Salome

New painting

Salome, 100cm x 100cm, acrylic painting on canvas

My art in their new homes :)

As you might have noticed, I've lately done a lot of flower paintings and I've now sold some of them.
I received pictures of 2 paintings in their new homes :)

It's so lovely to see my creations in their new homes. Both "Under the storm" and "Fading dream" are located in bedrooms. I'm sort of honoured that they are in bedrooms, since that's the most personal room in the house :) well, at least for myself. I also did a flower painting for our own bedroom, but ended up selling it too :D now I have to paint something for myself too.

Transient

I had an unvoluntary break from painting fro a few months. Around Christmas I tried to paint this and that, but it was mostly a struggle. Lately I've been so busy with other things that I haven't had any time for painting anyway. The other day I took one of my terrible Christmas paintings and tried to work on it and voilá it turned out nice :)
Sometimes it's good to get a little distance to everything. I feel like the ability to paint has come back to me :)

Transient (40cm x 50cm acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2015)

Detail of Transient

a desparate attempt to safe the painting...painting the hands over...

First the painting looked like this, but I didn't like it (especially those bodybuilder arms!)

Stencil painting 4

I did another stencil painting. I told you, it was going to be a series ;) I wanted to paint somehow a "swamp woman" in this... from the end result I get a jungle vibe. Well ,close enough to my original plans.

Stencil 4 (50 x 40 cm, acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2013)

Stencil painting 3

Here is the third stencil painting I did. The model for this one is the beautiful Cherry Dee Licious. Cherry is quite the multipersona; she is a burlesque dancer, graphic designer, harbour worker, fashion blogger (Freelancer's Fashion Blog), mother and so much more! I really enjoy reading her creative blog :)

You can see here the reference image for this painting. I'm quite happy how the painting turned out. I wanted to get a sort of "slavic" look to this painting and I think I managed to paint my vision.

Cherry Stencil (Stencil 3):
40cm x 40cm, acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2013, model: Cherry Dee Licious

New painting Cypress

Here is a new painting of model Brion Bonaventura from the Itty Bitty Tease Cabaret. My partner Asko recently had a photoshoot with the burlesque group so I dragged along the painting to get a few pics of the model next to the painting. I always like to see model+painting images of other artists work, so it was nice to get that kind of images from my painting too :)

Below is also a snapshot closeup of the first stage of the painting when it was nothing more than just pencil and a thin layer of paint. And by the way...the fabulous frame is from saraheina.fi

 Cypress (70cm x 50cm, acrylic paint on canvas year created: 2013) 

Stencil painting 2

I just started a series of these "stencil" paintings. Before paintings this, I watched Hitchcock's Psycho (I saw it for the first time). After that it was dark and I was home alone so I let out my spooky side ;)

Stencil 2 (50cm x 70cm, acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2013)

Stencil painting 1

Here is a new painting I did last weekend. The inspiration for this was in fact an old painting of mine (the "Face" painting below) that I did almost 10 years ago in 2004 (time goes by so fast!!!). Anyway, I was thinking of doing a series of this kind of stencil paintings. My goal is to do at least 3 of these (I have some ideas already what the next ones will be like). 

The model for this painting is Brion Bonaventura, who is also model for this painting.

Stencil (50cm x 50cm, acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2013)

Face (50cmx70cm acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2004)

Winter painting

I went outside my comfort zone and tried to do a landscape painting. Me and Asko went to take photos a week ago by the sea and the view was so spectacular that I decided to give it a try and do a landscape painting. So here it is :)

Below is also a little phone video I made from the beautiful seaside view. Asko made a video of the noise the waves make when they are underneath the ice.

During painting I made myself a "Winter soundtrack". Here are some songs that have a winter feeling to them (just my opinion). I like influencing my art with music. Some people like to cut off everything while they paint...I don't quite like that myself. I like to get inspired by music, movies, photos...anything :)

Tori Amos, Winter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VQiYC8T-lw
Nick Cave, Lovely Creature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh16adWqI10 
Goldfrapp, Felt Mountain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlsHIdhkBbM  

Winter (60cm x 80cm, acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2012)

Me taking photos with my phone...can you tell I'm freezing? It was -16ºC ...by the sea it always feels colder though...

Asko taking photos and videos.

Self portrait

Here is a self portrait I did.  I use myself a lot as a model in my paintings, but it's mainly anatomy reference, reference for light and shadow and perspective. Eventually the painting turns out whatever it turns out. There are some paintings that turn out a lot prettier than me link and other hardly look human anymore link. Aren't all paintings eventually reflections of oneself?

I wanted to make this portrait realistic by painting my moles and mismatch boobs. As a Photoshop loving shallow person I didn't like to paint my flaws, but sometimes you just have to be honest with yourself. 

Self portrait (40cm x 50cm acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2012)

estimated real size detail