How to find your art style (fast)

Letter #41, on learning oil painting, starting a new collection, and going on "workation".

Hi there!

Just popping in (more briefly this time) to wish you happy midsummer from Sweden. 🥳 We're off to my family's summer house tomorrow to celebrate and it looks like the weather will be perfect. Fingers crossed...

What have I been doing these past two weeks since we last spoke?

You guessed it: Oil painting. Every. Single. Day.

I'm currently at day 18 of my streak. And although I might have to re-think my plan to finish a painting every day for 30 days, I will probably paint at least a little bit every day most of the summer. I didn't finish a painting yesterday, but I got halfway through a larger piece for my next collection:

Yes - I've started working on my next collection! My first one in oils. The theme felt obvious once it came to me: Corvids. My first collection of oil paintings will be of crows, ravens, magpies, jackdaws, rooks, jays... My soulmates of the animal realm. I never felt I could do these birds justice in watercolor. That's why I mostly drew them in charcoal. But now, with oils... everything just clicks. I can't even explain what a thrill it is to be able to paint the way I imagine things in my head. Without fear.

I've been blogging about my journey with oil painting, so I'm not going to elaborate too much here. If you're curious about what I'm learning and creating, head on over to my blog. There's a post there for every day/painting.

But here are some highlights from the past two weeks. Pieces I'm especially proud of:

It's true what they say: If you want to learn an art medium and find your style quickly - Don't overthink it, simply paint something small every day. It's so, so effective. Just a week into the challenge, I found myself gravitating towards certain motifs and colors, and moving my brush in an intuitive way. And I settle into it more each day. Most importantly, I still feel free to go in whatever direction I want. Paint whatever I'm drawn to. There's always a new opportunity the next day. I’m curious to see where I’ll be at the end of summer.

I haven't only been painting lately, of course. Days are busy right now, as I'm restructuring my career goals and planning. Yesterday, I did a photoshoot for the website updates I'll be doing next week. And I'm building out my email strategy as well. It's equal parts exciting and excruciating being this inspired, because you see all of the puzzle pieces that need to be in place and you're itching to work on all of them at once. Even more awkward that vacation season is just around the corner, and I'm really supposed to rest and "enjoy summer". (Which frankly, I suck at.) So we'll see. I'll probably be in "workation" mode - working at a leisurely pace while enjoying the season and taking more time to relax.

I am however going to press pause on these letters for a few weeks. I'm thinking from now and until mid- or late July. If you're a paid subscriber, you can choose wether or not you want to keep supporting me during this time. If you do, I'm very thankful. If you don't, that's totally okay. I still love you. 🖤

And with that, I wish you a very pleasant summer, and you'll hear from me again in a month or so.

With love,

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New: Louise's Oil Painting Journal

P.S. Most of the finished artworks are for sale, so if you fall in love with something, reach out to me. 😊