whale drawing

So, my first drawing this year is a whale!
A few years ago I saw a whale for the first timne in my life. It was not a humpback whale but a sperm whale at Andenes/Norway. To see a real whale was a very special moment for me. A dream come true! Obviously I'm going to draw a sperm whale at some point too 😊

Family holiday

Summer is here and we had a small trip to Estonia with our friends. This time it was 4 adults and 3 kids travelling 😁 our group has expanded since 2012, when we travelled together for the first time 😉 This time we mainly visited Tartu and it's closeby area. 

Our daughter pretty much learned to walk during our trip. Now she is walking around the house and it's just so cute 😊 Below is a family photo of us. 

Now that we are home there is new art coming up. My newest art is laways first on IG

Norway, Lofoten islands - travelling with baby

Me and my partner Asko travelled to the beautiful Lofoten islands in Norway in 2016 . We loved it so much, that in 2017 we wanted to go again to Lofoten! This time we just had a 2 month old baby along with us. Many people told us that it would be awful and impossible to travel with a baby. But we did travel together and everything went well :) did we have difficulties? Yes we did, but in fact the whole trip just gave us more confidence as a parents, so it was definitly worth it!

This year we had a borrowed caravan car (Fiat globescout) from Askos parents. It was luxury compared to our vacation in 2016, when we slept in the car trunk. But with all the baby stuff etc. we were pretty squeezed on our 2 week trip ;) this year with the baby we couldn't drive that much a day and we were pretty much twice as slow as the previous year. Also instead of sleeping somewhere on the road, we went several times to camping areas. Pretty much every other night on the road and every other night on a camping area. The camping areas are pretty cheap in Norway. Something like 25€ which is even cheaper than the average camping area in Finland! So when people complain about Norway being expensive, it's certainly not everything.

If you have any questions about travelling to Lofoten, you can drop me a line :) I might know a thing or two ;)

 

Low budget Norway vacation - Lofoten islands

This summer and last summer me and my spouse have had the same holiday destination. The beautiful Lofoten islands in Norway.

On our trip in 2016 we had little money, but we still wanted to go (although Norway is expensive...but so is Finland anyway!). We drove to Norway with our 15 year old Volvo and had mattresses in the trunk. No shower, just gas station toilets and each night we just slept in the car somewhere on the road (we did seek beautiful locations everytime though!). Since we had so little money we just ate junk food...mainly we cooked noodles and pasta that we had purchased in Finland already. We had a small transportable fridge for milk and snacks. The only thing we spent money on was a whale safari. We saw a sperm whale and it was a dream come true for both of us :)

And I must say, this was the best vacation I ever had :)

Below are some pics. 

If you have any questions about travelling to Norway, send me email. I've been approached before by people asking me about Estonia (since I've traveled there a lot and written about it here in my blog).

 

London weekend

A while ago I went for the first time in my live to London.
We had a pretty brief long weekend visit. It was spring in London and beautiful weather and I definitly need to go there sometime again.

I had prepared myself to London a bit by watching all seasons of Tudors :D I know, I know...it's not 100% accurate but I still liked it.
I especially absolutely adore the actress Natalie Dormer, who so well played Ann Boylean.
So below you see a pic of me before the the Tower of London :)
I've also been reading Peter Ackroyds history of England...I wanted to read it before the trip but I've still got some chapters to go. I'm usually a fast reader but lately I've been busy and distracted by many things.

I definitly want to visit London someday again! A few days just wasn't enough.

All in all...I'm inspired by London :)

Archipelacon weekend (and epic fangirl moment)

I made a fantastic trip to the Åland islands last weekend! I haven't ever been in that part of Finland before and it was beautiful! I went to the Archipelacon scifi and fantasy convention. Fantasy literature has always been the main genre I read.

I was able to get some of my artwork to the "Pirate sf" exhibition and I was very pleased to see that my work was chosen for the exhibition poster! :D
The convention itself was super interesting and relaxing. I'm used to going to my "day job" related conferences which are rather stiff and serious and it was really fun to go to lectures that are not work related but purely for my own interest. I especially enjoyed the comic book lecture by Petri Hiltunen and a panel talk about fantasy/scifi literature and sex!

