Art that Comes from the Heart

Artists have many motivations to paint and they are all valid. But there is one in particular that I, personally, have always considered remarkable and that is the one that comes from the heart.

It's interesting to see how people express their emotions and feelings in a different way. Some sublimate what they can not control in life through sport, excessive order, disorder, food, alcohol, drugs, ... among other things, while others, very few, do it through art. Art then becomes an extension of the spirit, of the soul. It is a way of dealing with pain, anguish,  uncertainty and all the emotions and feelings that the soul can shelter, which are almost endless. Sometimes situations or emotions overflow us and then our instinct leads us to behave either positively or negatively. 

Some people, I insist that few, manage to create beauty from the worst. While most would use all these destructive feelings in a negative way a few use them to create beauty. However, there are two ways of using pain and anguish in art: 1) create as a distraction and 2) get the pain involved in the work. The first case is one of the best ways to put our mind and soul somewhere else, outside us. But the second one, when pain revolves inside us and we're not even able to manage it but we instinctively throw all those feelings in a mass of creativeness, when we are able to pick up those sharping pieces of anguish transforming them in colors and shapes in a canvas, then my friends, then it is when you really are a great artist. It's about sensitivity and row soul, it's about your heart drawing and painting in an even unconscious way.

Of course art is a subjective issue, but paintings that tell us about inner stories are those that personally touch me since the author shows him/her heart naked. It's about courage and braveness as well, and that deserves all our respect and admiration.

I was inspired for this article on Emily Page's artworks, who knows much about feelings and emotions and perfectly managed to create beauty from sadness. Besides being a great artist she gives us a lesson as human beings. I don't want to talk a lot about her work since I prefer you to see it yourselves, I just have to say that she is a fabulous realistic artist who innovates in techniques, and artist with amazing hands and an amazing heart. Click on the images and know more about her, she deserves it. I also invite you to visit her blog  https://emilypageart.net/ and her site  https://emilypageart.com, where you'll not only  be able to know more about her artworks but also about "Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too", an Emily's book which I strongly recommend.

I leave you with this artist today who, by sure, will touch your heart.

The world around us

Artists often paint what surrounds them, sometimes realistically and literally while other times they show that world adding imaginary or symbolic elements. Personally, I prefer the second case. 

It always amazes me the way in which an artist can take to the canvas certain symbolic elements in a practically unconscious way, and not just the elements but the colors. Obviously, this shows how wonderful the plastic arts are since we extract visions and experiences from our deep interior.

Today, I want to show you Maria Woithofer's artworks, I think this could help all those who love painting to improve their ability and know a bit more about what they do and why. She started painting with oils but she currently works with acrylics and watercolor as well. The case is that Maria had two vivid experiences about what was around her as she was born in Poland but moved to Greece, what is a big change for anyone indeed, and we can see that in her paintings, she tells us about her world with her own vision and portrays the wonderful nature for us. 

There are two main things which mainly call my attention about her works and this are: elements and colors. Regarding elements, as you can see in her "Summer" work below, for example, she adds symbolic concepts that takes us to a complete world in a painting. It's her idea of summer, her feelings and experiences playing together to make us have a real sense of what she wants to show us. Besides that, there is some kind of joy in her work. If we visit her gallery we'll see that she's also a great realistic painter as she shows in most of her works, but it seems as if she resigned some perfection to highlight "meaning" in each of her brush strokes, what is in fact contemporary art. 

Regarding color, this calls my attention as well since she has a great use of it linking colors with moods, seasons and personal visions adding, this way, another symbolic element to her works.

What can we learn about all this? Well, in your paintings:

- Put your personal touch.

- Use non traditional elements in a composition.

- Take into account that colors mean emotions.

- Each brush stroke is important.

- Let yourself go ...

Click on the images below to know more about Maria Woithofer, you'll enjoy it.

