Now you can BUY my art online

It's a very exciting moment for me, because I've just started to sell my artworks online! Now you can buy ORIGINALS and PRINTS through SaatchiArt — HERE.
(Worldwide Shipping by DHL, UPS or Fedex)

I postponed this moment, because it takes a lot of time to arrange everything — take photos that will be good enough to become prints, write descriptions (the hardest thing ever), add photos of details, etc. I admit, It was a huge stress, because it's impossible to make everything looks perfect, and it feels that I'm wasting the time that I could spend on making art.
Hooray, I did it!

New version of the old painting

Perhaps, you remember that I have a painting called "Artist is juicing his heart to create a masterpiece". It's been just over a year since I completed it. Unfortunately, the quality of that artwork is no longer sufficient to include this piece in portfolio and be proud. I really liked the idea of this work, that is why I couldn't hide it in a dark corner and forget about it. Besides, who does not like to look at photo comparisons like "that is how I painted in 2015 and in 2016"? I admit that I love it, because such photos are always very inspiring.

At the same time, I've decided to rework one more old piece - "The Decision is Yours". I'll write about this painting a little bit later.
Here I was using a method that I've learned from one of the famous artists - instead of doing everything at once, I was working gradually - firstly, I finished the face, then began to move around. It's a bit early to say whether or not I like this method, but I'll talk about it in details next week (with a new example).
You can compare the process of creating a previous version of the painting, which is HERE.

What did I do in April. Part 2

I'm here again to continue the talk about April.

Here is one of the paintings from the series called "Last Dance" (you can see it in a good quality in my portfolio).
I don't like to buy flowers with an intention to paint them, it's too responsible for me - you need to be sure that this week you'll sit down to paint them, and, if for some reason it doesn't happen, I'll feel guilty. Plus, to the dismay of my dear mother, I don't like to draw beautiful flowers.
It was different with these flowers, because they were fading beautifully. They stood on my desk and almost talked to me - look at us as we bent, dance, don't you want to draw us? Eventually, they persuaded me and it turned into a whole series.

What did I do in April. Part 1

It's already May! I was swallowed up by new artworks and didn't do a single post.

What was going on that month? I wanted to make a quick overview of what I did, thought of, planned, but, as usual, the review began to grow rapidly. So I've decided to divide one long post into a few smaller. It seems that in May I'll talk about April. Do not judge me for this delay!

Recently, I've been trying different approaches to working with palette. For example, this time I tried to mix colors in a puddle. Some painters go further and create a puddle of one color, parts of which they lighten or darken depending on their need. I was afraid that it will turn into mud too quickly, so I premixed several colors from light to dark and worked with them.
If the colors are close, it's much easier to create the transitions between them or make them colder/warmer. The only drawback, which is noted by many artists, is that the mixture gets dirty quickly, so you need to clean the palette from time to time and mix colors almost from scratch.

Mistakes and unsuccessful works

Mistakes and unsuccessful works is something that happen in life of every artist. Sometimes it is expected (when you try something new) and sometimes it's just a bad day, even if you do a familiar work.
At first, I really worried about it. I was redoing, getting upset, redoing again and again until I get completely exhausted. I could return to this work only after a few days or even weeks, because I was sick of it.
How did I handle this?

I had to wash off all the work that I've done

Experience - when it happened the first time, it's very frustrating, when the 10th - you just start to get used to it.

Have a procedure, which will lead to a result. It's really calming. The most nervous moment for me is the very beginning - the distribution of tones. Very experienced artists can start from a small piece, render it completely and move on. I'm not at that level yet, so firstly I build value relationships.
For example, it's very hard to judge how dark the color of the skin is, if you didn't fill the background. Once I go for a skin colors (and almost fully rendered it) and forgot to fill the background. It turned out that what looked good with a white background (pale skin), with a dark background looked washy, so I had to repaint the portrait.
When I picked up the tone/color I know that the further work will go well, and the fear that the result will disappoint me disappear.

Value/color sketches - how many hours and nerves I could save, if I was always doing preliminary work! Even if you want to try something new (fresh idea came to your mind), add a little pop of color, try not to do it on a big canvas - do a quick sketch, because the risk of spoiling everything is pretty high.

Value sketch with a painting

Anyway, mistakes are inevitable. If you feel that the work is bad don't get stuck, don't blame yourself, do not dig deep, take you time - stop the work, have a cup of tea and go play video games. Then getting back to work will be so much easier.  And sometimes you just need to throw that unsuccessful artwork (or hide it, so you won't see your failure).

Wish you a lot of success at managing your failures!

Falling into Depression

I often get an inspiration from what is happening inside of people - their worries and struggles.

This series is titled "Falling into Depression". It's about the moment in life, when you stop resisting and surrender to what drags you into sadness and gloom.

The difference between white, white and white

It may seem that the question of choosing the white is not so important, but white - is the most popular color on the palette, it is added in at least half of the color mixtures. It's better to choose it consciously. Moreover, this question is much simpler than choosing oils and diluents.
There are 3 main types of white:

Titanium white

Known for being bright white, opaque, has a high tinting strength. Can be difficult in color mixing, because you can add too much too fast and make the paint look chalky or pastel. Perfect for direct painting.

Zinc White

Very transparent, has 1/10th the tinting strength of Titanium White. Gives you more control than Titanium. Also, it's slow drying and has a "bluish" (cold) tone.

Lead White (also called Flake White)

Is the most common white found on the old masters' palette. It’s opaque, flexible and quick-drying. Also, it can be applied more heavily than other whites with less danger of cracking. Flake white is a "warm" white.
! Being composed of lead, Flake white is poisonous if absorbed into the body.

Extra read:

Zinc white is considered cooler than Titanium. Also, some artists think that Titanium white makes the paint "chalky" or dull. Josh from Too Much White Paper made a study that clearly shows the difference (or no difference) of whites in tints.
You can find it here - Zinc White vs Titanium White in Tints

A small article "Will Lead White Soon be Unavailable?" by Natural Pigments will explain the situation in a Flake White production.

An incredibly interesting comparison of yellowing of different whites throughout the years by Jonathan Linton - The White Test. . . 5 Years in the Making