Lighthouses are so romantic.

Here is an early attempt at a landscape. Even though I'm completely disappointed with it overall, I think I learned a couple of useful things. First, I found out how using a sponge can create a different kind of texture for the painting, surprise surprise. Second, I found out how to make an object appear to be seen through mist.

So it's not all bad I guess. Besides, my mum likes it. And don't you just love the colours? But I wish I 'd left out that weird Sauron's searchlight thingy.

I visited the navigation administration in Turku in the summer this year. I'm not terribly excited about boats and ships and seafaring, but I got this great poster:

It's this 'legendary' drawing from 1910 of Finnish lighthouses. There are more of them now, of course. The newest lighthouse at that time was the lighthouse of Bengtskär. I've been there, and it was really cool! They had a maritime center there, and a cold water aquarium in the hall. There was a cute little baby flounder... but not cute enough to make me want to set up a cold water tank. Too tricky to keep it cool.

(PIcture removed)

I've also been to Loistokari, also in the archipelago of Turku, which doesn't have a lighthouse, but a house with a window where a beacon was lit when necessary. It looked like a pretty lonely place, but it was actually quite fun visiting it. Most of the other visitors in the group were middle-aged, but they really knew how to have fun after a few drinks! The food was delicious, anyway. We ate outside on the rock (the island was nothing more than that), and we had all kinds of fish and 'saaristolaisleipä' ('bread from archipelago', badly translated):

It's the most delicious bread in the world. Heavenly! I even got a recipe off the internet, but baking rye bread is a lot of work...but maybe some day.

But anyways, you might have guessed why I wanted the 1910 drawing of lighthouses. I'm going to use it as a model for my future endeavours at painting lighthouses. Some day.

Mary in oil colours.

Before I painted Mary and Jesus, I actually tried to paint Mary in oil colours. But it was way too soon, I didn't know how to handle the paint - and this is the result.


I kind of like it, though. I like the not-so-subtle shading on the edges of the face, and the way the pink hue on the temple and cheek makes it look more 3-d. I simply adore the combination of preussian blue and pink, here and in general. I also like the effect that the unmixed bright red gives. The only thing I do not like about this painting is the eyes and lips, the colour doesn't seem to fit in very well.

I noticed the quality of these pictures isn't terribly good since they're linked from my Photobucket folder. But maybe that prevents people, at least partly, from seeing how clumsy my brushwork is.

These posts keep getting shorter and shorter. I find it increasingly harder to feel inspired enough to write something worthwhile here once a week. When you're busy with a lot of stuff that drains your intellectual capacity and creativity, it is so hard to relax and actually write something interesting. Just posting the pictures isn't enough, as they're really quite boring in the end if I didn't provide some context to them. Or maybe nobody even bothers to read this, and they just look at the pictures. Hm.

Something that happened a while back made me think about this. An old French "friend" of mine heard that I have started a blog, and wanted to see it. His initial reaction was, "so much text". Ok... that's what blogs are mainly about, right? I realize my first posts were rather long, but I've seen longer. Anyway, after he'd read it all, his response was "that's it". "That's it"?? First he complains about the amount of text, then he's dissappointed with how little there was of it?? Can someone please tell me why the French are so weird, annoying and impolite??! Well, I know they're not all bad. I know many nice French people. But this particular person just drives me off the wall all the time. ALL the time. He's so arrogant everytime I talk to him, and I can't stand arrogant people. It's the worst quality in people isn't it?

Another French friend of mine also had the chance to see this blog. He didn't read the text at all, just looked at the pictures, and actually thought ALL the pictures were painted by me. Well, they aren't - there are a couple by Van Gogh and Gallen-Kallela. But I didn't bother correcting him, as I'm so fed up with French people misunderstanding me, either due to differences in our personalities or due to their bad understanding of English. But this guy is really nice in general so I don't mind it too much.