BETWEEN STEPS

Walking home and counting. One-thousand-and-fourty-five steps to pass a graveyard. One-thousand-four-hundred-and-twenty-eight a forest. Intermingled amount from the last crossroad to home door (through mail box). Eleven to fetch woolen socks from the entry and nine stretched ones back to the working table. How many steps taken this year and were they all in different places. How many steps it would take to get you all here for a cup of tea and a blueberry cake.

Frankie Magazine (issue 39) has a small illustration and a few words by me about the town I live in. For the image I chose things that are common to all the places that I have lived in. I still think them all being homes of mine.

Snow hills on windows, like secret adventure landscapes. Silent adventures for the last days of this year and a gentle entrance for the coming one. Thank you for this year, thank you for your company!

Hearts filled with eucalyptus, orange and birch tree scents,

Anna Emilia

WINTER WREATH

Rustle of fire, tastes of hot apple juice and cinnamon. Softness of snow. Woolen blankets and a book. While the weather feels like it stopped to work for a while. But it is just so cold that it takes all the sounds and movement away.

The sky is the same color as the ground all day long. In the morning dark, during the day white as the snow. Afternoon it turns dark through blue once again.

Thank you so much for every word, in postcards, emails and comments, even some with your own paintings! They have surprised me, thank you! Thank you!

Stay warm and enjoying.

Hearts,

Anna Emilia

ICE FULL OF LEAVES

After the noon news, I lay my brushes and pens, papers and scissors away, hop into my boots and go outside to check if the postman was busy for me today. Yesterday he was, with a book Vieläkö kukkivat omenapuut? (Are the apple trees still blooming?) which cover I illustrated last spring. It is a book about the history of North Ingria by Helena Miettinen. It is filled with images of old houses and people, their memories about leaving home and finding a new one where ever they were allowed to stay. Written in Finnish. Where old homes used to be, there are now dense forests, but there might still be old apple trees, blooming during springs and dropping apples on the ground during autumns.

A small plate for my cat that I did maybe 15 years ago, or even longer. For Kisse Karvinen. A cat that slept in an onion basket and middle of the lilacs bushes, the warmest and best scented places.

A small ice rink just next to my home. If there was a machine to move a huge brush, I would try to paint that ice full of leaves. And those winter trees wearing white, I would melt small dots of dark wood with fingers.

♡

P.s. Thank you so much for your orders, they surprised me! Thank you so much! Also for your comments and emails, once again!

BLANKETS AND WINTER´S SEA

Dear Thursday,

Some snow and snow clouds that I collected from my older journeys for you. Feel soft inside them! I keep my hands busy, did not have the time to go to buy a Name Day flower today. But tomorrow. Stepping from the arctic weather inside a flower shop feels like entering a rain forest. Tomorrow I can imagine the wild animals laughing up in the trees of colors.

Evening greetings of soft piano tunes and lullabying snow covers,

Anna Emilia

(The painting is for a poem called Alda Aldanna, by S. The photos are taken in Iceland the year 2004

and 2005 while climbing Upsafjall in Dalvík and from airplane while flying over Vatnajökull.)

FLOWERS OF THREE KINDS

A perfect spot to hide, to sketch, to read and to listen. A perfect spot also in the tree to have a small icicle as a companion. Packing orders and bicycling a new snowy way to the town (orders made during next week should reach you before Christmas). In the new home I don´t yet always remember where I have put everything. Treasures are found on the way of searching something else. Small sauna has been warming me. Also your comments and emails, thank you, thank you!

Warm thoughts to your Sunday from by a small lake.

FROZEN GARDEN

Hello dear new home,

Frost is around you, but you stay warm. There is a tree with needles on my balcony and a lake behind it. Morning people ski on the frozen lake, the only sign of the sun is a light pink line in the horizon.

Balcony blooms of frozen flowers, I wish I could pick them up into a vase like in my book Proof of Winter.

Thank you so much for your wishes and greetings. Soon there is a world map on my wall to gaze from which all places your greetings arrive from.

Have a very warm December!

Hearts and cinnamon tastes,

Anna Emilia

P.s. The new address is Palvaanniemenkatu 14 b 5, 33700 Tampere, Finland ♡

MEADOW HOUSE

A winter storm. Cold and sharp wind and snow on the way to the postoffice. Lady there asked if I really have so many friends all around the world, she remembers all my packages. I wish I do. A long queue behind me, but she continued talking and asking and in the end she wanted to see my work. Maybe there is something we can do for you. I wish they can, or maybe I can do something for them.

