TRAVEL WITH MY ART #44: ZAVALA BEACH (ISLAND HVAR, CROATIA)
Hello dear readers and fellow bloggers! In this post, I'll share the latest acrylic painting I finished about a month ago. If you remember, I sort of teased this painting in my last post! As you can see, it is another seascape depicting Zavala on island Hvar. If that rings a bell, well that might be because I painted this place a couple of times before. As regular readers of my blog know, island Hvar is a huge inspiration for me. I spent a significant part of my childhood on island Hvar. I also lived and worked there in 2021. It's definitely one of my favourite Croatian islands, perhaps even my favourite one. Croatian islands are pure magic. No wonder how many you visit, there always seems so much more to see and experience. Living on island Hvar and working as a teacher there, I really got to experience island Hvar magic. So, all things considering it makes sense that Hvar features so prominently in my art.
Yes, today it's time for another post in the Travel with My Art Series. If you are new to my blog, this is a feature where I post my art inspired by certain places and locations. You could say that it is a way of travelling with my art. In this series I mostly post landscapes and seascapes with you, but sometimes my art is also focused on buildings and hence it perhaps falls under the architectural art category. Still, when we talk about travelling with my art, it's mostly seascapes. I have always been drawn to the sea. I adore the sea. I love seeing the sea, swimming in it, strolling next to it, being next to it and all that. Seaside makes my heart sing. Croatian seaside is my home. It's where I always come back when it comes to drawing inspiration. This eternal play of light, sea and wind shall always fascinate me.
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| a gif showing different stages of this seaside painting! |
What is the particular place I have painted? One of the beaches in Zavala. Of course, there are many beautiful beaches on island Hvar, but this one remains special because of the memories.
Indeed, when we visited Zavala ( almost exactly five years ago), we spent some time on this one. It was Spring and too early for a swim so we soaked our feet in the sea and just chilled. It must have been a lovely moment, for it continued to inspire my art all these years later. I have painted half a dozen paintings of Zavala so far!
Who knows how many more I will paint? Isn't life exciting? You never know what is behind the corner. That's both stressful and exciting. Every day is a chance to swim or sink. I suppose we have to take the good with the bad, right? The uncertainty with hope. Live and hope. My life has often been unpredictable. I was thrown off my feet often enough by one event or another. I suppose life is a little bit like surfing. You just have to learn to balance on waves.
Is it good to hold on some memories? They say it is not good to live in the past, but some memories are happy memories. Some memories bring with them a feeling of peace. It's not good to live in the past, but we can learn from the past and get inspired by the past. We do even if we don't try it. When we create art, we draw on our past experiences. Our past shapes us but so does the present. Perhaps the future also shapes us in some ways we cannot understand.
What is future? Is it something we can sense? Something we aspire to? The older I get, the more do I understand how our relationship to future is complex. As a humankind, we definitely don't know how to think about long term future. It seems that we (as a global human society), don't care at all what happens to future generations. We as humans can't even think one generation ahead. It seems we create chaos and we don't think how our children will deal with it. As for the children of our children, do we ever think about them?
It's odd how out of touch with future we are as human beings. I feel like we should know better and care more about future. Not just immediate future. We hardly make plans that go beyond our present generation. It is strange how out of touch with reality we as human beings can be. Why is that so? Maybe because there are so many things to think about right now. Decisions to make. However, what is it all for, if the world our children shall live in is not any good? What kind of world are we leaving behind us? A complex question, but sometimes it is worth asking the hard questions. Life passes so quickly.
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| A photograph taken at Zavala about five years ago |
Painting this painting was an interesting and at times even a surprising experience. No matter how many times you have picked up a brush, there's always something new to the experience.
Feeling surprised is good. Being curious. One of the things I like about art is its ability to surprise us.
Art surprises us both when we create it and experience it.
Making a piece of art sometimes comes down to making thousands of little choices.
You never know what the end piece will look like, feel like or even be like.
The uncertainty is there every step of the way. Should I have done this or that?
Still, this uncertainty is perhaps what keeps it interesting. Among thousand of little choices, a creative vision appears.
You are creating something, you're breathing life into it and perhaps also a piece of yourself.
Some part of you that responds to a certain light, a certain shadow or a certain shape.
When we paint a landscape or a seacape, when we paint a painting, we're always depicting and painting more than we know and realize.
Any landscape is not just a landscape. It's a choice. Whether we use a reference or paint from imagination, we're making choices. We're making art. Art demands us to think critically, sometimes to the point of exhaustion.
