With Valentine’s Day looming I thought I would write a brief story about how I fell in love with creating romantic paintings all about lovers, and tie it in with showing you the beginnings of one of my semi-abstract lovers’ paintings.

Right from my younger days I have always been a big soft romantic and have loved anything soppy and romantic, and was always drawing hearts (my favourite shape & symbol) and such like everywhere.

One of my earliest paintings titled “Amazed” featured hearts and was in fact inspired by a song, and particularly the lyrics to that song, of the same title by Lonestar. This painting has evolved (the photo above showing “Amazed II Golden Moments”) into several slightly different versions and I really enjoy re-creating this one and can almost feel another one coming on in different colours!

However, much of my influence I think has come from films, although in honesty I have to admit to showing a big preference to a real proper love story over today’s “rom com” style movies. I remember watching films like Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), one of my all time favourites and interestingly made the year I was born, An Affair to Remember (1957), Dr Zhivago (1965) and Love Story (1970) which are all amongst my favourites. These days I would much rather find an old black & white movie on the TCM channel of TV than watch any modern day stuff. When my husband and sons all go off for their racing weekends I long for the time alone to tune it to my favourite channel all weekend, in between painting & arty stuff of course!

Audrey Hepburn is my favourite actress and I have all her films on DVD and my favourites of hers are Roman Holiday (1953) and Sabrina (1954). Not sure I can pinpoint why these are my favourite films but I know that Audrey Hepburn epitomises femininity and offers this wonderful image of the fragile & vulnerable woman which I actually really like. I’m not sure that actresses like Angelina Jolie for example offer us quite the same image in today’s films. Women are often shown to be action women who are almost as tough as their male counterparts, and more likely to come across as sexy than as fragile & vulnerable. A reflection of today’s society I guess, and maybe I’m just a bit old fashioned in my view here!

I have lots of books about lovers in art and lovers in poetry which I study often, and I love to read fictional love stories too, and it is amongst these along with images from movies of famous screen kisses that I find my inspiration for painting my lovers.

One recent painting, titled “Pink Meets Blue” started out life from one of the poems, but as is often the case long after that first sketch it evolves into something else once on canvas and in paint. This is one of my favourite paintings and it also marked a stage in my career as an artist by being one of the paintings that appeared in my recent exhibition in Budapest. It has now sold to a private collector in Ireland making it a fairly well travelled painting too!

To follow is a photo of a rough sketch I have done this week in preparation for my next lovers painting. This drawing was inspired by a screen kiss, but I do not like to declare which kiss it is because the intention is for it not to be a version of this, but to become its own special moment once laid with colour.

This is a very quick rough start to my painting, but I like to lay down some loose features and shapes before I decide on how it will sit on the canvas. Sometimes the next stage for me will be to add some colour with the use of coloured pencils, although sometimes I do this digitally by scanning in my sketch and adding colour by using Photoshop. Other times I will just draw it straight from the sketch on to canvas and here is where it evolves yet again!

Once on the canvas I add in more lines and shapes to highlight features, or just to put in some more of an abstract feel to it and for it to flow nicely on the canvas and have the makings of a decent composition. Then I need to decide on colours and I usually like to pick out some colours before I get painting, either from the sketches, or just simply pick a colour range like “reds” for example and then work from there.

My background studying Interior Design does also have some influence on my colour decisions occasionally when I imagine it sitting over a bed in a modern bedroom space. I also usually select a fairly limited palette and rarely use more than 4 or 5 colours, more likely 2 to 3 colours and then use shades and tones of these.

I like to think of the colours representing the emotion within that special intimate moment too, and when painting I work with more intense colours towards the centre of the human closeness where their faces/lips touch for example. Once painting of course, the secret then is knowing when to stop and most artists will agree that this is one of the hardest decisions! It seems to have got easier over the years, although I have to admit to looking back on some old paintings and thinking “ooh, maybe I should just tweak those lips a little and add a little colour there…” I then almost have to shout at myself “No! It’s finished!” before I get tempted to dabble further and possibly ruin it!

