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!

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!

My setting

I wanted to post new artworks, but it's a such responsible activity, that I keep stalling. Well, at least I can tell about the stuff that surrounds me.
Recently, I posted a photo (check my Instagram) of the books (and one App), that I use as references for my figure drawings and paintings. These are the things that are always with me.



1) (top left) Book by Gottfried Bammes "Die Gestalt des Menschen". This book has a stunning content (anatomy drawings, figure drawings, schemes) plus it is easy to find what you need, because it is structured beautifully.
On Amazon - crazy price!

2) (top right) Mogilevtsev "Drawing Samples". I use this book not only as a reference, but also as a source of inspiration. If you are interested in traditional artworks, I highly recommend all books by Mogilevtsev as they represent the Russian academic style.
On Amazon

3) The application called L'Ecorché from App store. It's very useful, when you have problems with the perception of form in space.

Hope that you'll find my micro-review useful!

Now I'm 25

Sometimes, when you visit famous places, there are 2 types of tickets - for young people (up to 24 years old) and for adults. Since yesterday, I'm officially an adult.

 

The last post in 2015

Suddenly, the year is almost over!

The end of 2014 was a nightmare - we've lost the member of our family and two relatives had a serious health problems. We couldn't celebrate, we were devastated.

I've learned a lot this year and I've met so many supportive people! THANK YOU for all the nice words!

As for the future... I'm planning a lot:
- become happier
- start to believe in myself
and so on

Here are some of my favorite works from 2015. While doing the sum up of the year, I noticed that I completely forgot to post a few of my works on DeviantArt!

Here is me in 2015 (all is from Instagram).

I'm on Instagram and Facebook!

Yeap, I finally did that.

Sometimes, a lot of time passes between posts with finished artworks, so I've decided to share a bit more about my life and process. As always on Instagram, there will be selfies, food and duck faces among art related stuff.
Not sure yet what kind of special stuff I'll post on Facebook, so for now there are reposts from my  Instagram and Blog, but I'll definitely find something very special to post there.

Me on Instagram - Zarinasart 
Me on Facebook - Zarina Situmorang Art

Last but not least, here is my new drawing:

Coping with sadness

Last week I worked very hard and this week I'm completely devastated. I just want to lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling. Wish, there was a magic potion that could fill me with energy, but, as far as I know, magic is not an option.

What makes you happy and gives you energy, when you are depressed?

For me, the best way is to go out. Since we have a dog, it became much easier to force ourselves to go for a walk. Plus, there are always a lot of dogs I can cuddle, that’s why I usually come back home happy and ready for a work.

Last week was a bit snowy

It’s not a very successful week for me, however, 3 paintings out of 5 are finished! There are 2 days till the weekend, so I'm hoping to finish all of them.

There are so many birds! I stopped counting after 30th

Photos and impressions

It's so cold outside, usually it takes me a few weeks to get used to it. This year, we have to go for a walk at least 2 times a day (with our dog) and, maybe, the process will be quicker. Cold is rude.   

To the other news:

I don't know why, but I was carefully keeping these 3 old palettes. They occupied a lot of space, but the idea to throw them away never came to my mind! 

Here a small photo addition to my previous post - Oil Painting Dangers. Yesterday, I was working on a background and details of a new painting, so I had to use a lot of brushes, and, at the end of the day, my new gloves helped me a lot.
I'm especially careful with new brushes, trying to keep them in a good shape for a longer time.

First week of October will be a bit exciting, because I have an adventurous plan to finish 5 paintings. (Honestly, one of them is a study of an amazing artist's masterpiece, but I'll count it anyway)

Basics: Oil Painting Dangers

This theme is more common for a label on a solvent, than for a post in blog, but it’s very important to be aware of it.

Honestly, I didn't care about the safety until the skin on my fingers started to crack. It was painful and the palms were itching. It happened quickly, I was blaming cold weather and trying to cure hands with a moisturizing cream, but it didn't help. Then, after a week of suffering, I saw how I was wiping the brush over hand. It was a habit that I didn't even notice! After I abandoned it and bought a good hand cream from a pharmacy, the skin became normal again.

A special cream by Winsor & Newton that forms an invisible barrier that protects hands from artists' materials.

Recently, I read an article called “Unusual Professional Disease”, it was written that it’s common for artists to be poisoned by heavy metals - according to scientists at Princeton University at least 20% of painting pigments have a pronounced toxic or carcinogenic effect. Constant inhalation of lead pigments leads to anemia, kidney, gastrointestinal tract and nervous system damage. Pigments based on cadmium increase the risk of lung cancer. Exposure to chromium leads to ulcers and allergic skin diseases. Pigments based on carbon black are even more dangerous for the skin - with regular exposure they can cause cancer.

Sounds terrifying, but don't panic – most of the pigments nowadays are synthetic imitations of natural pigments. As a replacement of toxic, unstable or expensive pigments manufacturers mix several pigments to create paint. Also, many natural pigments were ousted by artificial. For example, ultramarine blue paint, which was valued more than gold (it was obtained from the mineral called lapis lazuli), in 19th century was replaced by the cheaper artificial ultramarine.

