Summer greetings!

Rainy day sketching, searching for colour

Colour explosion, marker sketching for fun

My sketchbook bird enjoying life by the lake

Me and my sketchbook birds at Kiasma, Museum of Contemporary Art

Collage illustration for a new Finnish band Liljankukka

Artwork for the wonderful designer Gudrun Sjödén on her birthday

Me and my birds visited Stockholm and Yayoi Kusama's Exhibition. DOTS!!

I had a lovely holiday break, though the weather could have been a bit better... Back in the studio now. I had to spend a whole day yesterday tidying it up so that I'm ready to start making a new mess. And I had my birthday present, Wacom drawing tablet waiting for me (yay!). No I just need to figure out how to use it. That's going to be interesting...

"Sun is shining, the weather is sweet..."

"...Make you want to move your dancing feet" (Bob Marley)
 It's a wonderful, sunny winter day in Helsinki today, I can smell the spring already! Really nice projects to work on, so I'm starting with plenty of sketching and research. The guys in the picture above are part of one of them.
Well, I just better get cracking instead of fiddling on the computer...

Helsinki Book Fair and Elsa workshops

Last weekend I was performing with Trio Pullakka, our band that is really a quartet. This was part of Elsa book reading session at Helsinki Book Fair children's area. Our next "gig" will be in a week's time at our local library.
We have started our 'Elsa workshop tour' at pre-schools and kindergartens with Kerttu. So far it's been really exciting. We have planned two different workshops, one for each book. Both of the workshops start with reading one of the Elsa books.
We have had imaginary trip through the winter forest to the ice-skating rink with some of the children for Elsa luistelemassa -book ("Elsa goes ice-skating"). This workshop is the one with movement, improvisation and learning about the basic skating techniques through play and dance. With others we have started to build a swimming pool by painting water with marbles and making frogs. The swimming pool project will continue so that the group can build their own 3D pool with water, frogs, tiles and maybe even slides and jump boards for the swimmers.

Book delivery!

This book was published in June and I got my copies yesterday. Reissutunti (published by Otava) is a songbook with music CD included. This is the fourth book in the series by music educators Satu Sopanen and Markku Kaikkonen, but the first one that I have illustrated. It was fun, enjoyable and busy project. Hopefully more commissions like this are on the way!

Vappu!

                                            
                                  Happy May Day to you all! Hauskaa Vappua!

Music, music, music...

I browsed through my stuff on the computer looking for illustrations with musical instruments. Here are a few in a chronological order starting from 2004. Personal projects, educational publishing, artwork from my exhibitions, Christmas card and even one Santa Claus!

Pencil line, mixed media, oil pastels, gouache, touch of Photoshop...and an obsession to get the musical instruments drawn as correctly as possible with the artist's freedom and simplification. Tuba and euphonium are almost painful to draw, but excellent practice for patience!

 

What shall I do today?

Song about a leggy man

Today I've been working on this illustration for a song about a leggy man and his bowlegged wife ("Pitkäsäärinen" in Finnish). What an earworm it is! The song comes with step by step illustrations on how to play it with a friend. It's quite an addictive game. I find it hard to concentrate on drawing when the song is in my head and my arms and hands want move about. I just want to get it right, that's all!

Illustrations for children's music and play

Here's something I'm working on at the moment. It's a book for young children and their families to pass the time when travelling in a car, on a plane, train etc. The book comes with a music CD. Anyway, it will keep me busy for a while and its' a lot of fun! More about it later...

Play That Funky Music...

...is a fantastic song to listen to with a cup of coffee on a Wednesday morning. So here's some groove for you too, just follow this funky bird and enjoy your day!

This is the very day...

...when I finally start my very own blog! 

To begin with, I'd like you to meet two of my favourite people in the world.  This poster illustration was inspired by our music sessions in the living room. Nukkelsson Jazz Band was born, me and my boys jamming away.