Bellydance

My hobby among others is bellydance, here is a pic of me performing. The dance outfit was last years Christmas present from my sister, who dances as well :)

Nereid

Here's my newest painting called "Nereid". In greek mythology Nereids are sea nymphs. I wanted to paint a dancelike pose underwater...and I'm actually quite happy with the end result :) the painting is a bit bigger than my usual stuff.

Nereid (70cm x 70cm, acrylic paint on canvas)

Tribute to Gustav Klimt

Google reminded me today that it's been 150 years since Gustav Klimt was born. I love his unique work and once I have attempted to do a copy of one of his paintings. Here is my version of the famous "Mäda Primavesi" painting. It's a learning experience for me to do copies like this... in this I learned to paint with brighter colours and more loose than normally. Also it was different to paint such a childlike face. 

Mäda Primavesi copy by Nadja Mikkilä (2009)

Summer roadtrip to Estonia

Me and a couple of friends did recently a nice roadtrip to Estonia. We visited the cities Tallinn, Kuressaare and Haapsalu. The only thing we had planned beforehand were the hotels/hostels. Otherwise it was just driving around and visiting nice places spontaneously. All in all it was a perfect trip. Beautiful sunny weather, great company and awesome places. There is not much else you could ask for :) 
I don't know what else to say. I guess pictures say more than a thousand words...so here are some pics :)

here are some spider pics from Estonia that I posted previously: link

Me and my travel companions :)

Kuressaare beach

Saaremaa

Haapsalu

Haapsalu

Haapsalu castle

Kuressaare castle

old harbour in Saaremaa

old drugstore sign in Haapsalu

New painting "Anguish"

I did this new painting ...I do not want to name my paintings something like "witch" or something that gives it too much direction. I want the viewer to see whatever he/ she sees in the painting.

Figure (46cm x 53cm, acrylic paint on canvas, year created:2012)

Spiders and castles

Last week we did a little roadtrip to Estonia. We visited the cities Tallinn, Kuressaare and Haapsalu. I will be posting more photos later but here are a few very gloomy photos to start with (although actually our trip was extremly sunny and happy).

As a child when I lived in Germany I used to collect  spiders. I used to search the nearby area for the biggest orb weaver spiders (European garden spider: link ). If I didn't have a bucket with me I used to carry the spiders home in my fists. When I look back as an adult to my childhood hobby I have to shudder a bit. Spiders still fascinate me but they also give me unpleasant goosebumps.

Anyway...here is a little photo series called "spiders and castles". We visited the castle area in Kuressaare (Kuressaare castle: link ) at night and there were a lot of orb weaver spiders on a bridge. I took these pics with my mobile phone. I was so fascinated by all the spiders that my travel companions eventually had to drag me away from them ;) Apparently nobody else liked the spiders as much as I did :D

Crazy Creatures

A few years ago I made a bunch of  "Crazy Creatures". It was around the time when I was graduating from Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences. Writing my thesis work (it was about user interface design) was quite organized work and a bit stressful. In contrast to that I doodled a lot of crazy creatures for my own pleasure. When you are working very organized and neat it's a perfect relaxation to do absolut pointless doodles. I think I should do some more creatures in the future again :) 

Full gallery of Crazy Creatures is here:

http://www.nadja-art.com/MyCreatures/index.html

Some soundtracks to my paintings

I never paint in silence. I always have some background music or noise. It can vary a lot and when the painting is done I don't remember all to well what I listened to. Sometimes however a song fits a painting so well that I get a soundtrack/theme song for my paintings. Here are two examples :)
...actually when looking at these two random samples you can tell that the women in my paintings have become much stronger.

Captain (year created: 2010):

Vangelis - Conquest of Paradise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYeDsa4Tw0c

Drowning (year created: 2005):

Goldfrapp - Hairy Trees: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DszS3ACWbbk

I listen to a lot of Tori Amos when I paint. A certain song doesn't go with a certain painting but here are some of my favorit Tori Amos songs (although... I guess I've got somewhat 20 or more favorit songs by her :P )

Tori Amos - Yes, Anastasia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYF-pL2cTTU

Tori Amos - Sugar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB9Ll8LgPmw

Tori Amos - Siren:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aD4egZFxw8

Queen of Clubs

I did this rather fast sketchy painting last week. This might not be one of my best paintings but I had a lot of fun (and not much focus) with this painting. I felt like singing, dancing and painting all at once :)

Queen of Clubs (32cm x 41cm, acrylic paint on heavy weight acrylic paper)

By the moon

I forgot to post this photo earlier. A photo of me at the Helsinki Burlesque Festival 2012. The photo is by Atelieri O. Haapala. Take a look at their website http://www.ohaapala.com  to see more Neo-Victorian portraiture photos :) 

Thuvia, Maid of Mars - A Frazetta Copy

My newest painting is a copy of a Frank Frazetta painting. I have been a fan of Frank Frazettas work since I was a 12. "Thuvia, Maid of Mars" is one of my favorit paintings of Frazetta. I started this rather ambitious project of doing a copy of his work a while ago. Very early on I discovered with this painting that it's impossible to copy Frazettas style... so I did a pretty "loose" copy.  I like doing copies like this once in a while. It's a way to educate yourself with art. While doing this painting I learned so much like doing a more complex composition, painting with more colours than I do in my usual work...just all kind of things :) painting a "tiger", a muscular man, planets and palm trees ;)

I had some spare frames at home for this painting. They match the painting perfectly! :)

(I always keep an eye for bargain frames in flee markets, art stores and antique stores...)

Thuvia, Maid of Mars copy (60cm x 80cm, acrylic paint on canvas, year created: 2012)

red hair

I just found this old drawing (or is it a painting? :/ ) on my PC. It's for some reason not on my website. Probably because it doesn't fit any "category"... well, that's what blogs are for. Here is my "red hair" entitled painting/drawing from 2009. This piece was inspired by early 20th century figurative painter Egon Schiele

Weekend in Tallinn

Last weekend we celebrated my friends birthday in Tallinn. My parents used to live in that city when I was a teenager and back then I used to to go there all the time. Now it had been years since I last went there and I totally realized I have to go there more often :)

I really love the old town of Tallin link. It's not a suprise that it's listed in the world heritage UNESCO "Tallinn is an outstanding and exceptionally complete and well preserved example of a medieval northern European trading city".

I also like the citys architecture in general. I have seen the city develope in the last 15 years and there are so many interesting combinations of new and old houses standing side by side.

Below are some of my phone snap shots. I'm totally being the tourist :)

Our whole crew :)

Framed paintings

I just got frames for two paintings. I had a lot of fun picking the frames for these. It's like being in a candy store :) 

 

The frameshop was this: http://www.saraheina.fi/ 

I highly recommend this frameshop, they have a large variety of frames and you can also order special frames. A very nice and professional shop :)

Art (and t-shirt) by Ric Frane

My artist friend Ric Frane gave me this fancy t-shirt with his artwork. Check out his website www.ricfrane.com to see much more of monsters, pin-ups and danger!