New painting season and art classes

Fall landscape paintings

New painting season to match changes in nature

As the seasons change and the fall makes us feel its presence, a new painting season starts. I switch from summer projects to abundance of sparkling colors and more autumnal subjects. For students who take the brush in their hands for the first time and for experienced artists, it is a great moment to submerge oneself into this fantastic experience of creation. The nostalgic feel of something going away, the thoughtfulness of nature preparing for sleep, the dance of leaves in the backyard and harvest on the table: this is an never ending inspiration for poets and artists alike.

Fall tree paintings, new painting season
Moonlit landscapes and fall trees, new painting season
Moonlit landscape painting

Wide choice of medium and subject options

The new painting season is going to be rich in colors and painting subjects. All media capture fall colors well. Watercolor does it with bright washes and brilliance of pure color, like the transparent fall sky and the gold and red of leaves. Acrylic allows for numerous layers, thus polishing the painting to a perfect fall art. We can use pastel and pencil also, why not? I hope I and my current students will create something impressive. We already welcomed the new painting season with the first set of acrylic painting classes.

Fall colors, fall landscape, new painting season
Fall paintings, new painting season
Textured poppy painting

New season of painting classes

Painting classes have always been popular. I used to have participants who attended my painting classes every week, month after month, and so for quite a few years. That was before the online classes and tutorials started to take over the internet space. The advantage of art class as opposed to tutorial or paint night is very significant: art classes teach you to use tools, explore surfaces, many techniques, as well as painting and drawing subjects. The goal of art classes is to teach you to become independent and to be able to paint or draw anything afterwards.

Fall tree paintings, new painting season
Moonlit fall landscape paintings, new painting season
Fall tree, textured acrylic painting

The story told by trees

During this new painting season, we will allow trees to tell their story, allow the brush to dance on canvas. We will use sponge and fan brush because that’s a very fantastic way to capture fall nature. One just needs to know how to go about that and what colors and in what sequence to use. I love watercolor, I love acrylic painting, and there’s nothing wrong with color sketch or simple ink or pencil drawing. However, the new painting season will be devoted to new type of art which will shine not only through composition, color choices, but also new approaches and techniques.

Fall landscape paintings
Ajax, art classes, new painting season

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Art collections by Inese Poga

Show time

Show time

It’s been a while, and summer just flew by. My art show was delayed for 2 years by pandemic, and now the show is finally coming up, and it will open on September 14. I have submitted the paperwork and still need to add wire on the back of quite a few paintings. I will mostly present large size art at this particular show and I hope it will look as impressive and memorable as the original art which has been created in the span of 5 years. It’s not that all art was created some years ago, but a few paintings are from 2018 and 2020 and so forth. I’m showing in total 25 artworks. I hope the wall space allows for that.

I decided to add a few green paintings, as well. Farewell to summer.

Country barn
Country barn in summer meadow, 24 x 18 in or 61 x 46 cm
garden fence, show
Garden fence, 24 x 18 in or 61 x 46 cm
Abstract art, green summer fields
Summer flower fields, abstract acrylic painting, 24 x 18 in or 61 x 46 cm

Ajax Community Centre, East wing offers better light than the previous exhibition space at Ajax Town Hall. This show is happening in cooperation with PineRidge Arts Council. I am a member of this artist association, it’s one of the few which do a lot for an artist and charge a very moderate membership fee. They have friendly staff, and especially I would like to mention Mary Cook who takes care of the web presentation.

I have taken numerous new pictures. I won’t repeat myself, but iPhone just really destroys my painting images with extreme contrast, with absolutely wrong colors and it’s unable to distinct between shades of white and grey. Grey tends to look black and all white is just white without any shades of it. To be honest, everybody who’s seen my art only on the internet, hasn’t seen it all. That’s the disadvantage of presenting images as opposed to actual artworks. Anyway, it’s the only chance for me to go global and so be it.

