Illustration Friday: Grow

Faithful Gardener, a mixed media collage on canvas.

Northern elegies

Anna Ahmatova has always been one of my favourite poets. Maybe it's the slavic melancholy that fascinates me, especially now in the darkening autumn nights.

I studied russian for two years a while ago, then it paused because of my other busies, or should I just honestly say because of my lazyness. At first I was quite ambitious and even bought a book of Ahmatova's poems in russian... thought I could easily read it. It's never too late to continue the russian studies though, but in the mean time I'll settle for the finnish translations of these poems.



Four years ago I visited St.Petersburg and made a great find in a local second hand book store: A simple cardboard folder with a dozen of pictures of Anna Ahmatova in it. They are prints of photographs and drawings from different artists. She looks very soulful and intellectual with her famous aristocratic nose. The brown borders aren't very pretty, but I just try to live with them.

Here's an interesting link to the Fountain House Museum in St.Petersburg. Ahmatova lived there many years and the house itself has many stories to tell...

Memories hanging

Finally I got my art pieces hanging on the gallery walls. What a relief. Now that I have more free time on my hands again, I'm gonna start an art journal, knit new socks, maybe even make some christmas cards already... and listen to some more of Thurston Moore's wonderful new album, Trees Outside the Academy. I just looove it!




These works are made of old book pages and covers, image transfers of old photos (some of these persons are related to me, others are totally unknown.. forgotten). More photos of my works can be seen on my Flickr page.

Stories

Here are two spreads of my little stories. I've used old books and made image transfers of old photos on them, then painted with gesso and various pencils. It's interesting to combine old texts and pictures that actually have no real connections... When I put them together, they start to form new stories. These two are involved in a love story, but it's not completely ready yet.

Working

The weather has been wonderful lately. Trees look beautiful and I'd like to spend all my time wandering in the nature. But I can't... too much work. It's a terrible excuse, but true. I have five collages under work, and they must be ready in two weeks. Well, I should get back to them now... bye!

Foxy lady

I was working on a collaboration calendar project a while ago. Actually I wasn't very pleased how the final calendar came out, there wasn't enough money to print it on quality materials and I had no saying on that. But anyway I had so much fun doing these illustrations for it.

I cut dozens of foxes out of orange paper and made them brighten up the blue and gray autumn months. The first one is September and the other is November.

Typography

This was fun! You can try it too here.

Autumn in ATC:s

Once again I took part in Hiekkaoliivi's ATC swap. I'm slowly but surely getting hooked on these... So, here are my autumn themed cards I sent to Sari:


and here is what I got from Jaana:

Biscuits for breakfast

Last couple of days have been a whirlwind. Getting the art courses going, worrying about them at nights, making sure nothing has been forgotten... I hope it'll settle down a bit next week. This morning started with coffee and biscuits. I've been neglecting the grocery shoppings this week. Fortunately I had these bosnian vanilla biscuits in my closet, a souvenir from my trip to Montenegro. They tasted yummy.

Inspiration lost and found

I teach art courses in open college, four evenings a week. My students are a mixture of beginners and advanced. It's sometimes difficult to find a common interest for everyone. The beginners are always enthusiastic, they are so open to all new information and tips, their creativity is bloomig. But it seems to me that some of the advanced students loose their spirit quite quickly. After painting for three years or so, they think it's a done deal.. nothing more to learn. They get frustrated if they can't learn to paint like Rembrandt (it might be the teacher's fault of course) and they are not interested in trying anything new.

What I'm really wondering about here is the meaning of inspiration. You can teach people all kinds of techniques of art, but you can't give them the inspiration unless they're open to it. It's very surprising to notice that those people who say they can't draw or paint, often turn out to be more creative than those who count too much on the technique itself. Technique without spirit and heart is empty and hollow.

Well, I'm also kind of worried about my own teaching abilities. This is a temporary job for me and I should concentrate on more traditional styles and methods, not like the ones I'm working on with my own art. But you must always learn and grow. We'll see how this goes.