Painting a pear
One thing is to dream about creating an online painting course and quite another thing to actually make it happen.
In my imagination, it was all rather beautiful.
I could see myself sitting at my desk, surrounded by paints and brushes, calmly explaining how to observe a flower, mix a colour and turn a blank sheet of paper into something beautiful while communicating with my students about nature and botanical painting.
There would be good light, a perfectly positioned camera and naturally, my hands would behave themselves.
I would speak clearly while painting, remember everything I wanted to say and somehow look completely relaxed while doing it.
You can probably guess where this is going.
When the dream meets reality
The reality has been considerably less elegant.
My first discovery was that my camera has very strong opinions about how I should record my course. It simply did not want to record horizontally.
I spent a few days trying to understand why and fix it. I changed settings, tried different things and kept wondering why something that should have been so simple was suddenly becoming a little technical investigation.
Then there is the question of light. Too much light and my beautiful pale watercolour washes suddenly look as though they have been interrogated under a police lamp.
And then came the overhead recording. In theory, this is wonderfully simple: camera above, painting below and me happily demonstrating what to do.
In practice, my hand has developed a remarkable talent for covering exactly the part of the painting that I am trying to show.
I move my hand to the left and cover the left side. I move it to the right and cover the right side. At one point I realised I was giving my students a very detailed demonstration of the back of my hand.
Perhaps there is a future course in that.
And then, of course, there was the glass of water. I was so concentrated on filming that I somehow managed to knock it over and suddenly there was water on the floor.
Not on the painting. Not on the table where I could have dealt with it easily – on the floor.
So there I was, in the middle of creating my first online painting class, crawling around with a cloth trying to rescue the situation before carrying on as if nothing had happened.
Painting, talking and trying to remember what I was saying
And then there is the small matter of painting and talking at the same time. This sounds easy until you try it.
When I paint quietly on my own, I know exactly what I am doing.
I look at the subject, mix the colour, adjust the brush and continue. But ask me to explain what I am doing while I am doing it and suddenly my brain has gone on holiday.
“Now I’m going to add a little… um… this colour… no, perhaps not that colour…”
Meanwhile, the brush is already moving confidently across the paper as if it has not been informed about the crisis.
I have discovered that being an artist and being a teacher are two different skills. Doing something naturally yourself does not necessarily mean you can immediately explain every little decision to somebody else while simultaneously trying not to paint over your own hand.
This is particularly true with botanical painting. So much of botanical art is about observation. Looking carefully at the shape, colour, light and tiny details of a plant before putting anything onto the paper. That is easy to demonstrate when I am painting quietly. Explaining it while painting, remembering the camera is running and trying to make sure my hand is not blocking the view is a slightly different story.
Between lights and shades
Then comes the editing
This is another world altogether.
You watch yourself back and suddenly notice everything.
A sentence that sounded perfectly fine while recording suddenly sounds strange. A pause that felt like two seconds becomes an eternity. And then you hear yourself saying “so” for what seems like every third sentence. Sometimes I stop the video and think, “Why did I say that?” Then I record it again … and again. And sometimes, after all that, I decide that the first version was actually better. At times, I have wondered whether I am creating a painting course or secretly training for a career in film production.
Creating this course has required me to become a little bit of everything: artist, teacher, presenter, camerawoman, lighting technician, director and editor. And I have had to accept that I cannot wait until everything is perfect before I move forward. If I did, this course would probably still exist only in my head.
Why I wanted to create an online painting course
The idea of my course has been living with me for quite some time. I knew why I wanted to create it.
I wanted to give people an opportunity to slow down, really look at nature and discover what happens when we give ourselves time to paint. I wanted painting to feel less intimidating and more like an invitation to pause, observe, experiment and perhaps surprise yourself.
This is especially important to me because botanical painting is not simply about producing a beautiful finished picture. It begins with looking. Really looking. Noticing the way a leaf curves, where the light falls, how one colour changes into another and all those little details we normally rush past.
For me, painting has always created a reason to slow down and pay attention.
That is what I want to share through Painting with Inessa.
But knowing what you want to give people and actually sitting in front of a camera to deliver it are two very different things.
Then came an email
Yesterday, something happened that gave me a little push exactly when I needed it.
I received an email from one of my future students. She had read one of my newsletters and told me how much a particular part of it had resonated with her. It was not about the technical side of the course. She had connected with the feeling behind it and with what I was trying to say about taking time for yourself and finding something meaningful in the process of painting. That small message meant much more to me than she probably realised. It gave me a little more courage to continue with my recordings today.
Because when you are sitting alone in front of a camera for the tenth time, trying to get the light right and wondering whether your hand is covering half the painting, it is easy to forget the person who will eventually be sitting on the other side of the screen.
Her email brought that person back into my mind. And that is really why I am doing all this.
I am not creating this course because I particularly enjoy spending hours trying to persuade a camera to cooperate. I am doing it because I want someone sitting at home with a blank piece of paper to feel that botanical painting is something they can try.
Someone who may think, “I am not an artist.”
Someone who may simply want an hour to slow down, look at something beautiful in nature and do something with their hands.
Someone who may be surprised by what they are capable of when they stop worrying about whether the result is perfect.
Preparing a list of painting materials
Pressing record again
So this morning I went back to my recordings.
I adjusted the camera. I checked the light. I moved the water somewhere safer. I tried to keep my hand out of the way. And I pressed record again.
It still wasn’t perfect.
But I am beginning to realise that perhaps it doesn’t need to be.
There will always be another technical problem, another sentence I want to say differently and another piece of footage that needs editing. That is simply part of making something new.
The important thing is that the course is no longer just an idea in my head. It is slowly becoming real. And every time I press “record”, I am one step closer to sitting on the other side of the screen with my students, talking about nature, botanical painting and the simple pleasure of taking time to look closely.
Yesterday, one lovely email reminded me why I started. Today, I pressed record again. And tomorrow, I suppose, I will see what the camera has decided to do to me next.
If you have ever wanted to try botanical painting but didn’t know where to begin, perhaps this is your invitation to give it a try.
Painting with Inessa is being created for people who want to learn, slow down and discover the pleasure of painting nature, one observation at a time.
— Inessa
