Lighthouse painting

I have a thing for lighthouses! On my travels to Estonia I've visited several lighthouses
http://nadja-art.blogspot.fi/2013/07/hiumaa-lighthouses.html
http://nadja-art.blogspot.fi/2013/01/harilaid-lighthouse.html

For the first time, I did a lighthouse painting. This one is called "Safety"
For some reason after having a baby, I paint these sea themed paintings.

Nordic Harbor

Let's go back in time 8 months or so... our daughter was born in May 2017. I got home from the hospital in a few days, and I think it was just a week or so later, that I wanted to paint again. I assumed beforehand that a baby girl would make me paint some sort of adorable pink flowers and butterflies or something...but instead I started to paint winter landscapes (...in summer).

So here is my first post baby painting "Nordic Harbor"

When you think about it, a harbor is a start of a new journey...new life certainly is such.

The original painting is for sale for 600€ and different size prints are available at https://www.posterlounge.de/nordischer-hafen-pr669277.html

Nordic harbor, 60cm x 80cm, acrylic paint on canvas, 2017

upcoming paintings - flowers of course

Well, well...I'm painting once again new flowers ;) but I'm also thinking of doing portraits again...because it's nice to vary. Anyway...here are 2 sneak peeks of upcoming paintings :D

Salome

New painting

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

Fading dream

I'm working on my series of abstract flower paintings. This one is "Fading dream"

Fading dream, 100cmx100cm, acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2016

Moonlight

The last painting of 2015 is called "Moonlight". I tried to do a pink blueish cherryflower painting but it just somehow didn't work out. Below is one snap shot of that phase. I've grown a liking to pink lately, and I even have pink hair these days :)
...but you know inside, I'm always the gloomy girl, so that's why my attempt of a cheerful pink painting just turned sightly melancholic. But I am quite pleased how the painting turned out :)

Moonlight, 100cmx100cm, acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2015

I see you

Portrait painting I did this summer! I'm obsessed with eyes right now!
I loved to paint Anna! She has such beautiful features :)
Here is a link to her model page: deathrideshorse.deviantart.com

I see you, 40 x 40cm, acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2015, model: Anna

Upcoming paintings

Sometimes it's really hard for me to find the time to paint. But I still try to paint...WHENEVER I CAN!!!! :D

Here are some glimpses of upcoming paintings.
Abstract flowers, that means I'm in a summer mood :)

sometimes I paint with playing cards

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!)

Showgirl stencil

I'm back working on my stencil paintings :)
They are just fun to do, since it's sort of graphic design and painting mixed. The newest one is again of my friend Cherry Dee Licious, also known as the Blogger behind freelancersfashion.blogspot.fi.

My fiancé Asko had a photoshoot with Cherry last summer and I helped out a bit. Here are some behind the scenes pics from our photoshoot:freelancersfashion.blogspot.fi/2014/07/shooting.html

and here is the previous painting of Cherry.

Showgirl stencil, 40 x 50 cm acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2014, model:Cherry Dee Licious

Glory

I've been extremly busy lately and I've had very little time to paint. But now I have the feeling that painting is coming back to me after a short absence. Here is a new painting I did. It's my biggest "portrait" so far. First I was painting this drowning lady in the river...but it looked like sh*t, so instead I started to paint this big blue portrait. I didn't plan much but just went for it (and modern society...during painting I just had to take a mean looking selfie?)... I stared at the painting for a week and did some minor improvements. Then I decided that it was ready. So here is "Glory", tadaa!

Glory (70cm x 100cm, acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2014)

Edvard Munch exhibition

There is a Edvard Munch exhibition in Helsinki at the Didrichsen art museum. I was invited to the exhibition opening through a friend of mine, and I was really happy to be at the gallery opening of such an exhibition! Edvard Munch is one of my favorit artists. I tend to like dark and symbolic art and some of Munchs gloomy paintings have always appealed to me. Before this exhibition I've seen a Munch painting  here or there at different art museums, but I've never seen this many paintings at once, so it was great to really dive in the world of Munch.

One of my favorits is the painting "Puberty", and I've also attempted to copy it. My copies are alwyas pretty loose...and in this painting I wanted to make the girl a modern day teen with smudged make up (inspired by the teenage girl from this music video: Kent - Kärleken väntar).

Copy of Munch painting "Puberty" 2009

Cherry tree painting

Here is another flower painting I recently did. These paintings require a certain state of mind, that can usually be achieved at midnight. Most of my attempts of doing these kind of paintings fail, but that's ok since you learn from every try.

I just started to use Instagram, so my first pic was the pic below of this painting.
More of everyday this and that on Instagram: http://instagram.com/nadjamariina

Cherry tree (50cm x 61cm, acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2014)

detail of the Cherry tree -painting

http://instagram.com/nadjamariina

flower painting

For the first time in my life I live in a house that has a garden! When we moved into this place I thought it's really nice for the dogs to have a garden, but I've realised how nice it is for us too! I especially have found a love for planting flowers. I don't think it's much of a surprise that I now paint flowers too. I've done a few experiments with some rather abstract flower paintings and here is one of the first that I'm pleased with.