But to be honest the main reason I went to Archipelacon was to see and hear my favorit author George R.R. Martin. Yes, I've read the books and I watch the show :D it was great to sit at the Alandica congress centre in the first rows and listen to live lectures about the book and the show. Just when I was heading home from the convention I suddenly glimpsed Mr. Martin before the hotel and as a silly fan I just had to approach him and ask for a fan foto :) George was so nice to this silly, nervous fan and even gave me a coin from Westeros!!! :)

So what can I say! My trip to Åland was just perfect! The island is beautiful, the weather was nice, I had an art show and my work was on the poster, I met some really nice new people, listened to some very interesting lectures, got my "Dance of Dragons" signed and even gor a fan foto with George :)

Below are some pics from my fabulous weekend! :D

Me and my favorit author George R.R. Martin

My artwork at the "Pirate sf" exhibition. The show was at the library and in the congress centre.

Alandica culture&congress centre

Marienhamn stadsbibliotek

Hanging out at the Archipelacon, photo by Henry Söderlund

Vigeland park

When I was 18, I went to the Gustav Vigeland "Eros" exhibition in Helsinki. I was deeply moved by the Vigeland statues portraying the power and emotion of people. In the exhibition I saw a short documentary about the Vigeland park (Frogner park) in Oslo, Norway and I promised myself that one day I'd visit the park. This week I went to a business trip to Oslo with a nice co worker of mine, and indeed we found the time to visit the park!

It was amazing! I was really happy to fulfill this little promise to myself, and the statues were so beautiful and impressive. Statues are often quite dead, just shells of people sort of...the Vigeland statues are different. They seem to radiate with life. It must be the fact how much emotion they have. I can't really decide which statue was my favorit...there are so many to choose from. Below are some random photos from the park.

part of the Vigeland park "tower"

Abandoned places in Estonia (2)

I love abandoned places and I always take my camera out when I see an intruiging old building. For several years me and my fiancé Asko have done roadtrips to Estonia with our friends. Again this year, it was a perfect vacation and we saw a lot of beautiful places. Here are some of the abandoned buildings I came across. The white old manor is Riisipere manor, the other places are random buildings I came across.

Here's a link to some of my last years photos:
nadja-art.blogspot.fi/2013/07/abandoned-places-in-estonia.html

The smaller things in life

Last summer I started out a new hobby of photographing insects and flowers. I have always been fascinated with nature and animals and I even considered studying biology. Long time ago after graduating college I even got a place of study for biology at the Univeristy of Osnabrück in Germany. Back then I wanted to move to the city of Hamburg, so Biology was lost for me. Nowadays I don't regret it much that I skipped biology. It's much more fun to be a hobby insect photographer :P

Anyway, below are some of my photos. These pics were taken in Estonia in Hiiumaa with an old Enna Munchen objective that I purchased at www.kameratori.fi. I'm especially happy about the first photo. It was taken next to the ruined church of Kuri Taevassemineku http://nadja-art.blogspot.fi/2013/07/abandoned-places-in-estonia.html

Six Spot Burnet (a day-flying moth)

Melampyrum nemorosum in swedish this flower is called natt och dag, which means night and day

Yellow Winged Darter ...looks a bit like he's smiling :)

crazy insect lady

Hiumaa lighthouses

This summer we visited the island of Hiumaa in Estonia. We visited all three lighthouses on the island and climbed them. Below are some pics of the lighthouses. I'm slightly afraid of heights so standing on top of a lighthouse is quite scary and a burst of adrenaline for me. I was especially impressed by the Kõpun lighthouse, which is one of the oldest in Europe. It was build in 1531. The other two lighthouses are beautiful iron lighthouses which were both bought by Czaric Russia from the world exhibition of Paris in 1871.

Abandoned places in Estonia

For some reason I have an affection for abandoned places. Collpasing old beautiful buildings are beautiful and sad at the same time. There a re a lot of these abandoned places in the Baltic countries. Here are two buildings I recently spotted in Estonia. The first one is the Kuri Taevassemineku and the second building is the Ungru Loss.

I found the orthodox church Kuri Taevassemineku especially striking with those trees groving from it. Althought it's just a ruined building I see this place as something surreal and magical. Kind of reminds me in an odd way of Miyazaki movies. The field around the building was filled with butterflies and dragonflies. I also photographed som of those little fellows :) I'll post pics of them later.

Here is some info about the Kuri Taevassemineku and other churches in Hiiumaa: http://www.hiiumaa.ee/page/general/171&g=67&gr=12
and here is some info about the Ungru loss: http://www.mois.ee/english/laane/ungru.shtml

Ungru loss before