Some of my favourite things to art

Cow horns & cow ears

Are of course egyptian reference.

First of all I'm a taurus.

Second, I never thought much about Egypt until I read 'The Egyptian'.

Its still my favourite book.

And since then I have loved both Egypt and Mika Waltari as a person.

He never went to Egypt and neither did I. It's one of my dreams tho not actively pining for it.

When I read about Egyptian figures, I liked Hathor, the ancient goddess who has cowears, horns and sundisc between them.

Other figures have the horns and sundiscs as well but Hathor had the fluffy ears.

At the time I was in my mother phase as my kids were small... So her being strongly associated with motherhood and love was probably the trick.

Cowears are my favourite thing to draw even though they are tricky.

Blue people

I usually paint my human figures blue, (at first they were white with blue tattoos).

I think it's the spirit aspect.

Gold

Is light.

I also like trinkets.

Moon

I got into moon when I got the idea to make a mooncalendar.

Makers and crafters were doing mooncalendars in instagram and I wanted to make mine for fun.

Around that time I started drawing graphite drawings and for some reason they were all moon goddesses.

Some kind of phase came upon me.

There is a whole tradition with the moon. It's very peculiar. I'm surprised how little we westerners interact with it, like it's just a pretty thing sometimes.

It's so much more. It moves oceans. Species interact with it DIRECTLY.

I don't think we are any different. We just lost the knowledge.

Gown people with rice picker hats

I never decided this style, but many of my early random sketches had these figures, and I used the sketches to make my school assignments and they just became my thing.

The people with gowns and ricepickerhats come from old japanese woodblockprints I think. I've always admired the technique and to a printmaker it's the original. In the heart of skilled printmaking.

Recently I found out that during iron age Celtics in Europe had the same shape hats made from birch bark. Which is interesting. I probably wore it in my past life. Just like I would now if I just had one. And had guts. Just like I would wear a gown.

The gown also has to do with this affinity to wear the abaya (black gown) when I was visiting a muslim country that required it. I didn't feel like I was being oppressed.

It was the most comfortable attire I have ever worn in my life.

I like to hide.

In 2024 you of course have to say the disclaimer to avoid being dragged to town square tarred and featherd: I think people should be free to choose what ever they wear.

Gown covered person is also easy way to sketch generic people.

Nature

Every ordinary butterfly encounter, every ordinary flower or detail in nature can become part of artwork. Any of the beautiful flowers I pass by and happen to take a pic with my phone.

It's like a diary entry. A journal.

It's also a practice. A spiritual practice.

Be here now. Look around and notice.

The endless resources and the vastness of beauty around.

Microcosm and macrocosm.

Now I have also my little photo bank of photographs I take in botanical gardens I like to visit atleast couple of times every summer.

I rather go to nature than choose any urban area or socialise.

I feel its the only place where I can just exist.

You always find something.

Water, boats

In my artwork water usually symbolises the subconscious. The unknown. Another realm.

Place where the answers are.

And the journey.

Hence the boat.

We are mostly water.

Earth surface is mostly water. Life on Earth needs water.

Is there a living organism that doesn't need it?

The only spiritual practice I seem to take seriously is looking at movement of water.

Any natural body of water works.

I'm trying out this theory, that if I just internalize the way water flows naturally, the shapes of waves, someday I will be able to draw natural lines and forms effortlessly.

It's hard, maybe even impossible to draw a proper line with thinking mind.

You can't force a line. I've tried. It looks awful.

Only absence of mind, the moment when you're not trying yields a proper line.

Flowing naturally.

Dreams

The funky mirror.

Shiva

I love that he is so scary and weird (like everybody in Hindu pantheon).

How there is this energy, force or phenomenon in the world, and you can draw a blue man to explain it.

Or give a figure some extra hands.

What he is, is hard to say.

Name Shiva means 'that which is not'.

He is the un-doer. The liberator.

I think the fire he is holding burns away 'that which is not', in me.

That which is not truly me. Patterns and beliefs.

I like him because he symbolises so well my process of transformation.

What others might just call midlife crises or life changing through illness. (which is boring)

He is in ShivaShakti, a painting that im currently on and off painting (for many years now). As an aspect that represents the masculine.

He has scarred throat like me, though mine is from an operation and his is from drinking poison.