Sometimes inspiration appears, and you can feel like there's something guiding you. Call it inspiration or drive, but it exists. However, as Picasso said, it has to find you working.
In other words, if you're not painting at the moment, don't count on inspiration for painting to comes. It usually happens in the process itself.
The same rule applied to any creative work, I should think.
You might like poetry, but if you don't sit down to write a poem, you'll probably not write a poem.
Sometimes you have to push yourself a little bit.
Write that first sentences and the others will follow.
Write a poem, and then another will follow.
Paint a painting, and then just keep going. Paint another one. And another one.
Sometimes it is more about quality than quantity. Sometimes we will focus on one painting or piece and work on it for a long time. Sometimes we'll work on a lot of things.
You need both quality and quantity to get better. This applies to more than just art. In life, there are projects and areas where you need to switch from working quickly to working slowly.
Sometimes you need to stop and listen to your inner voice. Sometimes you need to stop and analyze things. Sometimes you have to act fast. Sometimes you just have to keep going. It's an art figuring out when to do what. An art of life. Do we ever truly master it? Is it always such a balancing act? Does it ever get easier?
This particular painting was a slow labour. I worked on it for many many hours. How many hours I'm not sure. I have worked on it on for quite some time. This post has also taken me a lot of time to start. I haven't put in it as much time and effort as I did in this painting, but still there was work to do here as well. I had to create collages, and I had to write something for it. Just like with painting, you need to write to be able to write. I do like writing.
Seeing that I'm a bit pressed for time and all that, I worked on this post a couple of times. I could have published it earlier with less text but I wasn't in a hurry. I'm blogging a bit more slowly these days. Not just because I started a new job so I needed time to adapt for also because I feel like less is more sometimes.
In times of algorithms dictating our engagement, slow blogging seems like a good idea. Taking some time to think about what to write about. The thing is that when one writes about art, one also writes about life. Art imitates life, they say. But life also imitates art. These two concepts are more interconnected than we realize.
Art is connected with the very essence of being human. Where does this need to create art comes from? Surely from within. Quite often, there are no immediate benefits to creating art. You need to set aside time and patience. You also need to prepare your art materials and make your plans. Nevertheless, we make art. We put in the time and the effort. There must be something about art that makes it all worth while. Something that makes the sacrifices and the effort count.
As you can see from the images I have shared so far, this painting was long in the making. I painted many layers. Layer after layer, I kept going and adding more details. It was fascinating to see how this painting came to life. Thanks to these collages and my gifs, you can see the making of this painting.
The first thing I did (and that I usually do) was to paint the general outline and get the basic colours onto the canvas. At start I just tried to get the dark and 1ight tones down and that's it. From then on, I worked on the painting getting more details down.
It's amazing how easy it all looks when you speed up a painting process.
No wonder we often love quick videos, 'shorts' and gifs.
It gives us illusion of absorbing information in no time.
Sometimes I feel like quick and easy are becoming the most coveted words in our dictionary.
We like the illusion of quickness. Algorithms seem to like it, too.
It makes sense since algorithms are trained based on what we respond to.
We seem to like this idea that everything can be summed up and consumed in matter of milliseconds.
It's all nonsense, of course. Nothing worth doing and studying is really easy and quick.
It's all nonsense, of course. Nothing worth doing and studying is really easy and quick.
Yet, we're always in a rush to do a million things not worth doing.
Where is the rush? We're all going to die in a matter of decades, some sooner and some later.
If you look at it that way, you really don't have the time not to have the time for things that truly matter.
When you use an art generator, you're not just rubbing some artist of his work, you're robbing yourself of the opportunity to do be human, to try to create something by yourself.
Art cannot be generated. It has to be earned. That's the beauty of it.
Where is the rush? We're all going to die in a matter of decades, some sooner and some later.
If you look at it that way, you really don't have the time not to have the time for things that truly matter.
When you use an art generator, you're not just rubbing some artist of his work, you're robbing yourself of the opportunity to do be human, to try to create something by yourself.
Art cannot be generated. It has to be earned. That's the beauty of it.
As already said, I used a reference for this painting. I spent a lot of time studying this photograph.
Trying to understand how the sea moves and how the light moves with it.
The challenge of painting the sea is one of my favourite art challenges.
I feel like I'm developing my own style of seascapes.
Or am I? It's always a debate. When are we too comfortable? Should I explore other styles? Am I really getting better or not? Am I developing my style or am I stuck in it?
What is the next stop on my artistic journey? What is the next skill that I'm meant to learn?
Art is all about questions. Amid all those questions, one thing is certain.
