Welcome to the gallery! I want to show you some of my art.
Click a picture and you’ll see it better and behind the info button you can find a little commentary from me.
Most of the things in here aren’t for sale. But if you get inspired and want me on a project of any sort, send me a message!
Digital art
I’ve been making digital art since the autumn of 2020, when I bought my first graphics tablet. I have learned by watching tutorials or mostly just by drawing. With digital drawing I fell in love with how easy it is to erase mistakes and I can try different colors and play around with shapes without ruining the piece. That is if I remember to put things in different layers and save it for once in a while. Most of my shop’s prints are made digitally because it is a lot easier to make printable art that way. Them being already pixels and all that.
Pencil drawings
Good old pencil and paper. I think this is the most natural way for me to make art. I love how I can make different textures and shade values just by holding the pencil a little different or pressing it harder or lighter on the paper. My lineweight is at it’s best with pencils. Maybe because I can’t zoom in like with digital drawing so it won’t take forever from this perfectionist. Shading is so satisfying because it feels like it brings things to life. So I do that a lot.
Paintings
Acrylic painting is a really fun medium. The paint dries fast so it is easy to add more layers and fall into a hyperfocus mode. Sometimes it’s just a pain in the butt to set up all the stuff thats needed. But there is just something about that feeling with my paintbrush on the canvas. You can’t have that with the graphics tablet.
Watercolour is a bit trickier. The more water there is, the more chaos on the paper. Suddenly the paint has it’s own will. So it is a very interesting material to work with and I would like to learn to use it better.
Markers and tattoos
Really thin black markers are my favourite markers. With them I make art with lots of details or sometimes just lots of messy lines to bring depth to the simplest of things. There is a meditative thing about shading with markers. You can’t just color in all the shadows so you have to make a lot of little dots or lines near each other to make it look like a shadow. It is slow and it sounds boring I know, but I find it quite relaxing. The tattoos I make are really similar. Black lines and dots that make pictures. But with tattooing there is also that part where I need to get the design safely on someone’s skin. And I’m such a beginner with this. But I haven’t caused any infections and all my clients have been happy with the results so I guess I’m not that bad.
Sculptures and crafts
I don’t only make 2D art. Sculpturing things is so much fun and I’d like to do that more. I use cheap polymer clay for smaller things and self made paper mache for bigger stuff. It’s a slow process but it’s almost free and I can make a lot of it at once. I like to make all kinds of things with yarn using techniques such as macrame, crochet, knitting and frivolite. I’ve also built scratching posts for our cat and I’ve done some bookbinding and furniture restoration.
Clothing
Being a fashion designer was one of my many dreams. So I got an education as a clothing artisan. Well as a troubled teenager I didn’t realize that my future job hunt would depend on my education. Where are all the jobs for people who can design and make clothes from scratch? Working at a factory erased all my motivation to create clothes. But now I’m trying to get it back. I love using recycled materials. It’s a bit harder but I like challenges. And how cheap it is. And it’s more ecological to make new things out of used materials.
Videos and music
I’ve always preferred film over books. I guess it is because I can’t focus on reading and also the aphantasia thing. I’ve been on many projects making short movies and a few music videos. Sadly I don’t have permission to share most of them. Music is really important to me. I started playing guitar when I was 11 years old. But I was afraid to sing in front of anyone for so long. But then I found some courage and even joined a band. Well it doesn’t exist anymore but I find a lot of joy from just playing and singing at home and sometimes on gigs wherever I’m asked to.
Alien thing was the first stop motion movie that I made. Well also the latest. Maybe in the future I’ll be able to make more. There is no actual speaking on this so anyone can understand it. But it was made on a program that for some reason made the size so small. So just open it on full screen if you want to see it properly.
I once joined a band that had a few gigs here and there. We were also making a record but it never got done. The band fell apart, people are doing their own things now but I’ll always remember that time as an awesome practice to get rid of my fear of performing and expressing myself in a musical way.
Käännekohta was a project with Metso library and Kulttuuripaja Virta. We made a record and had a gig at the library. I got to be the lead singer on this song called Virta vie. Miska (on the cover) gave me the lyrics and a simple melody and said: do whatever you want with it. So I started to take it apart and build it up again with more chords and a structure that made more sense to me. And then we practiced and recorded it.
Here is Käännekohta performing that same song from the video above (Virta vie) live at the Metso library. This was the spring of 2023.