The most dangerous thing that artist has to contact with is a solvent (here is more about solvents). They evaporate pretty fast, so store all solvents tightly capped.

There is also a safe solvent called Zest-It Oil Paint Dilutant, but I didn't use it

Let’s turn to advices:

- Ventilate the room - let the fresh air in and let it circulate. Do not keep art materials near an open flame and avoid excessive heating.

- Do not eat, drink or smoke when working.

- Use gloves when you wash the brushes. I know, it's not a pleasure to use them, but it would be much better for you, since you've decided to step on tough guys territory and choose oil based paints instead of water based. If you have 2 small brushes it's ok not to wear gloves, but if you wash 5 brushes - use gloves.

I use Eye Makeup Remover to get rid of paint on my hands, face and body

- Don’t wipe the brushes over your hands, body or clothes. I mean it. Don’t do that.

- Do I need to say that you shouldn’t put brushes into your mouth?

- If you want to apply paint with fingers – use a protective cream or gloves.


As you can see, the safety rules are easy to follow. Did you hear all of these quotes about «it's hard to find and easy to lose»? It also refers to your health, so be wise and think about it before something bad happen.

Dirty doggy and new sketch

After 2 weeks of rain sunshine becomes a medicine.

Life with an artist can be difficult. My dog Kevin was so afraid of a new super noisy vacuum cleaner, that he sat right on the palette.

Next week I'm planning to post an article about the safety. For now, I can show one of my recent sketches.

Pre-autumn haul and new design

Brushes and paints are treacherous. You need to change them frequently and, what is worse, they are pricy.

Finally, after a small discussion with myself, I've decided to update my brushes. It was a good chance to try something new, so now I'm a happy owner of white flat synthetic brushes.

And, of course, I had to buy a few canvases. My favorite are those tiny canvases (10x10cm). I'm not sure what can fit this tiny format, but I accepted the challenge.

I didn't want to take a boring photos of my new brushes, so I thought to create a photo with serious me holding the brushes.

Accidentally, we (me and my husband as a photographer) took this photo.

From the first second I saw it, I became sure that it needs to become my new profile photo. Moreover, I felt the need to change the design of the blog, because such a light photo didn't look good in such an old and boring surroundings.

Hope that you'll like the new design and photo as well as I do.

Changes in the cleaning routine

That is how my palette was looking like before I wrote the post called "How to clean your palette":

That is how it looks now (it's a different palette, not a magical transformation):

I have to say that it's much nicer to work on a clean palette!

My cleaning routine changed a lot: 

- before starting to work, I drip a bit of linseed oil on palette and smudge it with a cloth

- at the end of the working session I remove the excess paint with a palette knife and wipe the palette with a paper 

- then I damp a cloth with an odorless solvent and wipe the palette

It doesn't take a lot of time to do this and it's worth the effort.

Have a nice weekend!

Cleaning the bookshelves

Recently, I've been surfing online book shops to find new jewels. There was a perfect book – beautiful inside and outside, but something was wrong. And then it hit me – this book seemed familiar to me, because I’ve already bought it a couple years ago! I’ve checked the bookshelf - the book was on the lowest shelf, right behind the small table.

The understanding, that it is time to clean up the shelves, came quickly.

My tiny collection

I've decided to systematized my book collection and create a special shelf for the books that inspire me and make my day better. Here are the books I’ve put there.
(I’m from Russia, so some of the books are in my native language)

1. Illustrated Encyclopedia of Russian painting

This is the book that forced me to do the cleaning. It’s huge (600 pages), full of good quality images and cheap (around 40$) - my favorite combination.
This book is very useful for inspiration and quick acquaintance with the creations and biographies.

2. A Sketchy Past: The Art of Peter de Seve

When I feel lost and frustrated I always open this book – it's full of incredible illustrations and sketches. And they are made with motion and humor!
«He has drawn many covers for the magazine The New Yorker. As a character designer, he worked on the characters of A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, Robots, the four Ice Age films (including Scrat)» - from Wikipedia.
This work is a perfect example of what I meant.

Illustration by Peter de Seve

3. Animals Real and Imagined by Terryl Whitlatch

There are both – realistic and caricature drawings, but behing every illustration is a very high knowledge of anatomy. It's very interesting to see how she interprets the anatomy and makes new creatures, showing how powerful and impressive the knowledge can be.
«Terryl is also known for creating most of the creatures in Star Wars Episode I, including Jar Jar Binks» - wiki.

4. Caravaggio book by Taschen

He is my inspiration, so this book is always laying somewhere on my table. Beautiful, easy to carry book.

When there is so much dust on your old sketchbooks -
it's time to start the cleaning

5. The Art of World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria art book

Yes, I play WOW, but pretty rare. Their art books are full of beautiful illustrations – Blizzard’s lines and shapes are almost unique.

6. Old book about the Peredvizhniki (also known as The Wanderers or The Itinerants) 

Peredvizhniki is a very important part of the Russian art. Their paintings are impressive and inspiring. They were a group of Russian realist artists who in protest at academic restrictions formed an artists' cooperative and changed the art scene in Russia.
I got this book from my first art teacher and, accidentally, didn’t return it back (I looked for her everywhere, but it fell behind the huge cupboard. Years later, we’ve found it during the renovation). I’m still feeling bad about it.