Island Hvar remains my inspiration. Zavala in particular continues to inspire me.
I decided to name this painting Zavala 144.
Why 144 you might wonder? Because that's the number of people living there (according to wiki and the latest info).
If you enjoyed this painting, why not have a look at my other work?
There's a story behind every painting and there's certainly a story behind every art piece posted in this travelling art series.
This was a nice scene to paint. I'm not sure have I done these gorgeous colours justice with my painting but I tried.
This is the only place in my travelling art series that I have painted my haven't actually visited. In my third post, I shared this a watercolour pencil sketch of a place I never visited: a church of Our Lady of Kazan located in Irkutsk, Siberia (Russia).
The fourth painting I shared is one of a location in my hometown. This watercolour pencil landscape was inspired by Split city, Croatia. More specifically, it was inspired by one of my favourite sights in Split city and that would be these absolutely gorgeous historical stone houses in immediate vicinity of Matejuška port.
For my fifth post in this series, I illustrated a historical Franciscan monastery on island Hvar with watercolours. As some of you might remember, I lived on island Hvar. Having had enough time to study this beautiful island, now I feel confident in illustrating it.
Every painting is a different memory. For my sixth painting in the series, I illustrated a scene from my hometown and once again it's all about the boats. I distinctly remembering sketching this one.
The seventh post in this series was my personal favourite. I love how I captured sea in this post. I still often revisit this painting to admire it. It was also gifted, so it's not available for sale.
In the eight post in this series, I shared a canvas painting of Sucuraj. As usual, I used one of my own photographs as a reference for this acrylic painting.
For the the ninth post in the series, I repeated a location. It must be a special location, you might be thinking and you'd be right. I'd already illustrated bay Mala Stiniva on island Hvar once, when I decided to paint it again.
My tenth painting in the series saw me returning to magical island Hvar. In the centre of this painting there is a 12.5 meters long traditional wooden fishing boat and in the background you can see Hvar town (where we first spotted this boat about a year ago). I invested a lot of time and effort into this painting.
In my eleventh post in the series, I returned to Jelsa on island Hvar to paint a nightscape. The medium was acrylic paintings on canvas. This painting was also gifted, so it's not available for sale any more (even if the original post implies it is). This is the second night seascape I made (you can see the first one here).
For my the twelfth post in my series, I returned to Zavala to paint another acrylic seascape canvas. I typically invest more time into my canvases, as opposed to landscapes painted in my sketchbooks.
The thirteenth painting in the series is more of a sketch. I wasn't completely happy with it and wasn't sure where I went wrong. Maybe it was the number 13 that brought me bad luck.
In the fourteenth painting in the series, I depicted island Hvar again and this time a bay that is not widely known.
In my fifteenth post in the series, I illustrated bay Lozna on island Hvar. Another sketchbook seascape painting that turned out very satisfactory. I worked on this painting for about two days.
Another attempt at capturing the sea in the small frame with acrylic paints on paper.
In my seventeenth post, I illustrated island Brač and more precisely to- Bol.
Planinica hill in Bosnia and Herzegovina. You might remember this place from my numerous posts about it. Like Goranci, Planinica is only a short drive away from Mostar. If you are lucky, you might even come across semi-wild horses. I've been meaning to paint Planinica for a long time.
The nineteenth painting in the series was an ambitious acrylic canvas that was again all about island Hvar. This time I painted boats in a harbour.
Sometimes nothing beats a quick painting. In the twentieth post in my travelling art series, I shared a quick painting of Soline beach in Vrbovska.
This painting was inspired by photographs taken in April a few years ago near hotel Arkada, Stari Grad city (island Hvar). Like the last painting in my series, this acrylic painting was done on mixed media paper in A4 format is. Therefore, it's neither a large painting nor a very detailed one.
Another acrylic on paper. This time my inspiration was Makarska town in Dalmatia (Croatia).
I have put so much effort into this painting but I think it paid off.
This Žnjan painting was painted on plain air which was a fun experience. I remember one lady approached me to talk to me. I painted it on beach Žnjan in Split city, Croatia. I don't do a lot of painting in the open but sometimes I do venture outdoors, for example HERE.
I used one of my own photographs as a reference. The medium was acrylic paints on mixed media paper.
This was a super quick oil pastel sketch and I liked how it turned out.
This one is a little different because it's more a drawing than a painting.
This watercolour painting can perhaps be categorized as both destination and fashion illustration. It depicts a certain location- Basina bay on island Hvar, so you could call it a landscape or a location painting.
In the twenty- ninth post in this destination art series, I painted bay Torac using acrylic paints on canvas. As far as the making of this painting, it was a pretty standard affair.