Birch valley for art show
Birch valley, 32 x 26 in or 81 x 66 cm

As you know, on this website all horizontal artworks look smaller and all vertical ones much larger. Well, I’m adding sizes, but, unfortunately, they don’t mean much if you’re viewing this blog post on your phone. I hope you will check the studio sales pages later in the week because there will be new special offers. All art I’m displaying on my blog is original art, meaning, I am selling just the only true artwork as it’s created.

Many of my paintings are created on textured backgrounds. People often ask me about palette knife, and, no, I’m not using it, but I’m creating textures on canvas before I start painting the actual shapes of trees and other elements.

Art show, birch painting
Textured birch colors, 20 x 16 in or 51 x 41 cm

Well, maybe some of you will stop at Ajax, Ontario in the future when traveling to Toronto and, thus, see how my art looks in reality. Meanwhile, buy art from my art studio also because numerous paintings won’t get into the show display. Certainly, attend the live show if you are in the Greater Toronto Area. It is the show time finally!

My summer was somewhat painful and I was off for about 6 weeks. I’m not one of people who snap pictures at emergency rooms and treatment clinics, so I had nothing much I was willing to share until I recently started feeling a bit better. Just in time, I’d say because I have only 1 week to finalize all art which goes into the art show.

All the best and have a good, colorful September!

New fall paintings and art in progress

Art show, fall painting

New art, new fall paintings, new vision

I have painted recently and completed quite many new paintings, especially fall art and three-dimensional textured paintings. Colors are so bright and uplifting outdoors, and it is difficult to resist not capturing one or another landscape. I have to still work more on making my art visible on the internet. It is not enough to be present on  Facebook and a few print sites, like Fine Art America and ArtPal. Just as I am writing this, somebody ordered a print from Fine Art America, my bright pine cones under snow.

Managing single person business

Realistically, I get to paint a lot, and I create new art and paintings almost every second day. It’s completely different story with putting this art out there and letting somebody know it is available for purchase. I am only one person doing everything. Sites like Facebook don’t get that. They tell me that Walmart started to use Workplace app and their sales grew big time. Well, just think about that. How does one single person’s tiny business compare with insanely huge company, such as Walmart? It doesn’t. I have no employees; therefore, I cannot connect them to my workplace. I find that funny how they apply to everything one-size-fits-all.

Your interest would be greatly appreciated

Regardless of anything, I keep painting. I certainly would love to sell something before Christmas, so that I also can enjoy the fruit of my difficult, time-consuming and labor-intensive work. I usually sell at least 1 painting around this time. I should sell 100  times more paintings this season to make a space for new art, that would be terrific. I sell quite a lot of prints on different sites, but the profit from print and art product sale is like $1-$5. It is very little, yet, it means somebody loved my work so much that they were willing to spend some money on it.

New art and paintings in progress

I have brought to completion two very textured paintings: the “Rocky stream” which is more abstracted and impressionistic, and “Birch light” which was totally done during art classes. I had placed the textures using modeling paste before, since it takes quite a few hours to dry.

Birch light, acrylic painting 20 x 16 inches
Birch light, acrylic painting, 20 x 16 inches

Rocky stream, acrylic on textured background
Rocky stream on heavily textured background, 20 x 16 inches; in fact, all recent paintings are created on textured background. It looks excellent in reality, and texture is still visible on a photo, too.

Autumn path, acrylic painting on textured background
Fall path,  20 x 24 inches acrylic painting on highly textured background

Some work will be still done on the “Fall path”. Yellow color is tricky with acrylic, and it takes numerous glazes. I think the color combination works extremely well, and it will fit very nicely the late fall mood.

My next art show will be on November 23. I hope local people will attend. I have many pieces of art in different sizes and done with different mediums. There is so much to choose from!

All art products, including many kinds of art prints can be purchased from FAA:

Ajax, Ontario, art classes and winter workshops

As the weather gets cooler and less pleasant, it is great to be part of our student groups. It can be your “me-time”, it can be your stress relief, it can be the best event in the entire week as my students told me. We have created numerous paintings during my art lessons. Some are more finished, some are less done. That always depends on group. Whatever you learn, stays with you forever. Whatever you draw or paint, will always delight your eyes.

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