1954

Here is a photo of my grandparents in the summer of 1954. My grandparents were both entrepreneurs. Grandmother made lamp shades and she also had a shop where she sold children's clothing. My grandfather was a photographer and he had his own studio. He was also talented in drawing and painting, but he was so critical with his own work that he threw most of his artwork away. 

Anyway, I wanted to post this photo because I think it's really beautiful and honors my grandparents who have both passed away. 

  

Renewed website 2013

I just renewed my website. I used Twitter Bootstrap to make it. Earlier I had a Flash website, but that was not very user friendly, so I decided to renew the whole thing. During moments like this it's good to be a bit of a geek ;)

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

Now I can focus on painting again :) Happy Easter!

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

Tallinn birthday trip

I just recently had birthday and me and my friends went to celebrate my birthday to lovely Tallinn. I just love Estonia and Tallinn, it's always a pleasure to go there. The country has so much beauty and history that's visible everywhere. I especially like the old town of Tallinn. Below are some silly tourist pics.

A few things I would recommend in Tallinn. I like to eat at www.africankitchen.ee and I love to shop at A.G.A.N.

Eight Arms of Inspiration: The Octopus Art Project

I participated in this art book project called "Eight Arms of Inspiration: The Octopus Art Project". This week I got the book in the mail and I'm so happy to see it :)
This is the first time my art has been published and it's a dream come true for me :) It makes me happy and proud to look at the book. Despite obvious subjective reasons I really like the book. I'm crazy about art books anyway and love to buy all kind of collection picture books. So many thanks for Jinxi Caddel for the wonderful work!

I sincerly hope I get to publish more of my work in the future. This makes me kind of greedy for more ;) 

The book is available at:
http://www.oosbooks.com/
(the book is also available at amazon.com and ebay.com) 

Helsinki Burlesque Festival 2013

What a weekend! Me and Asko went to the glittery Helsinki Burlesque Festival. Such a mindblowing event! It was a blast to see so many various acts! :) 
I really love watching burlesque, the audience can get so much involved as well; shouting,screaming and whistling. It's like being in a sport audience but much better ;)

Below are some pics from the festival. Obviously I had to get a photo together with the beautiful stars :) I was especially happy about meeting Dirty Martini. Can't believe I finally saw her amazing "Love America" act live!

Before the actual event I participated also in workshops of Angie Pontani and Dirty Martini. Asko had a photo project before the festival with the "Savage Girls" and you can see here some posters.

Everything about the event in general: http://www.helsinkiburlesque.com/
oh, and here is a small video (in finnish) about the event:http://www.iltasanomat.fi/videot/viihde/vid-1288545076158.html

Me and the amazing Dirty Martini

Me and Angie Pontani on the left and on the right it's Xarah von den Vielenregen

These amazing festival photos are by Tuomas Lairila. See more at: https://www.facebook.com/tuomas.lairila

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)

Harilaid lighthouse

I mentioned earlier here about our trip to Estonia last summer. Well, I still haven't posted pictures from my favorite place that we discovered :) 

We went to see the abandoned lighthouse at Harilaid. The lighthouse is known as "Harilaid lighthouse" or "Kiipsaar Lighthouse" and it was built in 1933 just 25 meters from the coastline. Originally the lighthouse was painted black and white. Nowadays the lighthouse is abandoned and it is known as the Pisa tower of Estonia. 

The lighthouse is about 5km away from the nearest road and we had to walk all the way there...which was very enjoyable because the island of Harilaid is really beautiful :) The flora of the peninsula represents 261 species of flowering plants and vascular cryptogams (in general I got the impression that Estonia seems to be full of flowers). The island is geographically very young; it arose from the sea as an island 1000-2000 years ago.

Below are some pictures that Asko took at the lighthouse. I dragged a pretty dress along with me to pose a bit for photos. Because as you know photography is about location, location location ;)

 Below is a museum image of the lighthouse. I also found some interesting travel blog which shows different states of the lighthouse of how it's slowly disappearing into the sea.

Source: http://etts.ee/EE/tuletornid/tuletornide-nimekiri/saaremaa/kiipsaare

Notre appartement

Here is a glimpse of our apartment. I have a few of my own paintings on the living room wall like my Octopus painting and my recent Winter painting. I have inherited the art nouveau style (actually it's from the 1930's) sideboard from my grandmother. The couch is a flea market bargain and the table is made by Asko. Apart from being a photographer, Asko is also a cabinet maker. Below is an example of Askos work that happens to combine both :)

black commode by askojonathan.com

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.

Winter photos

Winter is not my favorit season. I hate dressing up in layers and layers and layers of clothes and still feeling cold....but it sure is beautiful! Today we went to the pittoresque Fiskars village to have some excellent cake and chocolate at Petris chocolate room. 

Merry Christmas! :)

Language study logo

I came across this logo on my PC. I did this language study logo a few years ago for my counties education center. What I love most about graphic design is designing logos. I normally do very "scandinavian" simple logo designs, but in this me and the client felt that there was no need to be so strict about it. So here is here is my playful cliché language logo. And by the way...I myself speak finnish, german, english and swedish. 

Library gallery (1)

I have currently a few paintings on display in a library in Vihti . I don't know what it's like in other countries, but in Finland you can have galleries in almost every library and it's usually for free (or for a very low cost). The galleries are available for both professional and hobby artists. The galleries are about art, photography, handicraft or even fashion. It's really nice that libraries support culture in so many ways :)

My little gallery is running throughout December. Today I stopped by at the library with my friend Ulla (she's model to many of my paintings). Ulla took some phone cam pics of me that you can see below. My next library show will be in June 2013. 

Beautiful old library from the outside