In my thirtieth post in my travel and destination art series, I shared an illustration that I made for and gifted to a friend of mine who lives in Malta. The medium is water pastels on paper.
This was a commission painting. This is a big painting!
This super quick painting was another painting inspired by Zavala on island Hvar (Croatia). It is not nearly as elaborative or challenging as the last piece I shared in my destination art series.
#33:TRAVEL WITH MY ART LOZNA COMISSIONED, ISLAND HVAR
This seascape was another commissioned painting of bay Lozna (the second bay next to cape Kabal) on island Hvar. Some of you might remember I have already painted this gorgeous seascape location with acrylics on a A4 mixed media paper.
In the thirty-forth post in this series, I painted a beautiful spot in Vrboska. I was really happy with how this one turned out. The medium was acrylic paints on paper.
Today I'm sharing with you an A4 acrylic seascape inspired by a photograph taken by my husband. It's a typical quick 'Ivana' seascape. Painted pretty quickly, it is not very detailed.
This painting took me about three months to finish for multiple reasons.
I used my old photographs as a reference. I took these two photograph last year while I was walking through this park.
WHAT IS LANDSCAPE ART ANYWAY? LET'S CONSULT WIKIPEDIA!
Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction in painting of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, rivers, trees, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works, landscape backgrounds for figures can still form an important part of the work. Sky is almost always included in the view, and weather is often an element of the composition. Detailed landscapes as a distinct subject are not found in all artistic traditions, and develop when there is already a sophisticated tradition of representing other subjects.[1]
WESTERN (EUROPEAN) AND CHINESE ART TRADITION SEEM TO BE PRECURSES TO LANDSCAPE ART
Two main traditions spring from Western painting and Chinese art, going back well over a thousand years in both cases. The recognition of a spiritual element in landscape art is present from its beginnings in East Asian art, drawing on Daoism and other philosophical traditions, but in the West only becomes explicit with Romanticism.
IT IS INTERESTING TO NOTE THE DIFFERENCE IN HISTORICAL PERCEPTION OF LANDSCAPES
Landscape views in art may be entirely imaginary, or copied from reality with varying degrees of accuracy. If the primary purpose of a picture is to depict an actual, specific place, especially including buildings prominently, it is called a topographical view.[2] Such views, extremely common as prints in the West, are often seen as inferior to fine art landscapes, although the distinction is not always meaningful; similar prejudices existed in Chinese art, where literati painting usually depicted imaginary views, while professional artists painted real views.[3]
The word "landscape" entered the modern English language as landskip (variously spelt), an anglicization of the Dutch landschap, around the start of the 17th century, purely as a term for works of art, with its first use as a word for a painting in 1598.[4] Within a few decades it was used to describe vistas in poetry,[5] and eventually as a term for real views. However, the cognate term landscaef or landskipe for a cleared patch of land had existed in Old English, though it is not recorded from Middle English.[6]
The earliest forms of art around the world depict little that could really be called landscape, although ground-lines and sometimes indications of mountains, trees or other natural features are included. The earliest "pure landscapes" with no human figures are frescos from Minoan art of around 1500 BCE.[7]
Hunting scenes, especially those set in the enclosed vista of the reed beds of the Nile Delta from Ancient Egypt, can give a strong sense of place, but the emphasis is on individual plant forms and human and animal figures rather than the overall landscape setting.
For a coherent depiction of a whole landscape, some rough system of perspective, or scaling for distance, is needed, and this seems from literary evidence to have first been developed in Ancient Greece in the Hellenistic period, although no large-scale examples survive. More ancient Roman landscapes survive, from the 1st century BCE onwards, especially frescos of landscapes decorating rooms that have been preserved at archaeological sites of Pompeii, Herculaneum and elsewhere, and mosaics.[8]
The Chinese ink painting tradition of shan shui ("mountain-water"), or "pure" landscape, in which the only sign of human life is usually a sage, or a glimpse of his hut, uses sophisticated landscape backgrounds to figure subjects, and landscape art of this period retains a classic and much-imitated status within the Chinese tradition.
Both the Roman and Chinese traditions typically show grand panoramas of imaginary landscapes, generally backed with a range of spectacular mountains – in China often with waterfalls and in Rome often including sea, lakes or rivers. These were frequently used, as in the example illustrated, to bridge the gap between a foreground scene with figures and a distant panoramic vista, a persistent problem for landscape artists. The Chinese style generally showed only a distant view, or used dead ground or mist to avoid that difficulty.
