''Beautiful symmetries'' - 11.07.2014

The word happiness has such a broad meaning. Wikipedia's definition of happiness is as follows:

"Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy."

Fair enough, their definition makes sense. But what makes a person truly happy? You can ask as many people as you want and they would all give you a different answer. Some would say success, money, others will say friends and family, some people would say that working-out makes them happy and so on. You get the picture. The definition, reason or condition for happiness differs dramatically from person to person. We're all different, have our own life experiences which significantly affect our choices.


Sometimes it's not easy to decide whether your decision will result in your happiness... That's why it's always better to give yourself some time. Some time to think, some time to analyse. Not to overthink, just to weigh the options. What I find very helpful when making an important decision is making a list. I write all of the pros and cons of my decision. I also imagine myself making one of them and then I write a page or two of what it feels like after the decision has been made. I do it for the other one too and then decide which version I prefer. If one of the decisions seems daunting and all of the pros are uncertain then it's probably better to go for the other option. Not necessarily the easier one, but the better one in the long term. My goal in life is to be happy. Nothing more, nothing less.

Our lives are full of beauty, love and happiness. Sometimes we just fail to see it all. That doesn't mean it's non-existent. 

Sometimes what we need is a couple of friends who will be able to guide us through our problems and who will make us see the bright side of it all.

One way to deal with problems is to paint.. but this isn't the topic of this post :D

Here's a painting I haven't published here yet... 

It's called ''Beautiful symmetries'' and it was painted using Artists' oil paints from Winsor and Newton on a 30" x 20" canvas.

Why is it called "Beautiful symmetries" if the only symmetrical thing in the whole painting is the reflection in the sea? Well, let me quote my friend "Transformation w is a reflection in the beach axis". That didn't really explain my choice for the title, but it sounds cool :) Yup, we do maths :)

Lots of Love,
Marlena 

Soul Mates - 27.05.2014

''A life spent making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing'' - George Bernard Shaw

...

Today I wanted to talk about love... Many people have no idea what love is and neither do I, because everybody has their own definition of love. So I'll just describe it the way I think is correct. For some people love is when they feel like they need to spend a lot of time with somebody, for others love is when the person they're with cares about them and gives them attention. 

 Some people think they're in love when they feel happy around another person, but the truth is, a lot of people make us happy; our friends make us happy, our parents usually make us happy, even our pets make us happy. Does that mean we love them? We do, but in a different way. It's not necessary a romantic love. And that's the type of love I want to talk about today.

I love my friends and I'm very grateful to have them. I also love my family. And I even love my cats... but romantic love is something entirely different. 

In order to be happy in a relationship you have to be ready to be in one. You can't go into a relationship thinking the other person will cure you of your low self-esteem, or they'll help you love yourself.

They simply can't do that. You need to know how to love yourself in order to know how to love another human being.

You'll never appreciate their love if all you want is affection and compliments. You have to give something in return. Sure, receiving is important, but what's more important is communication and mutual respect. People who think they're not good enough to be loved desperately look for somebody to love them and they end up in toxic relationships, where they're either the only ones giving, or they're the only ones receiving. Either way it's not a good relationship. There has to be a balance.

People who aren't ready to be in a relationship will think they have nothing valuable to give the other person because they think they're not worthy of their love, so they end up giving them their everything, which in the end destroys them or they end up taking everything the other person gives which destroys the other person.

I don't believe in the idea of soul mates. Well I do, people who just get on with each other unbelievably well do exist, but that doesn't mean that we should spend our lives looking for our soul mate. Sometimes working through difficulties in a relationship makes us value it more. Nearly every couple can work through their differences, as long as they both keep on trying.

...

I'll look like a bit of a hypocrite now, since my newest painting is called ''Soul mates''. I felt like the name is fitting because it shows two waterfalls that exist together in harmony. Behind them is a larger body of water. When I was painting it I wanted to show that they're a part of something bigger, they're together, in one painting, but they're not dependant on one another. If one of them stops, the other waterfall can keep going. Yes, I know, I'm making myself sound crazy... but what can I do :D

The song of the week is Set me on fire - Bella Ferraro because it's what I was listening to while I was painting :)

So......  ''Soul Mates''

It's as always done using Winsor and Newton's paints. 

It's a black and white painting, from my ''Mars Black'' series. The second photo was taken with a flash and I just love the way it looks so I decided to publish it as well :)

Lots of Love,

Marlena 

Uncomfortable Conscience - 23.05.2014

A couple of days ago I was talking to someone about nature and I realised how disgusting London actually is. I always thought that it was a beautiful city with a lot of parks and with a lot of trees, but it actually isn't.
I was walking home after choir last Friday and I thought I'd check how long I have to walk for before I see a tree.. and it was 20 minutes!  I was really surprised.. I thought we had more trees than that.. but I guess that because there aren't so many of them we notice them more than we would have if there were more of them. 

I love nature and I'm really surprised how blind I was for all those years.... I mean, you don't really get to see stars in the sky due to light pollution... I knew that was the case because whenever I went to Poland the sky looked so much nicer there.. but I didn't actually think about it...

We live in a world where money is the only thing that matters... Dreams don't matter anymore.. those who dream are regarded as immature and crazy.. but what's the point of living if you have no dreams? For money...? Are you going to buy yourself some happiness? Are you going to go to a shop and buy a family? a dream? love...? no. What are you going to do with all the money you're earning? 