When my latest painting (from the sketch you see above) is finished it will be here on Arts2Arts for sale and maybe I should even post another story for you here to let you know how the process went from this early stage. Watch this space! Tina x

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Several of our artists are know blogging on Art2Arts and will be writing about anything and everything from their experiences as an artist to techniques for painting. Basically what ever they think will be of interest to your readers!

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Firstly, before I start talking about myself and my experiences, I would like to say how lovely it was to see Tina’s blog about Budapest. Thank you Tina for this detailed and informative text.

Because exactly this is what I wanted to talk about!

This city is so close to my heart. But shall we see it from the beginning?

Well, I was born in Hungary (lets just say, sometime in the lovely 70′s) in a small town. As a young child I was trained as a gymnast and I also learnt classical ballet. Well, to tell you the truth my parents decided for me, as I was only 3 years old then, yet I am very thankful for this. So usually I spent 2-3 hours every day on a very strict training with my Hungarian and Russian coaches. It was very hard sometimes but I loved it. There is just something about ballet that gives you so much plus for a lifetime. It teaches you self-discipline and you will learn how to use every muscle in your body. I think this is the most powerful way of self-expression as you are completely one with your emotions and your body intuitively follows your feelings.

As time went by  I got into high school and unfortunately had to give up dancing. This was a very hard heart-breaking time for me. I did not know how to express myself any more. So I started to be interested in art, especially in fine art looking for other ways that might suit me. I started drawing at the age of 15 and also taking private lessons from recognized artists. I was very lucky to learn from Endre Szasz, probably the most famous contemporary Hungarian artist. Years later I was honoured to teach drawing in his summer art school. He was really sharp and strict, I remember he always said to student: ‘ You are really good at drawing….so stop wasting your time and start painting finally!’ He did not miss one day of painting, usually he produced 4 or 5 work a day.

When you first learn how to draw you feel really clumsy and frustrated, as your brain knows what you want but not your hand. So you either carry on practicing or just give it up. This is where I stayed and practiced, and practiced thanks to the discipline I’ve learnt from ballet and I did not care if it was not correct as long as I achieved to express my inner world. It is a long journey to find your own style. Especially when your tutors are great artists because you will try to follow their visual language.

After my A-levels I went to the local Art College to study fine art and graphic design, and a few years later when I had saved enough money I moved up to Budapest to study graphic art on the University. The following 4 years was the best time of my life in the KREA Institute of Art. I started working as a freelance artist whilst studying on the uni yet it was not easy and I had my ups and downs. I was freelancing as an illustrator for big fashion companies, and there was a time when I had to work full time as a secretary for a magazine. So daytime I was working and after work I did uni till 10pm. Then finish, go to my rented room and do more study. I was still buzzing with energy.

Luckily I was commissioned for a lot of abstracts and nudes at that time and it helped me to carry on with my study expenses. I graduated with distinction as a Graphic Designer in 2005.

But being self-employed in Hungary is not what you want to do in long term as the tax system takes 50% of your income. I was lucky enough to travel a lot during my young years before uni (this is not too common in communist countries) and I spent some time in the States in New York and Miami, visited Puerto Rico several times and most of Europe. Before the University I worked two years for the US Army on a NATO base as an interpreter and unfortunately I had a chance to see Croatia and Bosnia during and after the Balkan-war. Most part of Croatia was totally bombed with ghost villages, and I’ve never seen so many men with missing limbs as in Bosnia and I just knew that something was really wrong with the world. If in any way art could do anything to start a change then this is what I have to do. Paint. So I’d quit and moved to Budapest to study at the Uni.

By the way Budapest is a wonderful city, it really influenced me both artistically and  personally. I had lived there for 5 years but any time I go back I still feel like a tourist and I admire the architecture.

I visited England when I was 16 during a school trip and I had thought about moving here since then. So I had an opportunity to visit Bristol again in 2006 and after a short thinking I’ve decided to stay.

 I will continue soon and talk about my experiences in more detail, how I became an artist and what inspires me. 

View Valeria Fulop’s Artwork

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