Unintentionally I've opened 2 books on Repin's paintings (1 and 6). He is a huge inspiration for me not only as an artist, but also as a person. I'm currently reading his book of reminiscences «Far and Near» - very soothing reading, my antidepressant. Sadly, I can’t find whether it was translated into English or not.

I'm so happy that all of my books are now in an order and close to me. Hooray!

Sorrow at the bookshop and new sketch

Yesterday was the first time ever, when I didn't buy anything at the book store. I wasn't there by accident, I came with a purpose - to buy new art books.  I was particularly looking for books to watch and copy from.There were a lot of books and most of them can be grouped into 3 types:

1. Poorly illustrated books. Small/cheap books with a bad quality photos of paintings.

2. Books with small photos and a huge amount of text. There were a lot of nice books of this type, but I already have something to read. 

3. Beautifully illustrated books with a lot of close-ups that reveal the brushstrokes. But all of them were huge. It's a riddle for me why publishers don't separate huge books into parts. It's impossible to keep such book in hands or on stand - there always should be a table with a lot of free space. 

All the projects like Google Cultural Institute (Art Project) and Hermitage Digital Collection (link) make the most of the printed paintings look wretched. It's so good that we can enjoy a superb quality, but so sad at the same time, because I was always a huge fan of buying books.

Did you buy any books recently? Maybe you have something to recommend? I will be grateful. 

Here is the sketch for a new painting. I'm not satisfied with the poses, so the final painting will look a little bit different. 

Plans, thoughts and pencils

I promised myself not to bite off more than I can chew (=not to work on many paintings at the same time), but I couldn't resist, and here is a super quick sketch for my future painting. The third one I'm working on.

I am completely in love with the process of drawing, but there is one thing that spoils the mood - sharpening pencils. Previous week I've finally bought new pencil knife, so the process is a little bit easier now, but still very time-consuming. Furthermore, my ability to drop pencils on the floor doesn't make the situation better. 

This is how my pencils look right after the sharpening

Currently, I'm in a process of writing new post - How to Learn the Anatomy. Next week it will be ready.

The Friday is coming, so Have a Nice Weekend!

Summer Painting Haul

There are certain pluses in being an artist. For example, you have a serious reason to go to art supply stores - you need it for your work.

I never go to art shops without a shopping list. It's my rule Number 1 - always have a list before entering the shop. It helps not to buy stuff I won't need, because at the end, when I choose (thoughtfully!) everything I've mentioned on the list, I am so tired and I don't want to go and choose something else. Usually, at the end of the shopping I find myself just staring at something, for example, 500$ brushes.

Here is the review of goodies I've bought recently.

1. Walnut oil by Maimeri. Previously, I was using a linseed oil, but after I discover all the pluses and minuses of walnut oil I've decided to try it (the article about oils is here).

2. Slight smell diluent by Sonnet - cheap, a bit smelly, but a perfect choice to clean the palette (previous week I even wrote an article on how to clean the palette).

3. Odourless white spirit by Royal Talens. Once I used a turpentine and the whole flat was stinking horribly. It wasn't the worst smell you can imagine, but surely not appetizing. So for now the most important thing about the solvent for me is the smell (more about solvents is here).

4. Oiler with a lid. Somehow, I've lost the lid from a previous oiler. White-spirit evaporates pretty fast, so new oiler was a necessity. 

5. Raw Umber and Zinc White (6) paints Van Gogh by Royal Talens - I always use these two paints for grisaille (I have an article about Value, where I mention grisaille - it's here)

7. Cheap synthetic fan brush - perfect for blending hair.

1. 3 stretched canvases, 2 are coarse and 1 is fine. I usually prefer the fine grain canvases, but this time the choice was very limited.

2. New palette.

3. Chipboard on a frame (the brown one). I use it to pin a paper on and draw. Especially useful if you like to put the drawing on easel.

New painting and thoughts about self-bullying

Recently, I’ve started a series of works dedicated to self-abusing.

One of the worst things you can do to yourself is to endlessly compare, dig and hate. It won't make you a better person - it will take all of your strengths and aspirations.

My new painting - "Self-Bullying"

We constantly compare ourselves to others - and always there is someone more fit, smarter, more talented, just better. Sometimes it gives us inspiration and helps to move on, but in most cases it just makes us feel worse.

Did you ever feel that you are too old or not gifted enough for something? Sometimes we really are - old, not gifted, etc., but it's we who can change the situation. You cannot become younger, but you can change the attitude.

For example, "untalented" people (my mother always said that I'm not talented at art) can learn better, than those who have a natural gift, because we need to practice and learn more to get to their level. Knowing how to learn and how to get better - is a real advantage.

Don't treat yourself badly! You will save a lot of time and effort if you'll be kind to yourself. Help yourself - give yourself a hand, not a punch in the face.

My dog keeps his head high even after a surgery

Try to be happy, because no one can be happy for you.