At home waited a letter from sweet Anthea. Spoonful zine, issue 3, has a small painting by me, Meadow House, in it. There is, for example, also sweet Melissa with her beautiful fragile flowers. So happy about it. Many winter woolen warm greetings to Australia and thank you Anthea!

Dried strawberries, nuts, dark chocolate and Finn crisps after an early sunset. Always Finn crisps and tea for me please. Cupboards start to be empty, end of this week I will move. Packing huge piles of cotton watercolor paper and house plants mainly.

A lot of wool around me, the wind dances through the windows. I wonder from how far it comes from this time. How many times around the Earth.

Have a good evening!

GREETINGS, A BOAT

Dear Monday,

At home, the secret message is scribbled with a very secret language by my brother´s handwriting. Boat, games, hamburger, Greetings: Boat. Turquoise slipper friends met other childhood friends. White snow reflected the light of a full moon at midnight, and the yard birch tree crossed the whole yard with its shadow. The next day a wolf was seen on our fields. Just that the wolf turned to become a dog with a closer look. Birds, they flew around an oak tree catching a seed or three and enjoying them on branches of bare neighboring birch trees. Not cross-country skiing yet, but hopefully soon.

Just a moment ago, I have emailed to the ones receiving some winter postcards (or made a comment on your blog if you did not leave your email address): Tanja, Carolina, Sarah, Heather, Susan, Darcy, Rotaeffchenundich, Pamela, Yelena B., Barbara B., Polly, Gise, Alexa, Millie and Jennifer. Hopefully you will like the cards!

White snow blanket covering all around. Busy hands painting and packing, new tea is soon brewed.

Have a warm week!

HELLO, IT IS WINTER

Hello dear all of you,

This bear hugs the winter for good-bye. Here, I hug the winter for welcome. It has been snowing the whole morning and noon, sounds are becoming soft and distant, everything still. Blinking lights of small trucks pushing darker squares on the snow for passengers. Many times they need to push the same area today. Emptying an area and making frames on the sides of streets with those heaps of snow.

The bear cub smiles because something is tickling it. Maybe that he gets to eat soon fresh leaves and berries, honey and spring fresh water. Or that there is still a little while to sleep a bit longer. "Winter Is Ending" -print is added to my shop.

Today, watercolor brushes are tickling the soft cotton paper and a small train trip tomorrow is tickling me. Hopefully the giveaway is tickling you, it is open till Sunday the 21st of November. Thank you to everyone who already participated, you are many there, happy to hear from you!

Tastes of lime green tea to your Thursday,

Anna Emilia

WINTER BITES, A GIVEAWAY

Dear dark November,

It is dark and wet. Mostly a very dark month here. The snow is melting. But I am very well, got soaked on my bicycle trip, but now again I am warm inside and brightened with watercolors and your words.

A parcel arrived with a smile and doorbell ringing, full of postcards that I made with a winter theme. Not the one above, I cannot show the picture as it would not be anymore a surprise for my friends then anymore. But the first batch of the postcards had some beauty mistakes. Still they are very fine, I am the only one to see the mistake I think. Still I don´t want to throw those winter postcards away. Maybe you might want some of them. A giveaway. Fifteen small piles of six postcards will be sent to some of you. Please, if you like to play, just leave a comment here with your email address. Sunday the 21st of this dark November is the last day to participate.

When the rain falls, I imagine the drops being small clover leaves. Fresh and soft touching on their way. In a big crossroad, where all the traffic lights are always red, there are street lamps higher than anywhere else. There in the light I can see the rain and how huge it is. Still very soft those invisible clover leaves. A hint of summer in dark November. I am not good in using an umbrella. But it usually rains only on my way back home. Where woolen socks are waiting. Lucky.

And now, cups of tea!

P.s. The Apple Blossom Meadow -print is back in the shop!

Edit: P.p.s. Yes, anyone anywhere can participate :)

COUNTERS OF RAINWATER AND HEIGHTS OF FIREWOOD STACKS

Happy Father´s Day isi and pappa!

Forests, lakes, fields. Of those are these men made of. Of coffee in a thermos bottle, newspapers and radio. Firewood, summerhouses and sauna. Rocking chairs, birds and squirrels. Blue skies. Pine wood. Of early mornings.