A major contrast between landscape painting in the West and East Asia has been that while in the West until the 19th century it occupied a low position in the accepted hierarchy of genres, in East Asia the classic Chinese mountain-water ink painting was traditionally the most prestigious form of visual art. Aesthetic theories in both regions gave the highest status to the works seen to require the most imagination from the artist. In the West this was history painting, but in East Asia it was the imaginary landscape, where famous practitioners were, at least in theory, amateur literati, including several emperors of both China and Japan. They were often also poets whose lines and images illustrated each other.[9]
However, in the West, history painting came to require an extensive landscape background where appropriate, so the theory did not entirely work against the development of landscape painting – for several centuries landscapes were regularly promoted to the status of history painting by the addition of small figures to make a narrative scene, typically religious or mythological.
I don't know about you, but I find art history fascinating.
Isn't it wonderful how we all perceive landscape painting differently?
How it can mean different things in different cultures?
I try to learn something with every post I publish. Sometimes it's something about history, sometimes about art and sometimes about myself. We live and learn.
OTHER SIMILAR PLACES ON ISLAND HVAR- FIND THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BEACHES
SOUTHERN GDINJ BAYS ARE ANOTHER GREAT OPTION!
If you want, you can read about other beautiful Gdinj's bays on island Hvar:
OTHER BEAUTIFUL BAYS ON ISLAND HVAR I HAVE VISITED AND SHARED WITH YOU IN 2019/2020 (Click the links if you want to know more about them):
VISITING MILNA NEAR HVAR
VISITING MINA NEAR JELSA
VISITING STARI GRAD BAYS
Thank you for your visit!
How are you doing dear readers?
Prelepo! Mnogo mi se dopada kako si prenela taj prizor na platno! <3
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ReplyDeleteThe way you painted the rock is brilliant. I'm thrilled. The water sparkles in the sun in your picture.
144 Makes Sense To Me My Dear - Incredible Acrylic Work For Sure - Have A Delightful Week And Keep Smiling
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Cheers
Anonymous??? Its The Padre
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Your paintings of water are just incredible, Ivana, and this is no exception. I very much agree, that to create art you have to DO art. So much of the battle is just doing it.
ReplyDeleteEs una bella pintura. Te mando un beso.
ReplyDeleteYou have such talent for painting water, Ivana. The movement is incredible! xxx
ReplyDeleteIvana, I am excited to look at your painting! I admire it!
ReplyDeleteYour landscape paintings are pure, honest art. In my opinion, this is perfection :) Waves, sea foam, reflections in the sea, stones, cliffs, pine trees on the shore.... Simply - 10 out of 10 !!!!! It was worth waiting to show this painting! And, thank you for educating us laymen about the history of landscape painting! Best regards and health to you, Leone👏🫶🤗
ReplyDeleteWonderful art Ivana :-D
ReplyDeleteAwesome to see this update of your art! Great to get in to the mind of your creativity. I watch a lot of tutorials on repainting Barbies..and they use a lot of a spray Mr. Super Clear as they layer their art. I didn't know if you had to do anything like this while you painted. 💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙This was such a poignant post. You truly are growing as an artists. I am so happy to see your latest work. I hope you are having a wonderful summer. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you for your comments, as well. ☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️
ReplyDeleteThis painting captures the sea so beautifully! So happy to see your diligence paying off. Oh, you do such wonderful work. 💕🍒🌸🍒💕🌸Thank you so much for your commentary. So thought provoking. I am sure to read it again. Thanks for your words in many things. Thanks for being the beautiful you and ever so inspiring in many things. All the best to your month ahead and the wonderful moments of summer. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
ReplyDeleteAs always, I loved your painting and the way you show us the various layers of paint, making the painting quite complex. Like all the questions you ask in this post, they are very complex! You are right when you say that current generations do not think about future generations. Just look at the state of the world and how dangerous it is becoming! Life and knowing how to live it is also an art, and often that art needs time to mature, and we don't give it time, because everything has to be done yesterday in this crazy rush we live in!
ReplyDeleteThe island of Hvar is a treasure of this world. I hope you are feeling better and that your new job makes you very happy. Hugs
What a wonderfully reflective post, Ivana! And your painting captures the seascape magnificently. I feel relaxed and refreshed just looking at how you captured the movement of the water! xxx
ReplyDeleteBravissima Ivana il mare del tuo dipinto è reale bellissime sfumature
ReplyDeleteYou have done the texture of the water so beautifully! Wonderful work.
ReplyDeleteIvana simplesmente linda a pintura, sim com certeza a arte surpreende bjs.
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