekend!

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Find inspiration on the birch path

Original paintings by Inese Poga

Birch path painting: no reference required

Birch path paintings did not have any reference. I’ve done many paintings without any references, just having some imagined concept and adding to it as I paint. Paintings with birches inspire many established artists and beginners, and birch path in early or late fall is such an inviting landscape since the viewer can walk into it. As you may know, I come originally from Latvia, and birch path and birch grove is a very characteristic view over there.

Birch paintings in acrylic, inspiration

Simple composition

The composition is usually simple and leads to the focal point which might not always be very accentuated. However, some other of my paintings are just plainly depictions of colorful abstract leaves. My students always asked for birch path and birch tree paintings; therefore, I have many of them. I always paint along with students. After a while, when acrylic paint has reached its complete drying and settling moment, I’d evaluate the painting and add or remove some parts of it as required.

Original landscape paintings by Inese Poga
Birch paintings

Stepwise approach

My process is usually simple, too. I start with application of texture by randomly creating leaf and grass patterns. After that, I prime and paint canvas. I don’t use any special acrylic primers any longer. I find that using acrylic paint which can be just leftover paint is much more beneficial to the final colors and impact. I use sometimes fairly dark grey, lighter grey, mix of burnt umber, burnt sienna and yellow ocher or cardboard color. These underpainting colors work the best with my art.

Original paintings by Inese Poga, birch paintings

Defining the landscape

The next step is pretty much blocking in large areas on which I follow up with sponge and fan brush. When the background is set, I paint in main tree trunks. Using fan brush, I apply more layers. Any of my paintings has numerous layers, as well as switches from cool to warm colors. Camera cannot capture that, and it is painful seeing that photo can never show the fine-tuned colors I’ve used. Camera tends adding too much blue, too much yellow or green while sometimes omitting red completely. These particular paintings contain no blue color, but it might look as if they do on photos.

Fall birch painting, inspiration

Birch path 1, it has the most detail, 16 x 20 in or 41 x 51 cm, acrylic on canvas

Birch path 2, original painting

Just as always, all edges are painted and painting continues beyond the front part, Birch path 2, 16 x 20 in or 41 x 51 cm

Achieving balance with finishing touches

My painting is finished when the flow of colors and lines is balanced and I am satisfied with the most part of a painting. Balance in my art means quite a lot, and I’m aiming for it intentionally. The birch path originals are certainly very impressive and abstract parts compliment the detailed areas. It’s such a pleasure to look at these paintings when they’re next to each other. They are similar, but also have distinctive features.

Birch forest landscape, acrylic painting

Steps of autumn, 16 x 20 in or 41 x 51 cm, acrylic painting on canvas. This has the strongest colors, at least in pictures and on my screen

Plenty of inspiration on birch path

I found my inspiration on the birch path and colors came to life. One can paint realistically imaginative landscape, or abstract trees from reality – it doesn’t matter what approach we use – to me personally, painting becomes art when it tells us something. I mean, it tells something without lengthy description. I hope you can feel the leaves under your feet, as well as more trees in the distance. Enjoy! Prints are available from Fine Art America site.

Art collections by Inese Poga