That alder tree orchard is a field of green grass now. Those two little eskimos are a bit older now, me and my brother. They tell that it will be the winter of the winters this year. Maybe I should keep the knitting needles more busy and make hats like those. A Sunday is good for that, for every layer of paint drying.

Thank you for all your orders (and emails and comments) once again, they make me so happy! The Apple Blossom Meadow -print is sold out at the moment, but I will make some more during the next week.

Sunday of blue music, date-blueberry-cake and frost blue paint.

All my love,

Anna Emilia

IT JUST HAPPENED ONE EVENING

On Sunday evening. The winter. Radio was on and I was painting, the next moment I watched outdoors in the darkness, everything was white. It just happened. With its colors and light. Tastes and pinches on cheeks. Waiting for a new snow storm to arrive. The wind is already here, scratching the corners. Better to hurry to the post office.

Scents of green tea with apple, cardamom and coriander, happy Tuesday, so glad to have you here!

TINY TICKLES

Layer of snow landed this morning. Ate breakfast in candlelight watching snowflakes dancing, roofs of the small allotment houses were soon white. Smiling to yesterday. What a humble and kind man.

They are small but itchy, still harmless. The louse and pinworms. Itchy illustrations for Kaksplus 11/2010, magazine for parents of small children.

Going to bicycle around the small lake. A small house to be seen on the way with a lake sight and towers of the town. Could it become a new roof for my paintings and myself?

Fluffy cold colored clouds travel over the sun, lights on, lights off.

Warmest smiling weekend greetings,

Anna Emilia

WINTER WINGS

Dear November, dear you,

Morning of fog and frost, morning of a favorite kind. Changing table to paint with the whiskers of the sun through that milky mist. And then, drops two envelopes from the mail box.

The other one was from Poland. Pure Magazine is a bilingual magazine (Polish-English). This issue emphasizes Finland (with amazing Marja Pirilä, Jimi Tenor, Klaus Haapaniemi, Laura Laine, Sanna Kannisto, Janine Rewell, Helsinki Dance Company, Kari Piippo). Very honored I am to be part of it with a few paintings of mine.

There are some small winter butterflies flying in my tummy. Tickling nicely, touching gently with their curvy peaks of wings my tummy. I wish it is a good winter house for them and they do feel themselves home there. They live inside me because of some lovely news from Milan, Italy. It will be busy and happy hands painting houses the whole winter through.

From my mail box has been dropping lately heart-warming envelopes, postcards and emails. I thank you deeply for every one of them, they mean a lot.

Hearts and candle light from my painting table,

Anna Emilia

(The cover illustration in the 4th photo by Janine Rewell.)

HE WHISPERS THROUGH PINE TREES

It was very quick, the book fair. Smiling. People coming and going, talking or just watching me drawing. An older man showing his pictures (of sheep, goats and countryside homes). He had started to draw and paint in age of 75, I was happy. Listening his story I almost forgot that I was there to work. I drew a small forest, kids around me drew on the wall their names.

Then there was a happy lunch in the city, two cats and a girl behind one window, friends around till the last train home. The last train home broke down, but I was happily asleep as long as it was working again and making its lullabying melody of going home.

Today a long bicycle trip in town. Passed a beautiful graveyard, there was a small flower shop open. They luckily had also candles there. One I lit in the graveyard for my grandfather, who surely is sitting in top of a pinewood tree now and whispering his words when the wind flies through the branches. Of fishing luck, stacks of firewood and berry picking. "I am just listening to the radio," I remember him saying the very last time we met some years ago.

Squirrels were there too to lit the candle.

Originals of these photos were taken by Darren. He is going to travel almost around the world (in my mind). Bon Voyage dear, come back home safe!

TRICK OF TWO PAIRS

A small autumn sail over the other side of a forest pond. Maybe after gentle waves there are still some cranberries hiding in the moss. Those I would need to make my running nose better for tomorrow, as I will be sailing to the Helsinki book fair. In a small booth (6e84) I will participate Illustrators in Finland and draw something small at 12 o´clock. If you are around, please come and say hi!

Boiling hot water for green tea, strawberry juice and a huge woolen shirt, two pairs of woolen socks. A trick to try to send the cold away.

You, please stay warm this evening!