''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 

''Destiny'' - 06.07.2014

"The only time I feel alive is when I’m painting" 

- Vincent van Gogh

...

Why do people paint?

Some paint to get rid of the excess of creative energy, others paint because they want to recreate a famous painting or want to paint like some famous artist; some people paint because they have always done it, since they can remember, they've always been painting; some are forced by their parents and others just want to make some money. There are also people who just like to be creative, they like to make something new, something unique, something that represents their emotions and state of mind.


Unless you're ready to make mistakes and learn how to work with, not against them, don't try to make art. In art, mistakes are a crucial part of the process, just like in life, we learn from mistakes and try to use them to our advantage.
I believe that everybody starts their life as an artist. Not necessarily a painter, but as an artist of some sort.
Some people try writing songs, creating melodies, singing in a jazzy way others try painting, sketching, sculpting and drawing, but most of them give up on it because they believe their passion is just a silly phase, just a childish dream which will never have a permanent place in their life. 

Many people give up on their dreams simply because the society tells them to do so as it's become more acceptable to live a life with no dreams, passion and happiness, but with money, than it us to live a fulfilling one while being poor.
Slowly people are turning into robot-like creatures that live in order to make money they believe they need in order to live. They fall into a never ending cycle. It's sad that money is such an important aspect of our lives.
It's so important that people choose to abandon  their dreams in order to make more and more and even more money. I don't want to live like that. I'd rather be poor and happy, than rich and stuck in a job I hate.
What's the point of life? Isn't it to be happy...? 

Henry Miller in his book [''To love is to paint again''] said that ''poverty is one of the misfortunes people seem to dread even more than sickness''. How strange is that? Surprising? Not necessarily. The main criterion for a ''happy'' life is money. People will not classify your life as complete if you don't reach a certain salary level. How awful is that? People are more scared of being poor than they are of being sick...
The weird thing is that you can't even get water... or food... without money. Money became more crucial to our survival.... than water.

Dreams don't matter anymore... being an artist doesn't matter anymore... then what does matter? money? yes... for some people... 
Money is a crazy invention... It's supposed to give people freedom, but instead it enslaves them.

I don't want to turn my hobby into a job. I don't want others to control my passion. If I did turn this into a job, I would have to start taking commissions, which would mean that I wouldn't be able to paint what I want. 

I paint to keep myself calm, relaxed and happy. I love seeing progress in my paintings... My style changed so much this year.. the first proper oil painting I ever created was in February 2014. And it looks completely different when compared with my other ones. And that's what keeps me going; trying new techniques makes it exciting for me... My dream is to exhibit my work in a gallery, but I doubt I'll ever get there, because if I did, then I'd always be trying to take the paintings off the walls and change something in them :')

...

Here's something I created today :)

It's called ''Destiny''. A bit unrelated to the essay above, but that's the name I find the most fitting for a painting of the sea.

As always oil paints from Winsor and Newton (Artist's range) on a 18"x14" canvas.

Lots of Love,

Marlena 

"Sweet Dreams" 25.06.2014

"For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream."
- Vincent van Gogh

...

Why are people so obsessed with knowing things for certain?
Nobody wants to make a decision unless they're 100% sure that this is the right one. But it's impossible to know. You can't predict the future all you can do is assume that what you're going to do will have some predictable effect on your life, but there is no way for you to actually know, for you to be certain of the outcome of your actions. Of course, making predictions is useful, you shouldn't decide to do something risky without analysing all possible outcomes and then only if it's worth the risk you should proceed. Quite often all we think of is the immediate future which gets directly affected by our decision, rarely we consider the long term effects of our actions. All we can do is analyse and predict, but we will never be 100% certain that what we're doing is right. We'll only know when we finally see the long term effect of our decision. 

People are impatient. Who wants to wait for years in order to see that their investment will pay off? Who wants to wait for  years to see if what they love doing will become the only thing they ever have to do?

All we have is here and now. And that's all we have for certain.