Dreams are like trees. They keep us alive. We should treasure them and keep them alive.

Being successful today means having a well paid job and no time for life. If that's what it is, then screw it. I don't want to be successful anymore. I'd rather be happy, fulfilled and ''crazy''. 

Some people think they can earn some money now and then be happy later when they're finally able to follow their dreams.. but what if you die next year? or next month? or tomorrow? You would have lived a life without actually being alive for a single day.

People are so blinded by money that they don't notice the problems we face everyday. We're killing animals... all the time.. due to pollution. And nobody seems to care... People don't talk to eachother anymore.. it's all become virtual.. some people prefer their virtual lives to their real ones... they can be whoever they want online.. but why can't they be whoever they want in real life? It doesn't take that much to face your fears, leave your comfort zone, change your personality.. Your friends need you. A conversation online is not the same as a real conversation. Some people are unable to talk to other if they're face to face. Talking online is easier, alright, but it shouldn't be a substitute for a real conversation. I hate it when I see couples who are supposedly together, but they actually aren't because they're constantly on their phones while they're with one another, living their second lives..

People used to live peacefully, surrounded by nature and now people try to destroy it because they can't generate an income out of a tree, so it's better to build an ice cream shop in a park and get some money out of it than it is to plant more trees there.. 

I feel sorry for future generations... some kids will never see a real tree... there's this thing called global warming and everyone's panicking about it, but not many people actually do anything about it. Money money money.

...

ah... okay. so there is no new painting for this weeks entry, because I'm really busy recently. Yesterday I really wanted to paint something but I only had one hour so I decided to try something new. I took a piece of A4 paper, some black acrylic paint and set myself a challenge. I was supposed to paint a picture using just one colour and water. This means that I had to plan it out carefully in my mind because I wouldn't be able to fix it with white paint like I usually do :D

It looks a bit like an ink drawing but it was done using acrylic paint (Mars Black) from....... Winsor and Newton as always haha  :)


Here's the outcome of my exercise:

It's not really a proper painting, but it has a name nonetheless haha :)

It's called ''Uncomfortable Conscience''  

Lost of Love,
Marlena

Peace after War - 22.12.2012

''No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.'' 

 Oscar Wilde

...

A strange thing occurred to me today - I never get an inspiration for a new painting while I'm wearing my glasses.
I'm short sighted and my eyes are actually pretty bad; everything that's more than 50cm away from is blurry, even my reflection in the mirror.
So without my glasses everything is a blur. All I see is colours of the things in front of me, no edges, just a mixture of colours. 
And that's when I get my inspiration... 
Some blurry shape in front of me changes and turns into something completely different. A vase with roses becomes a tree, my jewellery box turns into a house, a teddy bear into a mountain... it's weird but kind of interesting... I knew my imagination was very active - I automatically see (the weird) things people say to me, like for example someone says ''I dyed my hair this morning'' and I see them doing it straight away, but I never knew my imagination was capable of changing everyday objects into a landscape...

Some time ago I decided that I preferred to walk around without my glasses, even if it gives me a headache, but I didn't really know why... I mean, who wouldn't want to see?
Well now I realised that when my eyes stop seeing, my imagination starts working properly. Some people have to close their eyes to imagine something, all I have to do is take off my glasses, and when an image starts forming, I just close my eyes and observe what's happening in my mind, I observe my imagination's work without disturbing it. I know it sounds like I've got a schizophrenia or something, but that's not the case. It's not like I actively think ''I can't disturb my imagination, she'll be angry''. I just don't try to control my thoughts.. unfortunately sometimes I do it with my words as well... like some people who had chemistry with me would know (sorry guys).. so yh, I don't try to control my thoughts because when I do, the image disappears, or becomes too regular and perfect, like a mathematical shape, not like something that would work peacefully with nature.

When the image has fully developed I ''take a screenshot'' of my mind, search for my sketchbook and then I quickly transfer it down onto the page, because if I don't do it straight away, the imagine would be gone from imagination after about 5 minutes.



Here's a result of my imagination:

Acrylic paint on a 16"x12" canvas.

NOT Winsor and Newton this time as it's an old painting :)



Lots of Love,
Marlena

Misty Eyes - 21.04.2014

Hi,

Few days ago I was looking at mysterious paintings and pictures, but unfortunately I realised that there aren't as many as I was hoping to find. So after a couple of hours of searching I decided to make my own painting!

Obviously I had a weird idea... I decided to paint a canvas black and then add light using a sock and white paint... And surprisingly it worked! The lights turned out looking very natural and even some random tree shapes and bushes to the painting :D (I had refine them later, but the shapes were already there waiting for me to work with them).

After that, I added some basis trees and then some more trees.. Because trees need their tree friends too.. Even the creepy trees:)

Originally I was planning to add some colour to it, like some lilac flowers for example, but then I changed my mind and decided to make it a black and white painting.. 

It is a bit strange and a bit creepy.. But that was the whole point of it :)

So without further ado, here are the stages of the painting and the final outcome:

                           

Final:                                                                   

              Stage 1:                                  

              Stage 2:      

This is an acrylic painting done entirely using Mars black (Galeria) and Titanium white (Finity range), both from Winsor and Newton :)

Everyone I've spoken to really likes this painting so I decided to make a series in this theme :)

It will be called "Mars black" 
(yup, creative name as always :')

This particular painting is called "Misty Eyes".

Thank you for reading :)


Lots of Love,
Marlena