''Silent dreams'' - 07.2014

"This world is but a canvas to our imagination." - Henry David Thoreau

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Today I will not go on a rant about some random thing... I'll not go on a rant at all.

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The following painting is currently on display at Christ Church, Oxford.

It was a birthday present for my dear friend Henry. 

Not Henry Thoreau, 

Henry Rodriguez-Broadbent or the ''guy who does maths at Oxford''.

He's also the guy who's ruined my life and convinced me that doing a maths degree was a great decision. yh right. 

I mean, who would want to do calculus for 4 years? 

Well, to be honest, I'm exaggerating, I'm actually looking forward to it :')

Come on September, hurry up.

As always Artists' oil paints from Winsor and Newton on a strange size canvas (about 6" x 12")

"Silent Dreams"

Lots of Love,

Marlena 

Drumlane Abbey, Cavan - 24.11.2014

Where are you Christmas? Why can't I find you? Why have you gone away...?

[listen]

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Christmas, Christmas, Christmas. Amazing time of the year. Usually. This year I feel like someone stole Christmas from me... Every year I start my Christmas preparations a month in advance and just spend the month searching for presents and writing cards.. This year however I had to rush everything, didn't write any cards and my presents weren't as thoughtful as usually.
Why? well... the answer is simple. I got a job. 

During the Christmas period we spend so much time worrying about money and our jobs. In all that hassle of everyday worries and problems we fail to truly experience Christmas. 
Christmas Day has become the most stressful day of the year for because everything has to ready and perfect even though we're spending it with our families. 
Christmas has been so commercialised that it is more about the presents and showing off than it is about having quality family time. Christmas itself has become purely a day focused on money.

I doubt that I'll get a Christmas job next year because this year it has simply robbed me instead of giving me something (except for money of course). On Christmas Day I was too exhausted to enjoy it. I literally fell asleep.

Christmas huh .. 

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Here's one of my latest paintings. It was created for the man with whom I have spent my Christmas this year.
It was a gift for his 19th birthday and it took me exactly 19 hours (which was of course a coincidence) :)

It's a painting of Drumlane Abbey, Cavan - a place where his Grandparents are buried. I wasn't just being creepy - he asked me for a painting of that place ages ago :)


Here is it:

Painted using artists' oil paints from Winston and Newton on a 18"x14" canvas, also from Winston and Newton.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas :) !!!



Lots of Love,
Marlena x 

"The fight of the sea'' - 08.10.2014

As some of you may know I did art GCSE and my theme was Ordinary and Extraordinary.
As part of the project we went to Brighton to collect sources.
Today I found my USB with all of my art things on it and I found a short poem I wrote on the 23.05.2012. As a part of my preparation I responded to the poem in Kandinsky's style :D 

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The Fight of the sea.

It's cold.

the intermittent white noise, soothed my senses, no way I was gonna leave this place.

The crashing sound, their anger expressed with the intense movement of water.. swooshing.. thundering.. roaring, like a wild beast in the deep blue water approaching its pray..

moving backwards returning to its cave.. it was cold.

then the fight was over.. the sea calmed down.. now it was whispering the words of its soul.. All I could hear was the gentle touch; the caress of the ocean just touching the rocks below. With each incoming wave, a gentle kiss with the limestone and then the wave quickly rushed back out to the sea. 

like a lover, the waves kissed the shore... a perfect place for me to be..

it's cold.. the wind is around me.. singing its sad song.. it seemed to be blue..  occasional tears touched my face, as the grey, fluffy clouds cried.. it's cold.. the wind is in my face..

a sea gull made a horrible sound.. it was trying to fly in the direction opposite to the wind.. everything was moving.  The waves were dancing, faster and faster until their gentle whisper changed into the sound of a war, the sound of crashing, roaring... it was deafening.. it wasn't lapping gently on the shore.. it was a fight again... and it was cold.

The air was salty.. there was also a scent of fish, chips and candy.. however salt was the main ingredient of the dish served by the sea. my lips were salty and my mouth was salty.. it was something that was impossible to defeat.. I was trying to drown out the taste of salt by sugar, but it wasn't giving up.. it was invading my mouth with its taste.. there was no way out.. and it was cold.

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and here's the response:

 I just thought I'd share it with you :) it's not my best painting but it was an interesting exercise.

And here's one of my more recent paintings.

As always artists' oil paints from Winsor and Newton on a 18"x14" canvas :)

Lots of Love,
Marlena

''Destiny'' - 06.07.2014

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

- Vincent van Gogh

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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 :')

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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

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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.

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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

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