Okay, people like to feel in control of their own lives, and indeed, there are some aspects of our lives that we are able to control, but many things are out of our control. We can't control other people, we can't make them react how we want them to react in order for the scenario from our heads to become real. Some people try to manipulate others... Recently I realised how easy it was for people to manipulate me. I would always do the opposite of what they're telling me to do. Let's say they were giving me advice, no matter which side they stood on, I'd be on the opposite side arguing against them and if they were persistent with their argument I'd end up doing the opposite to what they were suggesting. I realised how easily that could be used against me. Now I know and I can control it and stop people from doing so, but not by controlling them, but by controlling the way I react to them.

Oops.. I've gone a bit off topic... :)

So as I was saying earlier, nothing in life is certain and all we can do is try our best to keep up and to stay on top of our lives so we actually feel like we're in control :)

It is IMPOSSIBLE to predict the future. 

All we have is sweet dreams. Sweet dreams about the future, sweet dreams about things that may never happen.

...

My latest painting is called "Sweet Dream" and it was inspired by Ed Sheeran's song ''I See Fire''.. 

As I was listening to his song an image formed in my head and it just had to turn into a painting :)

Here it is: 

Oil on a 18"x14" canvs.

As always Oil paints by Winsor and Newton. This time from the Artists' range :)

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 

Imagine 3.05.2014

On Tuesday I was watching a lot of mountain tutorials because I really wanted to learn how to paint them properly... they're surprisingly hard.. especially the snow... so I spent a lot of time researching the techniques.. my favourite video was this one [Click], probably because I love Jason Bowen's paintings.. he's one of the artists that I look up to...  His work is amazing and I admire his style. All of the videos are really informative and helpful so I'd suggest watching all of the mountain tutorials on youtube if you want to learn how to paint them :)

I only used 3 colours in this painting - Phthalo Blue, Titanium white and Ivory black all from the Artists' range by Winsor and Newton.. It was my first painting using them and I love those paints so much! They're much better than the Winton series - the consistency is a bit different and they're easier to work with :) I also used sansodor to thin out the paint for the lake reflection.The mountains were done using a painting knife and soft brushes :) The snow on the trees was applied using a small, round hog brush from Winsor and Newton (yup, I'm addicted to them)

This painting was one of my random ones... after watching so many videos and looking at so many photos of mountains in various locations, an image formed in my head and I decided that it was going to be my next painting... so I took out my paints, my brushes and a canvas and started painting... it took me 3 hours to get to the first stage of the painting :D I obviously had a single song on repeat (as always - to make sure I stay in the same mood throughout the painting), this time it was Purple by Harry Harris (can be found on Spotify) :)

Then I left the painting to dry for the next 4 days and today I finally finished it :D 

The last stage took me about an hour, so in total I've spent 4 hours on it *whew!*. 

My mum even said that it's her favourite painting by me! and trust me, she's very critical... she loves realistic paintings and that's kinda what I was aiming for so I guess I achieved my goal :)

Here is the final painting: 

and here's the first stage: 

Lots of Love,

Marlena

Up + Down in Smoke 21.03.2012

I had an amazing evening last night..
I went to see the most talented artist ever! Jim Moray at the Foundling Museum... Here's his website [click].. If you've never heard of him, enjoy folk music, or just want to hear something new, I recommend checking him out! He's a really nice guy who makes amazing songs :) When he started singing acapella. oh dear. He's simply... I don't even know how to describe him hahaha I even had a chance to talk to him, but I wasted it because I was too embarrassed/shy, but I still got him to sign his CD for me :D

He played in a tiny room, and about 100 people were present so it was really nice and cosy :)



Here is another painting done ages ago.. I will probably redo it with better paints - it was done with those cheap acrylics from Lidl :D and back then I had no idea how to actually paint.. I know it was only 2 years ago, but my technique changed a lot since then.

It's one of the few painting that were based on a photo.. it wasn't even my photo.. I'd post the photo here for comparison, but I have no idea what it was called or where I found it... but yes, anyway, ladies and gentlemen, here is " Up + Down in Smoke"

Lots of Love,

Marlena