Apple blossom (50cm x 70cm, acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2014)

and here is my inspiration...flowers from our garden :)

Portrait of Tinttu

Tinttu, 40cm x 50cm acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2014

 

The model for this painting is Tinttu, who is a rope artist and photographer. You can see her work here: https://fi-fi.facebook.com/KoysitaiteilijaTinttuHenttunen

Me and Tinttu met each other about a year ago and started to collaborate a lot together, since our artwork is sometimes similar (we have both done for example "mermaids in ropes" without knowing of each others works). Here is a rope photo that Tinttu took of me last summer:
http://www.nadja-art.blogspot.fi/2013/06/rope-photo.html
I'm sure we will collaborate more in the future too :)

I'm planning a series of these kind of nudes. The first image of this series was in fact this self portrait: http://www.nadja-art.blogspot.fi/2012/10/self-portrait.html

My next models will be some girls with tattoos. Let's see how I deal with painting tattoos ;)

Me and the model

Last year I did this painting of the beautiful burlesque dancer Cherry Dee Licious. Here is a picture of me and Cherry and the painting. For some reason I just love having these kind of me-and the model- and the painting pictures. So in the future I'll try to take more of these :)

Nowadays Cherry (along with her duo partner Tin ker Bell from The Ravishing Shangri-La Rubies) is also my burlesque teacher and I love going to their dance classes! I'm working on a painting of Tin Ker Bell right now and I'm sure I'll do another painting of Cherry in the future as well!

Red stencil

Here's a new stencil painting I did a while ago. 

My stencil paintings take strong influence from street art. I love the rough surface of aging walls and I’ve created the backgrounds of my stencil paintings to be uneven and rough, distinctivly resembling those rough old graffiti filled walls. On top of the abstract painting I then place a portrait. Painting portraits is something that I’ve done for over 10 years and this time I combined it with my passion for graphic design. I try to minimize the facial features into a logo style image. Even a minimalistic portrait can express a lot of a persons inner emotions. 

I did the first stencil image in 2004 and last year I started to do a series of similar paintings. Who knows how many more I'll do in the future ;)

Red stencil (50x70 cm, acrylic paint on carboard, year created: 2014)

Blue

I seem to have a thing for blue right now. An overdose of blue it seems ;)
Here is my latest painting called, well...Blue (tadaa!) ;)

This was supposed to be a detailed, realistic painting but it took it's own course and turned out like this. Looks like a calm serene paintings...but wait a minute, is there something behind her?

I'm actually quite pleased with the end result :)

And here is something to the subject of blue...
one of my alltime favorit songs "Symbhony in Blue" by Kate Bush: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8jL_FAAVsg

Swan princess

Last year there was an exhibition in Helsinki with russian art from the Tretjakov art gallery (link). I really liked most of the artwork and I decided to make a copy of one of the paintings. I chose the beautiful Swan Princess by Mihail Vrubel. Vrubel has a very special painting style and his "unfinished touch" is quite impossible to copy. As I tend to do with my copies this copy turned out pretty "loose". With that I mean that it's not a 100% copy of the painting...it's something similar and I try to learn something from the other artist brush stroke methods, composition and colour use.

I don't regard my copied work as high as my other art, but I love doing copies since it's such a learning experience. It's a common art teaching method that's been used for centuries. Unfortunately it's not possible for me to sit next to the original painting and copy from tha, so what I usually do is that I buy a poster of the artwork. Throughout the painting  process I have the poster next to me. Sometimes I look very closely to the "original" and sometimes hardly at all and I add my own thing to the painting.

Some of my earlier copies are:
Frank Frazetta - Thuvia maid of mars: 
http://nadja-art.blogspot.fi/2012/05/thuvia-maid-of-mars-frazetta-copy.html

Alphonse Mucha - The moon
http://nadja-art.blogspot.fi/2013/08/the-moon-drawing.html
http://nadja-mariina.deviantart.com/art/the-moon-115608267

Gustav Klimt - Mäda Primavesi
http://nadja-art.blogspot.fi/2012/07/tribute-to-gustav-klimt.html

Below is my version of the swan princess. The beautiful original you can see for example here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Swan_princess.jpg

In honor to the artist Mihail Vrabol I also added a photo of the artist. Next to him is his wife Nadeshda who was a famous opera singer in her time and it is assumed that she is the model for the swan princess.  

Swan princess - Copy of a Mihail Vrubel painting

(50cm x 70cm, acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2014)

Mihail Aleksandrovitš Vrubel &

Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel

Alone (painting)

This is a pretty new painting I have been working on for some months. I never knew when it was finished... I just kept splashing more and more paint on it, until one day I decided that it's a finished piece.... I seem to love painting inexpressible face expressions.

Alone (60cm x 80cm, acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2013)

detail of the painting "Alone"