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!

Stencil-series exhibition

Currently I have an exhibition of my stencil-series at the mbar in Helsinki. The mbar is an atmospheric bar, terrace & café in the heart of Helsinki founded by media artist and theorist Tapio Mäkelä. The mbar hosts regularly visual art exhibits. I'm happy to present my own artwork this month :)

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

Interview

Recently I was interviewed for the website Passionhow.com. The interview is part of an ongoing art research project, which studies the origins of passion and what stimulates creativity. Here is the link to my interview: http://www.passionhow.com/nadja-mikkila-portrait-artist/

Year 2013

New year always makes me thoughtful and I look back what I've done and what has happened around me. Here are some highlights this year:
- Me and Asko got engaged last summer :)
(you might have noticed that at some point I started calling Asko my fiancé in my blog)
- I was the maid of honor to my best friend Ulla 
- I sold my first apartment (without a real estate agent!) and now we have a new beautiful almost twice as big home :) For the first time I have my own ateljee now!
- My artwork got published in an artbook!

Those are perhaps the biggest things this year :)
Here are some other things: I became aunt to 3 kids (identical twin boys included), I did my first ever canoo trip, had my first ever dance gig in a bar (bellydance),
I started a new hobby of photographing insects (and abandoned houses), I had a small art gallery and got lots of wonderful feedback, I had some very nice vacations in Estonia and Germany and and and...

The more you think about the the more things come up that have happened last year. These were just a few in my life. Happy New Year!

a few black and white photos

I was browsing through some stuff on my PC and encountered these. A few photos I've taken of Asko. See, I can sort of take pictures too! I like to be in front of the camera aaand behind the camera ;)

Like a haunted house

A few weeks ago me and Asko went to photograph this beautiful old abandoned building. It kind of looks like haunted house from movies. First of all, you can see Askos beautiful photos of the house here (askojonathan.blogspot.com)

My photos you can see below. I used some default camera photo filter for my pics, but sometimes it gives a cheap nice haunted look :D

previous blog entries with interesting abandoned buildings:
http://nadja-art.blogspot.fi/2013/10/forest-house.html
http://nadja-art.blogspot.fi/2013/07/abandoned-places-in-estonia.html
http://nadja-art.blogspot.fi/2012/11/latvia.html

farm life

I recently posted a few old photos of my dad (the boy and the rabbit). Here are a few more wonderful vintage photos of my photogenic dad ;)

Banksy graffiti

The other day I happened to watch the Banksy movie "Exit through the gift shop". Honestly it was one of the best art documentaries I've seen! At first I felt like I want to do some street art right away myself! Then by the end of the movie I felt like I don't want to do any art at all anymore... Real or not real? I don't care, it's just an entertaining funny documentary that also makes you think a lot about about the essence of art. 

Street art has never been my thing, but early 2000 when I studied graphic design in Hamburg, many of my friends were doing it and I was always happy to walk around the city and observe my friends art here and there. In Finland there is surprisingly little street art. I don't think any country has so little street art :( ...but there is some even here, and it always cheers me up if I see something that's skillfully done.

Below is a Banksy graffiti I photographed about a year ago in Hamburg (Karo Viertel). From what I've read the last intact Banksy graffiti in Hamburg was covered with acrylics (link to German article).

Apparently now the graffitti above is already covered up. See a newer photo here. Damn! >:-(

forest house

Ever since visiting Latvia last year (link) I've been a bit obsessed with abandoned old houses. I don't know why I find decaying old buildings so beautiful. Of course I'd wish people would renovate their beautiful old houses...but still...they are just so incredibly beautiful. Kind of like fading flowers. So far the most beautiful abandoned building I've come across was this old church in Estonia, that had trees growing on it!

I know there are a few abandoned houses in Finland too. A few weeks ago me and Asko photographed one house that happens to be closeby. Below are some pics of it. Sometime soon we will seek out more of similar abandoned places in south Finland.

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

Dr.Sketchy - (S)He's Got The Look

Here are some pics of the latest Dr Sketchy event I went to. The theme was He/She's got the look and the model was the fabulous Lola Vanilla/Bent van der Bleu. I had a great time drawing! Me and my glass of wine had so much fun! My drawings didn't turn out much, but I leave the blood, sweat and tears at home and just enjoyed the moment and the very talented model. 

I would greatly advice Dr. Sketchy events to anybody who likes to draw! These events are taking place pretty much all over the world, so seek the one closest to you! :)

Lola Vanilla/Bent van der Bleu - photo by Tuukka Ahonen

Drawing and drinking

photo by Tuukka Ahonen

The hot hosts: Tinker Bell, Pepper Mint and Jackie O´Lantern -
photo by Tuukka Ahonen

http://www.drsketchy.com/
http://www.drsketchy.com/branch/Finland
https://www.facebook.com/drsketchyfinland  

sunset

I don't know for how long I've been photographing sunsets. I don't consider it as my art...it's just that I try to catch the moment. Every sunset is different and beautiful. Here are a few from this summer :) I've been thinking of painting a sunset landscape...but then again, is it too cliché?