Mixed media - Dare to follow your creativity

Some people find it difficult to work with mixed media by failing to reconcile different techniques at the same time. Logically, we should know which media to use in each layer, basically to make our work lasting, or to not produce unwanted spots during the process, but beside that there should not be major complications. The truth is that working with mixed media helps us go a little further in our creativity because we can use different resources and achieve different volumes.

The problem with mixed media, at least I personally think,  is that some artists are too tied to the idea of perfection and realism, or to what was ancestrally accepted in a particular technique either watercolor, oil, acrylic, etc. We're scared, sometimes, to try something new, to have a new vision, to take some fresh air. As in all activities the artist must mature, but in art growth is much more important than in other areas since that give us some kind freedom to work without inhibitions, to try new ways of expression, what isn't easy if we are not able to break with what we have learned and reinvent ourselves in our art.

As  I use to say, there is not just a way to paint a bird, a house, a woman, a landscape or whatever. It's about us, it's about our emotions at seeing that and show it through our paintings. Today, I want to show you M E Wood's work as an example of this, an artist that works with different techniques and gets very creative and personal works. Click on the images to enlarge them and to visit her gallery.

When Art Makes Magic Come True

There are some artists who just tell us about real world, others tell us about their feeling and there others that show us their inner magical world.

In a way, all artists show their inner world even if they paint a landscape since they show us the way they see it. But it's not that simple. As humans we have a personal world that goes beyond other people understanding, no matter how much we try to explain it we can't do that with words, it's really difficult at least. It gets harder if that inner world is full of magic, as Michele Avanti's one, whose creativity seems to come from the depths of her soul. She works with traditional mediums as acrylic but also with photographs and digital art.

Seeing her work we can't help but notice the details, each of them is important for the interpretation and each element is placed to tell us something. Her wise use of color added to the subject and the composition as a whole takes us to a magical world of fantasy, a world that the artist make us possible to almost touch it with our own hands.

Here below you can find some examples of the magic work of this magic artist. Click on the images to enlarge them and visit her gallery where you can find her wonderful art.

More than canvas

There are some artists who don't just reveal their imagination in their paintings but on the material they use as well. 

There are more materials to use beside canvas and paper such as wood, boards and metal among others. A material that an artist uses to paint on shows what he/she wants to say since it has its own characteristics that go beyond a simple way of presentation telling us about the inner meaning of the artwork.

We should all try to experiment with this as if we were playing trying to bring out even more of our creativity.

Today, I want to introduce you Abelone Petersen's work. She's an artist who works with different materials as she says in her biography: "I create many subjects and designs with a variety of mediums. The most exciting to me are the three dimensional paintings I create on the stones I find riding my Spirit pony here in BC Canada. The earth created these 'sculptures' long, long ago. This brings a spiritual realm to my work, a connectedness to all life. It is here I feel the closest to 3D design principles of sculpture combined with colour theory to bring forth the illusion of my vision within the stone."

Click on the image to enlarge it and visit her gallery. You can find more of her artworks at  http://abelonezone.com/

What about mixed media?

What mixed media is? It's just when we work with diffent mediums and not only the usual ones. This is a plus for contemporary artists, being able to work with different materials that help to express themselves better, as for example with texture.

Why should we use mixed media? It's just about you, it's about the joy that you feel working like that, there are no technical reasons even when some say the opposite I personally believe that it's your personal choice. You can create wonderful pieces of art with mix media and the best of it is that they will all be different. The good thing is that you have an almost endless type of mediums to use, this goes from using oil and acrylic to other materials like wood, paper, wires or everything you want to express yourself.

Today I want to show you Lori Kingston' works, she a mixed media artist and she makes wonderful artworks with diffent techiques. What I most like of Lori is her rich imagination and that it seems that she lets herself go to creativity in her works, as if there were no limits to experiment. 

She is working in a Silhouettes Serie now. She is a great phographer as well and you can know more about her and her art just clicking in the images below.